August 2014 - Page 2 of 10 - Semiconductor Engineering


More Problems Ahead


Semiconductor Engineering sat down to discuss future scaling problems with Lars Liebmann, a fellow at IBM; Adam Brand, managing director of transistor technology at Applied Materials; Karim Arabi, vice president of engineering at Qualcomm; and Srinivas Banna, a fellow for advanced technology architecture at GlobalFoundries. SE: There seems to be some debate in this group about whether we’r... » read more

The Week In Review: Design


Earnings Mentor Graphics reported revenues of $260.2 million, non-GAAP earnings per share of $0.23, and GAAP earnings per share of $0.13 for the company’s fiscal second quarter ended July 31. “System design strength, particularly with automotive customers, drove the second quarter with earnings solidly beating guidance,” said Walden C. Rhines, chairman and CEO of the company, in a stat... » read more

The Week In Review: Manufacturing


Gartner has released a chart, which tracks the “Hype Cycle for Emerging Technologies in 2014.” According to the chart, here’s some of the technologies that are still a number of years away from reaching the marketplace: virtual personal assistants; human augmentation; brain-computer interface; quantum computing; smart robots; biochips; smart advisors; autonomous vehicles; and natural-lang... » read more

Fixing Functional Coverage


Constrained random test pattern generation entered the scene a couple of decades ago as a better way to spend time and resources for the creation of stimulus. Stimulus definition had become an arduous task—defining the patterns necessary to exercise designs of increasing size. It was successfully argued that spending time writing models instead of creating stimulus and having a computer p... » read more

Week 11: Fishing For Volunteers


Next weekend is Hood to Coast, one of the largest and longest relay races in the world — and one that, like DAC, is only possibly thanks to legions of volunteers. The trailer for this 2011 documentary does a good job capturing the race’s atmosphere. (The full version of the film is available on iTunes and Amazon. By the way, who’s ready to sign up to do the documentary about DAC?) Hood to... » read more

Ready To Pounce


A series of inflection points at 16/14nm and beyond is having a rather unusual effect on the semiconductor industry. Rather than forge ahead with the next nodes to gain an edge and early lead over rivals—the standard formula for success over the past five decades—the entire supply chain is poised on the edge, waiting for someone to make the first move before they take action. The problem... » read more

Not Invented Here Syndrome


Recently I have made some choices on IP I needed to re-use and some I decided not to re-use. This got me thinking about the general topic of reuse in system-level design. Most will agree with a non-specific statement that reuse is a good thing, but the details tend to be a bit more ambiguous. Clouding the reuse question are occasional infections of NIH Syndrome (Not Invented Here), even if s... » read more

Looking For The Next Big Thing


With [getkc id="74" comment="Moore's Law"] slowing down or coming to an end, finding the next big thing may be very different than it was in the past. We cannot assume that more of the same will be a winner. The semiconductor industry has been blessed with two new product categories that have catapulted it through what should have been a very difficult period with barely a scratch. Those techno... » read more

The Changing IP Ecosystem


Is a larger [getkc id="43" kc_name="IP"] company better suited to deliver what users need – from hardware to software to PDKs and reference designs – with larger and more diverse teams to draw upon, as well as deep foundry relationships? Or does it pay to small, quick and nimble? The answer to that question appears to be playing out in real time. As design complexity has increased, so ha... » read more

More Than Moore


Semiconductor Engineering sat down to discuss the value of feature shrinks and what comes next with Steve Eplett, design technology and automation manager at Open-Silicon; Patrick Soheili, vice president and general manager of IP Solutions at eSilicon; Brandon Wang, engineering group director at Cadence; John Ferguson, product manager for DRC applications at Mentor Graphics; and Kevin Kranen, d... » read more

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