Accelerating the PCB Design-Analysis Optimization Loop

Accelerating the PCB Design-Analysis Optimization Loop
by Tom Dillinger on 08-01-2018 at 12:00 pm

With the increasing complexity and diversity of the mechanical constraints and electrical requirements in electronic product development, printed circuit board designers are faced with a number of difficult challenges:

  • generating accurate (S-parameter) simulation models for critical interface elements of the design
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Machine Learning and Embedded FPGA IP

Machine Learning and Embedded FPGA IP
by Tom Dillinger on 07-18-2018 at 12:00 pm

Machine learning-based applications have become prevalent across consumer, medical, and automotive markets. Still, the underlying architecture(s) and implementations are evolving rapidly, to best fit the throughput, latency, and power efficiency requirements of an ever increasing application space. Although ML is … Read More


Top 10 Highlights from the Samsung Foundry Forum

Top 10 Highlights from the Samsung Foundry Forum
by Tom Dillinger on 05-30-2018 at 9:00 am

Samsung Foundry recently held their annual technology forum in Santa Clara CA. The forum consisted of: presentations on advanced and mainstream process technology roadmaps; the IP readiness for those technology nodes; a review of several unique package offerings; and, an informal panel discussion with IP designers and EDA… Read More


Block RAM integration for an Embedded FPGA

Block RAM integration for an Embedded FPGA
by Tom Dillinger on 05-22-2018 at 12:00 pm

The upcoming Design Automation Conference in San Francisco includes a very interesting session –“Has the Time for Embedded FPGA Come at Last?” Periodically, I’ve been having coffee with the team at Flex Logix, to get their perspective on this very question – specifically, to learn about the key features that customers are seeking… Read More


Top 10 Highlights of the TSMC 2018 Technology Symposium

Top 10 Highlights of the TSMC 2018 Technology Symposium
by Tom Dillinger on 05-04-2018 at 12:00 pm

Here are the Top 10 highlights from the recent TSMC 2018 Technology Symposium, held in Santa Clara CA. A couple of years ago, TSMC acknowledged the unique requirements of 4 different market segments, which has since guided their process development strategy — Mobile, High-Performance Computing (HPC), Automotive, and… Read More


Hard IP for an embedded FPGA

Hard IP for an embedded FPGA
by Tom Dillinger on 04-30-2018 at 12:00 pm

As Moore’s Law enables increased integration, the diversity of functionality in SoC designs has grown. Design teams are seeking to utilize outside technical expertise in key functional areas, and to accelerate their productivity by re-using existing designs that others have developed. The Intellectual Property (IP) industry… Read More


An OSAT Reference Flow for Complex System-in-Package Design

An OSAT Reference Flow for Complex System-in-Package Design
by Tom Dillinger on 03-09-2018 at 12:00 pm

With each new silicon process node, the complexity of SoC design rules and physical verification requirements increases significantly. The foundry and an EDA vendor collaborate to provide a “reference flow” – a set of EDA tools and process design kit (PDK) data that have been qualified for the new node. SoC design methodology … Read More


IPC-2581: The Standard for PCB Data Exchange

IPC-2581: The Standard for PCB Data Exchange
by Tom Dillinger on 02-19-2018 at 12:00 pm

The motivations to establish an industry standard data format are varied:

[LIST=1]

  • solidify a “de facto” standard, transitioning its evolution and support from a single company to an industry consortium;
  • aggregate disparate sources of design and manufacturing data into a single representation, with documented semantics;
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Adapting an embedded FPGA for Aerospace Applications

Adapting an embedded FPGA for Aerospace Applications
by Tom Dillinger on 01-30-2018 at 4:00 pm

The IC industry is commonly divided into different market segments – consumer, mobile, industrial, commercial, medical, automotive, and aerospace. A key differentiation among these segments is the characterization and reliability qualification strategy for the fabrication process and design circuitry. For each segment,… Read More