The Cloud, The IoE, And You


If you’re anywhere in the high-tech biz, the two terms that are rocking your world are the Internet of Everything and the Cloud. Whether you are on the inside track of these, or on the sidelines, they are going to be two of the most disruptive technologies of the 21st century. The cloud is already here and gaining momentum. Some people will argue that the cloud has been here since the ince... » read more

The New Face of Formal


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 R&D, verification group at [getentity id="22035" e_name="Synopsys"], Harry Foster, chief scientist at [getentity id="22017" e_name="Mentor Graphics"], Normando... » read more

More Choices, Less Certainty


The increasing cost of feature scaling is splintering the chip market, injecting uncertainty into a global supply chain that has been continually fine-tuned for decades. Those with deep enough resources and a clear need for density will likely follow Moore's Law, at least until 7nm. What comes after that will depend on a variety of factors ranging from available lithography—EUV, multi-bea... » read more

Making IP Secure


[getkc id="43" comment="IP"] security is coming under increasing scrutiny as concerns about system and hardware security escalate. For IP, this is particularly critical because commercially available IP touches many players in the semiconductor and software ecosystem. IP users want to ensure they are using the IP as the provider intended and that they are protected against malicious code. IP... » read more

HW Vs. SW: Who’s Leading Whom?


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


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


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


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

China’s Fab Tool Biz Heats Up


For years, China has been a steady growth market for suppliers of semiconductor equipment. Internally, though, the country is comprised of trailing-edge fabs and IC-assembly houses, which means equipment vendors sell relatively mature tools and compete on price. That’s about to change, however. Today, the IC equipment business is heating up in China as the nation begins to upgrade and pour... » read more

Will The Chip Work?


As the number of possible issues mount for integrating IP into complex chips, so does the focus on solving these issues. What becomes quickly apparent to anyone integrating multiple IP blocks is that one size doesn't fit all, either from an IP or a tools standpoint. There is no single solution because there is no single way of putting IP together. Each architecture is unique, and each brings... » read more

← Older posts Newer posts →