Digital designers have been automating the functional verification process for many years now, however when you talk to an analog designer about how they do verification you quickly realize that the typical process is quite ad-hoc and little automated. Necessity does create an opportunity so the software engineers at Methodics… Read More
There is clearly a lot of hype about the Internet of Things (IoT) right now, but also it is clear that it will be a real market. In fact, it already is with various medical, fitness and home-appliance products already available. At CES in January, wearables was probably the biggest trend. That doesn’t always pan out (3D TV was… Read More
In last few years IP design has grown significantly compared to the rest of the semiconductor industry. There are newer IP start-ups opening across the world, particularly in India and China. Amid this rush, I wanted to understand the actual dynamics pushing this business and whether all of these IPs follow quality standards. … Read More
When we talk about parasitic, we talk about post layout design further expanded in terms of electrical components such as resistances and capacitances. In the semiconductor design environment where multiple parts of a design from different sources are assembled together into highly complex, high density SoC, imagine how complex… Read More
Milandr is a company based in Moscow that makes high reliability semiconductor components for the aerospace, automotive and consumer markets, primarily in Russia. They work with multiple foundries, including X-FAB and TSMC in technologies from 1um down to 65nm. Corporate headquarter and main IC design house is located in Russian… Read More
In the modern electronic world, it’s difficult to imagine any system working as a whole without MEMS (Micro-electromechanical Systems) such as pressure sensors, accelerometers, gyroscopes, microphones etc. working in sync with other ICs. Specifically in AMS (Analog Mixed-Signal) semiconductor designs, there can be significant… Read More
GenApSys is a biotech company developing proprietary DNA sequencing technology. As part of that they develop their own custom sequencing chips. These have an analog component and like many people they use the Cadence Virtuoso analog design environment for this.
I talked to Hamid Rategh who is GenApSys’s VP engineering.… Read More
Custom IC design and layout is becoming more difficult at 20nm and smaller nodes, so the EDA tools have to get smarter and work harder for us in order to maintain productivity with the fewest iterations to reach our specs. Dave Stylesand John Stabenow of Cadence met with me last Monday in Austin at the DAC exhibit area.
John Stabenow… Read More
I’m utterly amazed at how IC-based products are improving our quality of life by implantable devices. The modern day pacemaker has given people added years of life by electrically stimulating the heart. A privately-held company called NeuroPace was founded in Mountain View, California to treat epilepsy by using responsive… Read More
TSMC has been investing in the fabless semiconductor ecosystem for 25+ years and that is why they are the #1 foundry and lead this industry (my opinion). I’m a big fan of joint webinars. Not only is it collaboration open to the masses, it is a close collaboration between the two sponsoring companies. Having worked on the TSMC… Read More
