Career Transitions


Many people change their career path, sometimes to take on new challenges, sometimes following opportunity or money. As we learn, we develop both expertise and skill sets and in many cases expertise in one area has diminished value in another, meaning that it becomes more difficult to switch as we get older. But there are times when both knowledge and skills can be fully transferred, making the... » read more

What’s Missing In 2.5D EDA Tools


Gaps in EDA tool chains for 2.5D designs are limiting the adoption of this advanced packaging approach, which so far has been largely confined to high-performance computing. But as the rest of the chip industry begins migrating toward advanced packaging and chiplets, the EDA industry is starting to change direction. There are learning periods with all new technologies, and 2.5D advanced pack... » read more

Cadence Cerebrus In SaaS And Imagination Technologies Case Study


Artificial Intelligence (AI) has made noteworthy progress and is now ready and available for electronic design automation. The Cadence Cerebrus Intelligent Chip Explorer utilizes AI—specifically, reinforcement machine learning (ML) technology—combined with the industry-leading Cadence digital full flow to deliver better power, performance, and area (PPA) more quickly. However, this highl... » read more

ESD Alliance And SEMI Efforts To Combat Design Automation Software Piracy


Piracy is a growing concern for all software providers, especially those of us with complex and specialized software, such as chip design automation software that is expensive to develop and maintain. That’s why the Electronic System Design Alliance (ESD Alliance), a SEMI Technology Community, spearheaded an industry joint development effort to develop a server certification protocol that ... » read more

Optimizing Energy At The System Level


Power is a ubiquitous concern, and it is impossible to optimize a system's energy consumption without considering the system as a whole. Tremendous strides have been made in the optimization of a hardware implementation, but that is no longer enough. The complete system must be optimized. There are far reaching implications to this, some of which are driving the path toward domain-specific c... » read more

Changes And Challenges In Auto MCUs


Microcontrollers have been a key component in automotive for years, starting with single-core devices with limited on-chip memory for very basic functions, and evolving toward multi-core systems with more memory for more complex tasks. But as vehicles become increasingly automated, microcontrollers are changing significantly, and so is the perception of how to utilize them. These new devices ne... » read more

Design Tool Think Tank Required


When I was in the EDA industry as a technologist, there were three main parts to my role. The first was to tell customers about new technologies being developed and tool extensions that would be appearing in the next release. These were features they might find beneficial both in the projects they were undertaking today, and even more so, would apply to future projects. Second, I would try and ... » read more

Re-architecting Hardware For Energy


A lot of effort has gone into the power optimization of a system based on the RTL created, but that represents a small fraction of the possible power and energy that could be saved. The industry's desire to move to denser systems is being constrained by heat, so there is an increasing focus on re-architecting systems to reduce the energy consumed per useful function performed. Making signifi... » read more

Preparing For An AI-Driven Future In Chips


Experts at the Table: Semiconductor Engineering sat down to discuss the impact of AI on semiconductor architectures, tools, and security, with Michael Kurniawan, business strategy manager at Accenture; Kaushal Vora, senior director and head of business acceleration and ecosystem at Renesas Electronics; Paul Karazuba, vice president of marketing at Expedera; and Chowdary Yanamadala, technology s... » read more

EDA Back On Investors’ Radar


EDA is transforming from a staid but strategic sector into a hot investment market, fueled by strong earnings and growth, a clamoring for leading-edge and increasingly customized designs across new and existing markets, and the rollout of advanced technologies such as AI for a range of tools that will be needed to develop new architectures with much greater performance per watt. A confluence... » read more

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