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IOT – Think Big – Start Small – Scale Quickly

IOT – Think Big – Start Small – Scale Quickly
by Bill McCabe on 11-30-2016 at 12:00 pm
Categories: IoT

There’s an old philosophy that business coaches often use. It’s the saying that you think big, start small, and then scale quickly. If you follow it closely, you have the potential to make a lasting impression in an industry and achieve actual results in the process.

Let’s look at this in terms of the internet of things to see how it pertains to this industry. The first thing we do is think big. This means to think about the transformation in the industry and how it will not only impact you, but others. With this, you’ll know what technology you need to be successful, and have the building blocks in place that others can come to you as they need your technology in order to operate more effectively.

Now that you understand the big picture, you can start small. Begin to work a process into the latest trends. Identify any weaknesses the competition has, and work to design and processes to help combat these weaknesses. Consider adjusting the structure and then release products that address these concerns. You can begin to gain attention as you do this, and others will follow your suit. Chances are, other technology companies will be willing to work with you to address their own internal concerns.

It’s at this point, you scale quickly. You begin to unroll solutions quickly, release prototypes, and aggressively work to be the leader in the industry. The goal at this time is to show you are on the cutting edge of things and to drive the process further harder. As you do this, make sure you keep looking at the future, especially since you know the direction you are taking trends and work on building from this. Even though you did start small, you have cornered a section of the market at the head. That way, people will keep looking to you in order to determine the future of things.

The thing to remember is that as long as you are innovative, and follow through with the process, there is no reason why you cannot succeed. Mobile technology has used this approach for years and it continues to propel the smart phone industry. With more devices headed toward total connectivity, it will pay to be the company who decides to start small and scale quickly, and unleash the new popular trends that will propel the internet of things into the future.

Please check out our new website for more information www.internetofthingsrecruiting.com

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Car Companies Should Steer Clear of Uber’s Red Ocean

Car Companies Should Steer Clear of Uber’s Red Ocean
by Roger C. Lanctot on 11-30-2016 at 7:00 am
Categories: Automotive

It is no secret that Uber drivers struggle to make a living driving for Uber. The most popular guidance for Uber drivers is to use the service to supplement existing income, not as a full-time job. But Uber is transforming transportation with billions of dollars of investment, billions of dollars in fares and billions of dollars of self-driving car research. Car companies wanting to participate in this transformation should beware.

Most users of Uber have had the delightful experience of chatting with Uber drivers thereby discovering usually non-professional drivers who have turned to Uber as a result of mid-career pivots or unanticipated unemployment or underemployment. The average Uber driver I have encountered around the world has usually been on the job for well under a year.

For many of these drivers taking fares from place to place is still a somewhat new and novel experience and likely one that they don’t anticipate making a permanent career choice. Also, in chatting with these drivers, you almost invariably hear the same assessment of Uber as an oppressive master constantly manipulating driver compensation and fares to manage supply and demand.

Of course, Uber’s not-so-invisible hand is often perceived as unfair and driver compensation insufficient. That insufficiency may be less than obvious, though, to an Uber driver who has not figured in the costs associated with maintaining his or her vehicle. One of the most positive aspects of the Uber experience, as a passenger, is the generally nearly-new condition of most Uber cars.

It’s somewhat sad and not unusual to see a nearly-new Toyota or Audi or Tesla racking up mileage at the rate of 25K or more within a 3-4 month period. It’s true that maintenance intervals for new cars are getting longer and longer – stressing out new car dealers that depend on service revenue – but usage rates for ride hailing service providers – using their own cars – is a big red flag and usually the final straw that breaks the back of the business model.

This is just one of many reasons behind the high rate of churn of Uber drivers. It is also the reason behind Uber’s widening efforts to put drivers who don’t even own cars into leased or rented vehicles. Of course, this strategy simply substitutes the additional cost of the lease or rental for the burdensome cost of vehicle maintenance – all to overcome the diminishing pool of available or interested drivers.

Of course, in some markets, where the demand is high, there are too many drivers. This, too, contributes to the churn challenge and the inability to make a living.

But my real motivation for writing this brief note is the fact that Uber is using its drivers to help build the infrastructure that will put these drivers out of work entirely. Uber is putting a sizable chunk of its investor capital into developing driverless cars – and the data gathered from its test mules and existing vehicles will be used as part of that development effort.

In effect, Uber is using the independent weavers to build the looms that will put them out of business – to make a slightly tortured analogy to the 19th century Luddite movement in Northern England.

A car maker I was chatting with yesterday described the Uber and Lyft ride-hailing sector as a Red Ocean – as part of describing why his company was not planning to subsidize Uber or Lyft leases, or invest in either of these companies. A red ocean is a market where everyone is talking a different version of the same thing versus a blue ocean which is an uncontested market sector.

I had to chuckle, because, unfamiliar with the expression “red ocean” I simply envisioned a sea of “red ink,” which is in fact what Uber has been producing in its run up to ad hoc transportation domination. The whole concept of Uber seems intended to undermine both the taxi and rental car industries using financially oppressed drivers offering untenably low fares.

We know how this ends. Existing services are disrupted. Professional people and organizations may be forced out of work or out of business. The insurgent takes over and new forms of discrimination and pricing emerge.

Uber’s reason for being is predicated upon a variety of shortcomings all or some of which may exist in a particular market including: poor taxi availability, high fares, poorly trained or rude drivers, and dirty, old or poorly maintained vehicles. Given the wide disparity in the quality and availability of taxi services around the world, I understand the convenience, economy and efficiency offered by Uber.

At the same time, I depend upon those taxis lined up at airport taxi ranks to be there when I need them. Uber threatens the availability of those taxis at the expense of drivers who have a limited professional stake in delivering me to my destination.

Under these circumstances it is probably best for car companies to steer clear of the Uber’s of the world. The auto industry is in transition from a B2B to a B2C business where direct interaction with consumers will increasingly be the rule.

Car companies are naturally allied with the taxi and rental car industries. Collaboration with these incumbents to create more customer friendly offerings makes much more sense to me.

But don’t take it from me. Hail yourself a taxi instead of an Uber today. You may have to download a different app to do it. But chances are you will get a professional driver in a well maintained car who will know your destination without the need of a map and most likely speaks your language.

I truly enjoy chatting with Uber drivers – but I feel the most sympathetic thing I can do for them is to not encourage them. It’s a lousy living and the employer is actively seeking to put them out to pasture.

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Expert Interview: Rajeev Madhavan

Expert Interview: Rajeev Madhavan
by Daniel Nenni on 11-29-2016 at 12:00 pm
Categories: CEO Interviews, EDA

This blog was originally posted on Paysa.com but since Rajeev Madhavan is one of our EDA Heroes I thought it was worth a re-post. In case you do not know Rajeev, he started his EDA career at Cadence then was co-founder and VP of Engineering at LogicVision (acquired by Mentor). Next he was Founder, President, and Chairman of Ambit Design Systems (Acquired by Cadence) and finally he was Founder, Chairman and CEO of Magma Design Automation (Acquired by Synopsys):

Rajeev Madhavan is a Founder and General Partner at Clear Ventures. With $120 million of capital, Clear is a VC firm that is purpose-built to help startup teams win in business technology and services.

We recently asked Rajeev for his advice to recent graduates in the engineering field on best practices for their career and what the steps to success look like. Here’s what he had to say:

Tell me about your early years and how they contributed to who you are today?
When I was a kid, I absolutely loved reading comic books. I would go through comic books quickly, reading the latest edition and be ready for the next, but my dad was not a fan of comic books. So, I built a lending service on the school bus – I charged a small fee to read my comic books—which enabled me to support my hobby. It was a comic book business with a few friends. We started to run into trouble when it came to collection though, especially with the bigger kids. We solved the problem by getting one of the bigger kids to collect for us, with a deal that he would get to read the books first. However, the school principal caught us and we were suspended from the school bus. It took away all business interests in me for quite a while!

What business lessons did you learn?
This very early business-building experience taught me several business basics. I learned valuable practices like how much money to charge, the delicate art of money collection and, perhaps most importantly, the role of rules and regulations in business. Even the suspension in that story had a critical effect on how I operate in a business setting.

Who has been your biggest influence?
There were 3 people who contributed to my successes – one was my manager, Ed Vopni at my first job – he challenged me to execute better, work harder and set better goals for myself. Another was Lucio Lanza who I met when he was an Executive VP at Cadence and a General Partner at USVP. His questions on various ideas that were being proposed to him made me want to think of doing startups. The last person was Jim Solomon, founder of Cadence who told me when we were on a customer trip to Florida, that he should have done the analog business at Cadence (the business group I was in) as a new startup – this made me realize that I am better off doing a startup. Hit with that deep desire, I joined with two others to do my first startup, LogicVision. One year into it, we had a product and our first customer, Apple. During that time, I learned that creating technology is not enough. Extracting value is what is the most important. I then started Ambit Design Systems, and Ambit was sold to Cadence for $280M. Then I started Magma, which went public on NASDAQ and was eventually acquired in 2012 by Synopsys for $650M.

What motivates you to succeed?
I love to compete. So, the fact that 30 VC firms turned me down when I was looking for funding for Ambit Design was an invitation for me to prove them wrong. Being able to show them I could succeed in spite of this was incredibly rewarding for me.

I also love the opportunity to create a new, exciting product and bring it to life. The mantra has always been that failure is not an option. As an entrepreneur, I believed that I needed to find a way to make it, whether that means needing to pivot, redoing or changing direction.

What career and life advice do you give to new college grads?
Not everyone is built to do a startup. Some may want to work in a large company because it offers stability and less risk. There is nothing wrong in choosing either of these paths. But if you truly want to pursue a startup in the tech space, Silicon Valley is the place to be. Building great relationships is important. Doing a self assessment of your strengths and weaknesses and building a team that addresses your weaknesses is very important. It takes a village to succeed and the invaluable, supportive infrastructure here will help pave your way to success, if you tap into the right relationships. In the same vein, you should take any opportunity that presents itself to build your network.

How do you define success?
Success means different things for different people.

To me, success meant success for all the people in the village that helped build the company. Success means having happy customers who rely on you to do key pieces of their day to day tasks and ultimately success to me implies changing the status quo.

Ensuring that everyone succeeds with you is something which is important to any good entrepreneur. After all is said and done, ask yourself, “Have I done the right things to make sure that my employees have been rightfully rewarded? Am I helping them to succeed too? Have you built a culture that ensures people can provide their honest, open feedback to improve the company?”

Do you have a mentor and if so who is it?
I have been lucky that in the Silicon Valley Village, I have had great mentors during my startup days. Mark Perry, now a retired General Partner at New Enterprise Associates, has given me several pieces of advice about how to put the right systems in place for my company. He also helped me understand the complex financial and legal sides of business.

Andy Bechtolsheim was also an important mentor for me. I always got a lot of much appreciated advice, which was always great, to the point, and highly relevant.

What do you think of the opportunities out there today for engineers and their salary and career potential?
In the valley, engineers carry tremendous value. It’s important for every engineer to know his or her true worth and that over time, that worth increases. It’s easy for engineers to move from company to company to company. There is a lot of distraction out there. It’s great to have the opportunity, but it’s important to assess all angles of a career move before taking the leap. A bigger project name might be appealing, but the management might not be a culture fit. You should stay focused on what really matters to you in your career. Seeing an opportunity for engineers to understand their true worth, prompted us to invest in Paysa.

What is the one piece of advice you’d give to young, entrepreneurial-minded engineers who want to launch a company?
Know your strengths and weaknesses from the get-go, but also know what resources you have at your disposal. Improve and cultivate the appropriate skills you need to succeed. Leverage the experience and knowledge of your team and look for opportunities within your desired startup arena. Building a cohesive unit and having the right co-founders often creates the best outcome.

What are you passionate about outside of your career?
I’m passionate about gardening. I started with 3 or 4 rose bushes in my first house. Now I have 400 varieties of roses and 2,000 bushes in my home. Walking around in the garden always has calmed me and given me peace of mind. So for me, gardening is a past-time that helps balance the immense pressure of the start-up world. That being said, I still haven’t been able to shake my competitive nature to my wife’s dismay – even in my gardening. I see beautiful places like Filoli Gardens and feel determined to out-do their roses.

What were your best/worst subjects in school?
My best subject was math, and all language classes were a challenge for me.

Why did you choose your profession?
I did not have much of a choice – I had a tiger mom who wanted me to be an engineer or doctor – I could not stand blood, so engineer it became. Half way through I wanted to become a CPA (called CA in India). Luckily my dad made me realize that I was too close to finishing to quit. I coasted through to my first job at Bell Northern Research and had the right manager to light up the fire. I knew I had an entrepreneurial streak in me though, dating all the way back to my comic book business. I believe that entrepreneurial spirit is inherent to a degree. The first chance I had to pursue something entrepreneurial, I ran with it. I only worked two years with large companies, but the rest of my career has been in startups.

What do you think about most of the day?
With my current companies, think about new technologies I’ve seen that we could be pursuing. Silicon Valley is fantastic at coming up with new technologies that change status quo – I am lucky to be in the valley and to meet and work with world class entrepreneurs who have passion and wealth of knowledge in so many areas of technology.

Also Read:

CEO interview: Rene Donkers of Fractal Technologies

CEO Interview: Albert Li of Platform DA

CEO Interview: Mike Wishart of efabless

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How to Secure a SoC while Keeping Area and Power Competitive?

How to Secure a SoC while Keeping Area and Power Competitive?
by Eric Esteve on 11-29-2016 at 7:00 am
Categories: IP, Security, Synopsys

I have attended LETI conference last June and remember the paper presented by Alain Merle, their security guru. Alain said that smart cards are secured because up to 50% of the Silicon area is dedicated to security. When you design a SoC to address applications like smart metering, NFC payment or embedded SIM, you know in advance that these will require more protection, but your challenge is to define a competitive architecture.

The chip area may increase if you implement certain feature in H/W instead in S/W to improve the level of security, but if your architecture is smart enough, the chip area will not necessarily double. Synopsys is proposing a good illustration of this concept with the Trusted Execution Environments (TEE), allowing creating a secure perimeter in the SoC. If TEE is still unclear for you, take a look at the picture below, or, even more efficient, listen to thiswebinar “Balancing Advanced SoC Security Requirements with Constrained Area and Power Budgets”.


There’s different ways of implementing a trusted execution environment. A simple way would be using a physical separate module, or on a SoC, use a separate CPU. But a more efficient solution, instead of using a second CPU or even a separate module, is when the trusted and the normal computation can be combined on a single processor.

The designer can define a secure, isolated area of the processor to guarantee code and data protection for confidentiality and integrity where you can securely run software, trusted software. So, the environment basically guarantees confidentiality, integrity, and authenticity of the software running in that trusted execution environment. The designer can now separate the application in parts that are less security critical and parts that are more secure critical. For the less secure critical, you apply normal software engineering. For the highly secured or the highly secure critical part, you can do additional security hardening.

The memory is protected by using secure MPU with per region scrambling protects memory based on privilege levels based on privilege levels. Accesses to secure peripherals and system resources are restricted by using secure APEX or system bus signaling. In secure mode, the Trusted Execution Environment can’t be accessed from the peripherals.

Synopsys ARC processors are actually extendable processors as users can (at design time) add their own instructions, this is APEX technology: ARC processor extensions. Access to those extensions can be controlled making the extensions very secure by using SecureShield technology. SecureShield enables you to combine trusted and normal applications on a single processor, and resources can be shared.

ARC EM CPU pipeline has been designed to be tamper resistant as there is no store in the 3-stages pipeline. The CPU can detect tampering and software attacks, thanks to integrated watchdog timer detecting system failures and enable counter measures.

In fact, ARC-EM Enhanced Security Package interleaves protected processor pipeline registers and in-line instruction and data encryption ensure decrypted instructions are never stored or accessible, protecting algorithms from reverse engineering without impact to the timing of instructions. Sourcing both the processor IP and the security package to the same provider is the key for maximum protection allowing optimized implementation, reducing area and power consumption.

The Enhanced Security Package with SecureShield is a part of Synopsys’ comprehensive portfolio of security IP solutions, which also includes the CryptoPack option for ARC EM processors as well as the DesignWare Security IP solutions, which comprise a range of cryptography cores and software, protocol accelerators, root of trust, platform security and content protection IP. On top of these security hardware features, Synopsys provides content protection, platform security and cryptographic cores. The designer will benefit from common crypto algorithms such as AES, 3DES, ECC, SHA-256 or RSA.

During this webinar, Ruud Derwig, who started his career at Philips Corporate Research, worked as a Software Technology Competence Manager at MXP Semiconductors, and now Software and Systems Architect at Synopsys will tell you many, many things about security. You will learn about side channel analysis, the non-pervasive attacks using information leaked by an implementation, like simple power analysis (SPA) or differential power analysis (PPA), which can reveal secrets, like cryptographic keys. You will also learn how to use simulation based power analysis to implement counter measures against the power analysis for data dependency.

This webinar is essential as the description of the various threats is very precise, so you clearly understand how the security can be built by using the different solutions proposed by Synopsys. Instead of providing “one size fits all” type of solutions, Synopsys propose various techniques to implement the right level of security in respect with the applications, taking into account the specific power, performance and area requirements.

You can attend to a webinar replay here.

From Eric Esteve from IPNEST

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Fabless and IDMs Training up on Integrated Photonics

Fabless and IDMs Training up on Integrated Photonics
by Mitch Heins on 11-28-2016 at 12:00 pm
Categories: Silicon Photonics

I had the good fortune to be able to attend a very informative five-day photonic integrated circuit (PIC) training this last week in Santa Clara, CA. The training was organized by Erik Pennings of 7 Pennies consulting and hosted by Tektronix. Several ecosystem partners from the design automation, photonic foundries and photonic packaging and test industries presented to a full room of more than 25 trainees from 15 different companies. The mix of companies was intriguing as there was almost an equal mix of system houses and IC providers with PIC providers outweighing the electrical IC (EIC) providers 2-to-1 and at least one of the system houses that was also doing both PICs and EICs. Of the companies doing EIC design, it was roughly an equal split between IDMs and Fabless component makers.

Training content was rich and started with a general tutorial on different types of passive and active photonic components along with basic principles behind how those components work. This was followed by an overview of the different photonic material platforms being employed for each. It was quite clear that the III-V ad II-VI group materials are here to stay for lasers, optical amplifiers and photonic detectors. There is however a definite shift underway to make use of Si and Si-based materials to enable smaller, denser and in theory lower cost photonic devices. Methods for integrating light sources and amplification to these silicon-based solutions is still up for grabs with lots of competing solutions. For detectors Ge is being grown on the Si to form SiGe based detectors.

In conjunction with the move to use hybrid photonic solutions is the push to move the photonic components closer and closer to the electronics with which they communicate. The biggest impetus for this is the next jump in modulation speed per channel. Most 100G applications are using 25Gbps channel modulation with some form of higher level encoding such as QPSK to increase effective baud rates. As the industry moves to 200G and higher rates there will be a push to move the channel speed up to 50Gbps modulation rates and when that happens there will be a push to reduce or eliminate the metal RF traces on the boards between the electronics and photonics. Flip chip seems to be the method of choice to shorten these leads by using through silicon vias (TSVs) and bump technology between the electronic-based driver chips and the photonics (see picture from Luxtera). This will however will require some help from the design automation industry to put in place more robust CAD for 2.5D and 3D design and verification methodologies.

The training rounded out with hands-on sessions from design automation vendors VPI Photonics, Lumerical Solutions, PhoeniX Software and Cadence Design who covered photonic system-level design and verification through PIC design, verification and implementation. Presentations were also given by photonic MPW aggregator JePPIX, and Si-photonics foundries CEA-Leti, imec, IHP, VTT. Presentations were also given by silicon nitride foundry LioniX as well as InP foundries HHI/Fraunhofer and Smart Photonics. Advanced photonic packaging was covered by Chiral Photonicsand photonic test and measurement were covered by Tektronix and Venista. Lastly, design housesBright Photonics and VLC Photonics each spoke about their photonic design services offerings.

Other key concepts from the training included:

  • Integrated photonic solutions may at first need to be sold at the system level. Disruptive change doesn’t happen at a single component level. It tends to impact the entire system which includes software and hardware infrastructure changes that must happen together. Look for these kind of changes from system suppliers that will use photonics to disrupt the current status quo.

  • The advent of 100G has provided great momentum for PICs especially with 100GbE (with LR4 and ER4 requiring 4 wavelength channels) and 100Gbps coherent (DP-QPSK). The volumes for these devices will be sufficient to boot up the manufacturing infrastructure to the point that other photonics markets will become cost viable. As a result, the market for PICs is now growing at >35% / year

  • Package design and 2.5D/3D integration with a mixture of EIC and PIC will become crucial to enable higher speed solutions. Thermal analysis of these modules will be important as the EICs will be generating a considerable amount of heat and designers will need tools to understand and accommodate for inadvertent heating of the photonics.

All-in-all this was a very comprehensive training class that was both wide in breadth but also comprehensive in its depth. I learned a lot and would encourage anyone interested in photonics to look into future classes offered of this nature.

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CEO Interview: Rene Donkers of Fractal Technologies

CEO Interview: Rene Donkers of Fractal Technologies
by Daniel Nenni on 11-28-2016 at 7:00 am
Categories: CEO Interviews, EDA, Fractal Technologies, IP

Fractal is another one of those very successful emerging EDA companies that you don’t read a lot about, except on SemiWiki. Rene Donkers is co-founder and CEO of Fractal Technologies, a company addressing IP quality assurance. This is a niche in the SoC tooling market that deserves some justification. Why not use an IP as-is if it comes from a trusted vendor? And if IP needs to be checked – why would you need yet another tool to do so?


What does Fractal do?
We help our customers make sense of IP they receive before they include it in their design flow. With any component you use to build your SoC, you want to make sure that everything you need is there and is consistent. Regardless of whether it came from an external supplier or an in-house design group, you cannot afford to take quality for granted. Think of trivial issues like missing pins in a Milky Way view or SPICE file. But also of trends in power and timing arcs in the terabytes of .lib files that library IP typically is made of these days. You don’t want to find something’s missing there when you’re running your final design-validation. At that stage debugging is both very hard as well as mission-critical, so catching IP issues before the IP is completely integrated is vital to our customers.

All this doesn’t sound very new, design teams have been running incoming inspection on IP for years?
We have seen all our customers transition from some form of home-grown validation scripts to a dedicated tool like Crossfire. The scripts and maintenance that used to be sufficient a few process generations ago all started to break in several places. The need for including yet another database or format was often the trigger for engaging with Fractal. The reason is that it wasn’t only the parsing and some extra checks: the checks to be run on for example CCS are far from trivial, on top of that the amount of data is huge. And then you get to fix things in a radical cost-cutting regime that leaves no resources left for proprietary tooling development. CAD-groups are simply not coping anymore without bringing in dedicated QA tooling.

There’s another aspect of IP data volume I’d like to point out, which is that you have to engineer your tools from the ground up to cope with it. Within Crossfire we have a distributed data-management framework where the different formats are managed by dedicated servers in the computing infrastructure. Once that is established, checks can be run in parallel, requesting different parts of the data when needed without being concerned with data management. This allows an extensive Crossfire check-set to be passed within a couple of hours.

More data sure, but Moore’s law is also giving us faster computers isn’t it?
Moore’s law is completely not catching up with the increase in IP data. In node-transitions during the last 2 years we have observed a 4X increase of IP data – that’s 4 TB. landing in your ‘Inbox’ to be inspected these days. Following Moore’s law, 2 years at best only doubles the amount of transistors. And that increase is mostly driven by economics, speed increases for next generation process nodes are only there in history books.

IP comes in many flavours, does Crossfire support them all? And what do you check?
In fact we do, as that is exactly how the tool has grown and matured. We started out 10 years ago with standard-cell library qualification, then added IO cells, and then moved into analog and digital Hard IP- think of memories, AD converters and physical interfaces like USB cores. Checking synthesizable IP is of course also included.

Obviously not all checks apply to all IP categories. Basics like presence-checks or terminal-equivalence are pretty universal and provide a good sanity check to start with. If timing models are provided, we make sure all arcs are present so that back-annotation will always work. Timing and power models need extensive trend checks across the 100’s of process corners for which a typical Hard-IP is characterized these days. Netlist related checks are particularly rewarding– like checking bulk connections for the different power domains. Finally we see double patterning manufacturing driving all kinds of layout specific checks that typically affect formats like LEF, layout views and GDS.

It’s important to note that all these checks and different IP formats were made for and requested by our customers. The good news is that they’re not customer exclusive in any way. By supporting and enhancing Crossfire, Fractal accumulates QA demands from the industry and is able to deliver a more complete solution with every release of Crossfire.

Does Crossfire enforce a one-size-fits-all quality standard?
That’s now how it works. it’s always the user that decides which checks to be applied to which IP. This is what we call a ‘standard’: a collection of checks to be applied, for which we have our own format called Transport. In Transport, IP users specify their QA requirements which they then communicate to their IP providers. During designing the IP, the provider already may use Crossfire to make sure the final shipment fulfills all the Transport requirements.

You can compare it to exchanging a DRC-deck between foundry and design-team: these are the rules the design-team needs to stick to if they want their GDS processed properly. For a DRC-deck, designers and foundry can have a conversation on the interpretation of certain rules. Similarly, Transport provides a communication handle between IP-designers and IP-integrators. Because of the easy-to-read descriptions in Transport and the unambiguous implementation of the rules in Crossfire it’s now possible for the first time to discuss and improve QA requirements, so parties can jointly develop improved formulations that better serve their needs. Both sides have a vested interest here, IP integrators want properly qualified IP, but overly rigorous checks do not help their suppliers in providing efficient IP releases in time.

Getting back to those design-teams that have internal qualification tools, how do you get them on board?
First of all by pointing out that we embrace and not compete with internal solutions. These internal checks have been developed to serve the specific needs of the design-flow and the application area the customer focuses on. What we’re proposing is to integrate those dedicated checks into the Crossfire framework. Not by re-writing but by simply calling the existing code and making sure the checks show up in our index and that errors can be debugged from within Crossfire. This way the experts working on these checks can dedicate themselves to adding corporate-specific value, rather than having also to spend time on infrastructure-related subjects like format-parsing, visualization and parallelized data access – all areas where Crossfire excels, but which can take 70% or more of your time. So by working with Crossfire, the experts become a lot more productive.

This opportunity to focus on adding unique value is the way to engage customers, knowing that they will also benefit from a “QA-subscription” as Crossfire is continuously extended with new QA requirements from the entire industry.

That implies Fractal already has an industry-wide adoption, who are your customers?
You find our customers in all categories, we have system companies but also foundries, IDMs, independent IP design houses and fabless companies. All use Crossfire either during their design-flow, to have an end-of-line check before IP shipment or as an incoming inspection tool. I can’t disclose names, but half of the top-20 semiconductor companies already use Crossfire, and we expect the rest to come on board in the near future.

We support them preferably through local AE’s that speak their language and can be on-site quickly to deal with any issues or train new users.

What do you see as the next challenges for Fractal?

Managing growth is of-course key. We organically grow the engineering and AE teams so we get the right, qualified people on board and can make a proper investment in training them in our way of working. At the same time without compromising on the timing and quality our deliverables.

For our customers Fractal’s position as an independent QA tool provider is of prime importance. After all, who would buy a QA tool from either an IP provider or an EDA company? Absolutely no-one: in such a scenario a lack of test-coverage would only be the least suspicion. In essence, Crossfire would no longer have the authority it now has as an independent QA certification tool. The adoption of Crossfire and the Transport formalism by the industry is allowing us to continue with this strategy.

Also Read:

CEO Interview: Albert Li of Platform DA

CEO Interview: Mike Wishart of efabless

CEO Interview: Chouki Aktouf of Defacto Technologies

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Thin film Semiconductor Solutions for an Energy-Efficient Future

Thin film Semiconductor Solutions for an Energy-Efficient Future
by Anuja More on 11-27-2016 at 4:00 pm
Categories: Foundries

For an industry with an estimated revenue potential of $22 billion by 2022, and a CAGR of 14% throughout 2016–2022, the slightest innovation in current modules holds considerable profit potential. The thin film semiconductor market has evolved from the previous generation of semiconductor electronics in the best interests of mother nature. Having said this, it becomes equally important to relate the markers. It is unnecessary to revisit the importance of semiconductor performance in the control and functional application of a complex system. From reduction in fuel consumption in automobiles to providing custom data support to inbuilt navigation memory in the same, the semiconductor electronic components have covered it all.


Technological superiority over conventional silicone chips motivated the field experts to explore immeasurable opportunities with the thin film semiconductors. The next-generation information technology requirements are inclusive of the flexible memory technologies for ultra-speed processing and nanoelectronics that can be accommodated in teemed systems. The convergence of development routes in the field of material and applied science along with those in power electronics has put forward novice possibilities for several vertical industries. On the basis of manufacturing technology, the market structure can be studied under two deposition techniques—chemical vapor deposition and physical vapor deposition (PVD).

The stark difference in process stages lead to different virtues for both the films. In accordance to the criterion of the working environment for the thin film semiconductor, any one deposition technique is adopted out of the two. CVD based thin film semiconductors are particularly used in photovoltaic industry, electronic circuits, and communication equipment among others while PVD based thin film semiconductors are majorly used in cutting tools and in microelectronic circuits for protection.
According to the latest findings of a research firm, the thin film semiconductor deposition market is led by the CVD technology in terms of net annual revenue.

The chemical process involves the mixing of a source material with volatile precursor that helps deposit a thin film of the artificial semiconductor compound on the substrate. The gaseous film is formed within a temperature range from 450°C to 1050°C. Multiple attributions are accountable for the popularity of this technology of physical deposition techniques. The most impactful of these are the lower cost and energy factors associated with this process. Even in terms of the administration of the process, minimal efforts are to be put in by the professional to fabricate these films. The solid films generated by this method have higher purity and performance index.

The CVD technique has been widely employed to complement the modern dynamic random access memory (DRAM) technology, solar or photovoltaic modules, advanced sensors in smart devices, organic light-emitting diode (OLED) display, and active matrix OLED (AMOLED) displays. The vertical industries, which have high expectations from the progress of this segment include IT & telecom, consumer & commercial electronics, energy & power, automotive, aerospace & defense, healthcare, and industrial production & manufacturing. The PVD deposition, on the other hand is used for producing thin film semiconductors that are used to cut tools and protect microelectronic circuits.

With per capita energy consumption listed on the growth metrics for a region, nations have been trying to improve their performance accordingly. In regard to the intended increase in energy production through economically viable and ecologically sustainable sources, solar energy has gained much attention. Multiple research groups have dedicated their work to the deployment of the chemical deposition technology to develop optimum quality photosensitive films for energy conversion. The thin film photovoltaic cells so obtained can be produced at a comparatively lower cost owing to the usage of mixed source material, which if profitable for the manufacturer in the long run.

The technique itself ensures needful usage of materials and ensure minimal wastage. In addition, the absence of any complicated production procedure and any external electrical force minimizes the total energy required during the process of production. This makes it feasible for small-scale enterprises to adopt the technology in their practices and come forward with better products. First Solar, a C solar energy solution provider, has set the perfect example for new entrants in the solar energy segments on how to channelize their resources to fix their market position. Similar companies can benefit from integration of the innovative thin films and claim their edge over their existing competitors.

With regard to the source compounds, Cadmium telluride (CdTe) has so far led the market revenue figures, yet is doomed to suffer a decline in future due to safety considerations over poisonous properties of Cadmium. At the same time, CiGs will experience greater growth in overall market shares in terms of volume. The quest for ultra-efficient compounds has revived the attention of leading corporate players in the thin film semiconductor market. To exploit the prevailing opportunities, they have restructured their investment agenda, channelizing a huge portion of it in the towards research and development activities. We await to witness the consequentially transformed scenario in near future.

Your questions and comments would be greatly appreciated. Thank you for reading.

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Foggy 5G Forecasts Coming into Focus

Foggy 5G Forecasts Coming into Focus
by Roger C. Lanctot on 11-27-2016 at 12:00 pm
Categories: 5G, Automotive

My colleague and automotive safety system guru at Strategy Analytics, Ian Riches, is fond of citing Amara’s Law. Named for Roy Amara (1925-2007), research, scientist, forecaster and long-term president of the Institute for the Future, the “Law” states: “We tend to overestimate the effect of a technology in the short run and underestimate the effect in the long run.”

The reverse may be true of 5G wireless technology. A lot of observers appear to be underestimating the short-term impact of 5G and exaggerating the long-term as if to say: “Yeah, 5G is going to be awesome, but it’ll be a decade before it has an impact.”

Some of these 5G deniers are sandbagging the latest evolution of cellular technology because they are heavily invested in current generation LTE technology or they have a horse in the race to connect cars to each other in the form of 802.11p dedicated short-range communication technology. I understand the lack of enthusiasm for 5G among LTE enthusiasts, but I can’t abide the doubting Thomas’ from the DSRC camp.

Hopefully all involved got a wake-up call last week from Ericsson which decreed that standardized 5G networks will be operational by 2020 with 25% of all North American subscriptions on 5G by 2022. Ericsson has no interest in exaggeration. It isn’t good for business. If Ericsson says 5G is knocking on the door, I’m letting 5G in … to my head, to my pocket and, sooner than most think, to my car.

Still, there is the problem of the short-term. Amara’s Law was Amara’s way of noting that analysts are prone to hyping new technologies while underestimating the amount of time it may take to incubate a new technology to bring it to full maturity. Of course, researchers and analysts have a powerful interest in hyping the short-term prospects: the bigger the hype, the more likely market reports are to be snapped up by willing clients.

But clients aren’t being naive in buying reports with over-hyped forecasts. Companies seeking funding or seeking to be acquired might well want to purchase a report that paints a rosy picture of prospects for a particular market, technology, company or industry. How else are they going to get the attention of potential customers, investors or their boards of directors?

5G wireless technology has become a little like fully automated cars. Nearly every day some new study is forecasting an earlier than previously anticipated arrival of fully autonomous cars, while some respected expert is claiming full automation is decades away.

With 19 automated fleets already plying controlled-use areas I am inclined to buy the early onset assessment of automation vs. the over-the-horizon outlook from skeptics. Even my colleague, Ian, has bumped up his short-term AND long-term outlook for all levels of vehicle automation.

The same holds true for 5G. But there is a separate scenario within the cellular industry, where generational transitions can, indeed, take many years to complete.

Disagreement among wireless experts can influence implementation outcomes. The resulting confusion threatens to impede the adoption of new technologies as car makers, in particular, may cling to more familiar solutions.

In the case of 5G, forecasts of distant vs. near-term adoption have given some auto makers pause in their planning for implementing embedded connections. Why bother with LTE, the thinking goes, if 5G is just around the corner. Conversely, an equally valid thought process might be: “Best to put in LTE now, because 5G adoption is so far off.” It all depends on what you believe.

The crazy reality is that both viewpoints are accurate. 5G cellular technology is much closer to market implementation and adoption than most people believe, but that adoption will be spotty and regional, even if it is rapid. The good news is that 5G is an evolution of existing LTE technology so the transition should be less jarring than previous generational shifts.

SOURCE: Ericsson “Mobility Report” 11-2016
Most interesting of all as far as 5G is concerned is the involvement of the automotive industry in setting and testing the standard. For the first time auto makers and wireless carriers are actually seeking common ground around the creation of the new standard. In fact, the priorities of auto makers are in the forefront as the use cases are particularly suited to safety and smart city applications.

Is 5G technology a decade away? I think not. Ericsson has described the rationale behind its perspective in the just-released “Mobility Report.”

Ericsson “Mobility Report” – http://tinyurl.com/jeet6pg

In fact, Ericsson has a heavyweight partner in bringing this optimistic outlook to fruition: Huawei Technologies. I am attending Huawei’s Mobile Broadband Forum this week. The future looks bright indeed from the 16th floor of the New Otani Makuhari hotel and the automotive industry is an important part of that future – for the first time.


Roger C. Lanctot is Associate Director in the Global Automotive Practice at Strategy Analytics. More details about Strategy Analytics can be found here: https://www.strategyanalytics.com/access-services/automotive#.VuGdXfkrKUk