Revitalizing DAC


The 61st Design Automation Conference is just two months away and as I get closer to retirement, I know there will only be a few remaining for me. I entered the EDA industry in 1980, so have been involved with it for almost 45 years. Over that period, I have only missed a few. It is interesting how the conference has changed over the years. In the early days, DAC was only a conference, where... » read more

Why Using Commercial Chiplets Is So Difficult


Experts at the Table: Semiconductor Engineering sat down to discuss use cases and challenges for commercial chiplets with Saif Alam, vice president of engineering at Movellus; Tony Mastroianni, advanced packaging solutions director at Siemens Digital Industries Software; Mark Kuemerle, vice president of technology at Marvell; and Craig Bishop, CTO at Deca Technologies. What follows are excerpts... » read more

Why Chiplets Don’t Work For All Designs


Experts at the Table: Semiconductor Engineering sat down to discuss use cases and challenges for commercial chiplets with Saif Alam, vice president of engineering at Movellus; Tony Mastroianni, advanced packaging solutions director at Siemens Digital Industries Software; Mark Kuemerle, vice president of technology at Marvell; and Craig Bishop, CTO at Deca Technologies. What follows are excerpts... » read more

The Race Toward Quantum Advantage


Quantum computing has yet to show an advantage over conventional computing, but huge sums of money are betting it will. So far that hasn't happened. Early quantum computers were created in the mid-1990s after mathematicians had demonstrated the effectiveness of applying quantum approaches to some problems. At that stage they were simulated using conventional computing, but it started the rac... » read more

Using Data More Effectively In Chip Manufacturing


Experts at the Table: Semiconductor Engineering sat down to discuss smart manufacturing and how tools and AI can enable it for semiconductors, with Mujtaba Hamid, general manager for product management for secure cloud environments at Microsoft; Vijaykishan Narayanan, vice president and general manager of India engineering and operations at proteanTecs; KT Moore, vice president of corporate ma... » read more

Specialization Vs. Generalization In Processors


Academia has been looking at specialization for many years, but solutions were rejected because general-purpose solutions were advancing fast enough to keep up with most application requirements. That is no longer the case. The introduction and support of the RISC-V processor architecture has attracted a lot of attention, but whether that is the right direction for the majority of modern comput... » read more

Are In-Person Conferences Sustainable?


DAC/Semicon are now over, and while I missed a large part of it due to a stomach bug, I increasingly have a stale taste in my mouth about in-person conferences in general. Let's split things up – an event such as DAC is both an academic conference and a trade show. It has been that way almost since its inception 60 years ago. There are many other conferences that are pure conferences, and the... » read more

DAC 2023: Megatrends And The Road Ahead For Design Automation


As Silicon Valley is in the midst of the heat wave the world is experiencing, the recent Design Automation Conference and its exhibition discussed hot technologies. Three megatrends defined the current situation – artificial intelligence (AI), chiplets, and integration. To me, the more exciting aspect of DAC was the discussion of what is ahead for EDA in the decade to come, and for that, the ... » read more

Week In Review: Design, Low Power


DAC and SEMICON WEST rebounded this year, focusing on everything from security to chiplets and smart manufacturing. Panel at DAC conference: Left to right, ARM’s Brian Fuller (moderator), Joe Costello (Metrics, Kwikbit, Arrikto, Acromove), and Wally Rhines (Cornami). Source: Semiconductor Engineering/Ann Mutschler EDA and IP remain strong, approaching $4 billion in Q1, according to ... » read more

DAC/Semicon West Addresses Top Issues, Trends For Chips


The Design Automation Conference (DAC) 2023 and Semicon West returned in full force this week, drawing in more attendees and sponsor companies than since before the pandemic. At times, booth traffic was four to five deep, blocking aisles, and standing room only was common at presentations. Hot topics included generative AI and the underlying semiconductor technology, data security, reliabili... » read more

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