How To Design a TSMC 20nm Chip with Cadence Tools

How To Design a TSMC 20nm Chip with Cadence Tools
by Paul McLellan on 05-07-2013 at 8:10 pm

Every process node these days has a new “gotcha” that designers need to be aware of. In some ways this has always been the case but the changes used to be gradual. But now each process node has something discontinuously different. At 20nm the big change is double patterning. At 14/16nm it is FinFET.

Rahul Deokar and John… Read More


Clock Gating: Sequential Is Better

Clock Gating: Sequential Is Better
by Paul McLellan on 04-01-2013 at 3:46 pm

Sequential clock gating offers more power savings that can be obtained just with combinational clock gating. However, sequential clock gating is very complex as it involves temporal analysis over multiple clock cycles and examination of the stability, propagation, and observability of signal values.

Trying to do sequential… Read More


Unlocking the Full Potential of Soft IP

Unlocking the Full Potential of Soft IP
by Daniel Payne on 03-22-2013 at 11:32 am

EDA vendors, IP suppliers and Foundries provide an eco-system for SoC designers to use in getting their new electronic products to market quicker and at a lower cost. An example of this eco-system are three companies (TSMC, Atrenta, Sonics) that teamed up to produce a webinar earlier in March called: Unlocking the Full PotentialRead More


IP Scoring Using TSMC DFM Kits

IP Scoring Using TSMC DFM Kits
by Daniel Payne on 12-20-2012 at 11:00 am

Design For Manufacturing (DFM) is the art and science of making an IC design yield better in order to receive a higher ROI. Ian Smith, an AE from Mentor in the Calibre group presented a pertinent webinar, IP Scoring Using TSMC DFM Kits. I’ll provide an overview of what I learned at this webinar.… Read More


FinFET Modeling and Extraction at 16-nm

FinFET Modeling and Extraction at 16-nm
by Daniel Payne on 12-18-2012 at 12:05 pm

In 2012 FinFET is one of the most talked about MOS technologies of the year because traditional planar CMOS has slowed down on scaling below the 28nm node. To learn more about FinFET process modeling I attended a Synopsys webinar where Bari Biswas presented for about 42 minutes include a Q&A portion at the end.


Bari Biswas, SynopsysRead More


Learning about MEMS in Israel from: EDA companies, Foundry, University, Users

Learning about MEMS in Israel from: EDA companies, Foundry, University, Users
by Daniel Payne on 10-23-2012 at 12:24 pm

In April I attended and blogged about a webinar on MEMS and IC co-design hosted by two EDA companies: SoftMEMS and Tanner EDA. On October 30th you can attend a full-day event in Israel that is more comprehensive than the webinar that I attended.… Read More


SystemVerilog from Nevada?

SystemVerilog from Nevada?
by Daniel Payne on 08-16-2012 at 10:58 am

When I think of EDA companies the first geography that comes to mind is Silicon Valley because of the rich history of semiconductor design and fabrication, being close to your customers always makes sense. In the information era it shouldn’t matter so much where you develop EDA tools, so there has been a gradual shift to a wider… Read More


Genevi, isn’t that a city in Switzerland?

Genevi, isn’t that a city in Switzerland?
by Paul McLellan on 06-14-2012 at 8:05 pm

I got an email from Mentor Embedded this morning about a webinar on Implementing a GENIVI-compliant System. I have to admit I had no idea what GENIVI is, which surprised me. I spent several years working in the embedded space and so I usually have at least a 50,000 foot view of most things going on there. One reason for my ignorance is … Read More