Author's Latest Posts


One-To-Many: Shifting Left, Adding Gears


[getperson id="11034" comment="Aart de Geus"], chairman and co-CEO of [getentity id="22035" e_name="Synopsys"], launched into high gear for his keynote talk at this year’s Design and Verification Conference (DVCon). The gathering attracted a record number of attendees, and it is estimated that about 350 people crammed into the room to listen to him talk about the shift left that is happening ... » read more

Biz Talk: Funding Strategies


Michel Courtoy, VP of marketing and business development at Kilopass, and a former member of the M&A group at Cadence , talks with Semiconductor Engineering about EDA startups, where to find funding, how long it takes to get established, and new exit strategies. [youtube vid=RMkuMiqb10M] » read more

Incremental Design Methodologies


There are times when we become stuck in the past, or choose to believe something that is no longer true or actually never was true. As we get older, we are all guilty of that. History tends to rewrite itself, especially given that this industry is aging. One of these situations occurred recently, and comments from an industry luminary didn’t align with the thoughts and memories of other peopl... » read more

First Time Success And Cost Control


First time success has been the ultimate goal for semiconductor companies due to escalating mask costs, as well as a guiding objective for the development of EDA tools, especially in the systems and verification space. These pressures are magnified for the [getkc id="76" comment="Internet of Things"] (IoT), especially the edge devices. Have system-level tools been able to contribute to first ti... » read more

Feathers Ruffled By IEEE Patent License Changes


Standards are essential for any market to grow. Products that are completely proprietary tend to serve small niche markets whereas those based on standards can grow through collaborations, independent content creation, and many other ways. Just think about where we would be if there were no communications standards – no WiFi, no cellular standards. You would be locked into buying all of your ... » read more

Who Pays For EDA Shift Left?


While working on the predictions articles for 2015 (markets, design, semiconductors, tools and flows), a number of companies talked about the great shift left that is happening in the industry. What was surprising was the number of companies that mentioned it, and in very different ways. It is clear that shift left does not mean the same thing to all people. While they all see it addressing ... » read more

With Responsibility Comes Power


The debate continues as to whether [getkc id="106" kc_name="power"] has risen to become a primary design consideration, or if it remains secondary to functionality and performance. What is indisputable is the rise in the importance of both power and energy conservation. As technology improves, additional aspects of the design flow are being affected. With that, the focus for power reduction is ... » read more

Accellera Adds Portable Stimulus Group


[getentity id="22028" e_name="Accellera"] created a working group for the portable test and stimulus, which would allow engineering teams to create the test once and be able to run it throughout the flow. This is a big deal in verification because it allows horizontal reuse of a [getkc id="55" kc_name="testbench"]. Test patterns run on the processors in a design and that enables the test to ... » read more

Software-Driven Verification (Part 3)


[getkc id="10" comment="Functional Verification"] has been powered by tools that require hardware to look like the kinds of systems that were being designed two decades ago. Those limitations are putting chips at risk and a new approach to the problem is long overdue. Semiconductor Engineering sat down with Frank Schirrmeister, group director, product marketing for System Development Suite at [... » read more

New Market Expectations For 2015


This year more than 26 people provided predictions for 2015. Most of these came from the EDA industry, so the results may be rather biased. However, ecosystems are coming closer together in many parts of the semiconductor food chain, meaning that the EDA companies often can see what is happening in dependent industries and in the system design houses. Thus their predictions may have already res... » read more

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