Dissolving The Barriers In Multi-Substrate 3D-IC Assembly Design


Advanced packaging continues to promise improved form factor, cost, performance, and functionality compared to the traditional transistor scaling on SoCs. This is done by integrating multiple dies on top of a substrate (organic or silicon). Besides multiple dies, multiple substrates can typically exist in a 3D-IC assembly. In this case, the benefits of advanced packaging are taken to a whole ne... » read more

Dependable Verification Is The Foundation ICs Require


As our world becomes increasingly high-tech, it is easy to lose sight of the little things that make all of our fancy gadgets achieve optimal performance. The one thread that enables you to get all of the benefits of a new laptop, tablet, smartphone, or your automobile’s digital dashboard and connects the components that ensure best performance is the integrated circuit (IC). For as breath... » read more

EDA In The Cloud Is Driving Semiconductor Innovation


In the past decade, the move towards cloud computing occurred primarily in sectors like finance, retail, and healthcare, with the emergence of leading public cloud vendors such as Amazon Web Services (AWS), Microsoft Azure, Google Cloud Platform, and others accelerating the trend. However, the chip design industry has been slower to adopt cloud computing. In the current highly competitive en... » read more

Improving Predictability Through Design Solutions Methodologies


“Plans are useless, but planning is indispensable.” – Dwight D. Eisenhower Our first article called for the need to change how we think about verification. In this follow-up, we dive deeper into the tools needed for today’s verification. Project milestones are destined to move. Development estimates are rough and almost always optimistic. Each development stage contains interdepe... » read more

Debug Solutions For Designers Accelerate Time To Verification


Complexity continues to explode as designs become larger and more complicated with more functionality and more aggressive expectations. The cost of doing business as usual, for the entire design and verification team, in turn, grows exponentially, in terms of time, effort, and dollars. Fig. 1: Discovering issues later than possible requires more effort to find and fix. (Source: Wilson Rese... » read more

Can We Efficiently Automate 2.5/3D IC ESD Protection Verification?


Protection against ESD events (commonly referred to as ESD robustness) is an extremely important aspect of integrated circuit (IC) design and verification, including 2.5/3D designs. ESD events cause severe damage to ICs due to a sudden and unexpected flow of electrical current between two electrically charged objects. This current may be caused by contact, an electrical short, or dielectric bre... » read more

In-Design Signoff DRC For Productivity Improvement


Microsemi, a wholly-owned subsidiary of Microchip Technology, produces a portfolio of semiconductor and system solutions for communications, defense and security, aerospace, and industrial markets. In addition to high-performance and radiation-hardened analog/mixed-signal integrated circuits, FPGAs, SoCs and ASICs, they also design power management products, timing and synchronization devices, ... » read more

Robust Variation-Aware Smart Power Designs For Silicon Success


Power management ICs (PMICs) is a rapidly growing segment in the semiconductor industry. The growth has been fueled by the demand for Smart Power applications that include wearable electronics, mobile computing platforms, printers, hard disk drives (HDD), IoT devices, and the full array of automotive applications. According to a report from market research firm Coherent Market Insights, the gl... » read more

Shifting Left: Early Multi Physics Analysis For STCO


With the economics of transistor scaling no longer universally applicable, the industry is turning to innovative packaging technologies to support system scaling demands and achieve lower system cost. This has led to the emergence of a system technology co-optimization (STCO) approach, in which an SoC is disaggregated into smaller modules (also known as chiplets) that can be asynchronously desi... » read more

Signoff DRC In P&R Lets You Get Better Products To Market Faster


Trust is generally a reflection of quality. You trust someone, be it an individual or a company, because they have, over time, consistently performed high-quality work. You trust a product because your past experience with that product has been positive, or the experiences of lots of other people have been positive. With that said, quality comes in shades and percentages. Most of us will happil... » read more

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