October 2015 - Semiconductor Engineering

The Week In Review: Manufacturing
By Mark LaPedus - 30 Oct, 2015 - Comments: 0

Lam Research’s proposed move to acquire KLA-Tencor is still generating a buzz in the industry. One executive from Lam has explained the reason for the deal. Meanwhile, analysts are also weighing in. “We believe the deal itself is a positive one for Lam as it supplements its leading etch position with the market share leader in process control with significant accretion and earnings leverage... » read more

The Week In Review: Design/IoT
By Jesse Allen - 30 Oct, 2015 - Comments: 0

Tools Aldec introduced Hybrid Emulation including support for ARM Fast Models. Aldec says the capability to link an SoC emulation hardware platform with a virtual platform allows both software and hardware teams to work on the most up-to-date version of the project, long before first silicon is available, or even much of the RTL or IP has been completed. eSilicon's online quoting tools fo... » read more

Counting By The Billions
By Ed Sperling - 29 Oct, 2015 - Comments: 1

The semiconductor industry has been on cruise control since the advent of the personal computer. By 2002, a total of 1 billion PCs had been shipped, according to Gartner, and by 2008 that number had doubled. But that was nothing compared with the smartphone. In 2014 alone, Gartner reported sales of 1.2 billion smartphones. Both of those markets will remain healthy for years to come. Despite... » read more

HW Vs. SW: Who’s Leading Whom?
By Brian Bailey - 29 Oct, 2015 - Comments: 6

In the past, technologies were developed in the software world that have languished until they were taken up by the hardware community. Then they were refined and polished and became fully integrated into the hardware development and verification flow. Examples are lint and formal. That was followed by attempts to migrate methodologies, such as object-oriented programming, which is the basis fo... » read more

Hybrid Emulation Gets More Hybrid
By Ed Sperling - 29 Oct, 2015 - Comments: 0

Rising chip complexity is creating a booming emulation business, as chipmakers working at advanced nodes turn to bigger iron to get chips out the door on time. What started as a "shift lift"—doing more things earlier in the design cycle—is evolving into a more complex mix of hardware-accelerated verification for both hardware and software. There are even some new forays into power explor... » read more

Culture Clash In Analog
By Ann Mutschler - 29 Oct, 2015 - Comments: 2

The analog/mixed signal world is being shaken up by a mix of new tools, an influx of younger engineers with new and broader approaches, and an emphasis on changing methodologies to improve time to market. Analog and digital engineers have never quite seen eye-to-eye. Analog teams leverage techniques that have been around, in some cases, for decades, while digital teams rely heavily on the la... » read more

The New Face Of Formal
By Brian Bailey - 29 Oct, 2015 - Comments: 0

Semiconductor Engineering sat down to discuss the recent growth in adoption of formal technologies and tools with Lawrence Loh, product engineering group director at [getentity id="22032" e_name="Cadence"], Praveen Tiwari, senior manager of R&D in the verification group at [getentity id="22035" e_name="Synopsys"], Harry Foster, chief scientist at [getentity id="22017" e_name="Mentor Graphic... » read more

Say Hi To Hybrid
By Doug Amos - 29 Oct, 2015 - Comments: 0

It has been proposed for some time that virtual platforms could be linked to emulation hardware in order to co-verify the software and hardware components of an SoC. However, that proposal now has evolved into hybrid emulation, a practical solution to allow pre-silicon verification and validation of today’s complex SoC designs. First-rate work by the standards body Accellera and the Open ... » read more

3D Thermal Simulation Of Resistive Heating
By Robin Bornoff - 29 Oct, 2015 - Comments: 0

Joule heating, also known as resistive or Ohmic heating, is the power lost to heat as electrical current flows down a conductor. We were introduced to Joule’s first law (Power dissipation = I²R, VI, V²/R) way back in high school. From an electronics thermal simulation perspective it requires a full 3D electrical flow simulation to be conducted, and from that the Joule heating power dissipat... » read more

Requirements For Datacenter-Ready Emulation
By Frank Schirrmeister - 29 Oct, 2015 - Comments: 0

It’s time to look at what the latest trends in emulation are and to review some of the key requirements to make it datacenter-ready. Specifically, I will look at virtualization of external interfaces as well as emulation throughput, specifically the allocation of jobs into emulators. One overarching trend in verification lies in the connection of the engines in what Jim Hogan has dubbed t... » read more

← Older posts

  • Sponsors

About

Navigation

Connect With Us

Copyright ©2013-2024 SMG   |  Terms of Service  |  Privacy Policy