Tech Talk: 16nm-14nm Effects And Challenges


Arvind Shanmugavel from Apache Design talks with Semiconductor Engineering about electromigration, electrostatic discharge and thermal effects caused by increasing power density in finFETs.   [youtube vid=GOra5uYyIr8] » read more

Buying And Selling EDA Companies


EDA, arguably more than any other industry, has been built on the backs of engineering breakthroughs by startups. In aggregate, those startups are the backbone of tools that have made cell phones smart and which helped improved gas mileage on automobiles. Through an almost continuous stream of acquisitions, these startups have added to the top-line valuation of big EDA companies, and despite th... » read more

Blog Review: Oct. 16


Cadence’s Richard Goering follows Si2’s move into SPICE modeling following the acquisition of the Compact Model Council. Combining standards groups is a growing trend these days. Mentor’s Colin Walls points to the demise of reset buttons. You can always trip a circuit breaker, and usually turn off a device by pulling out the battery, but a reset button is simpler. Where did they go? ... » read more

The Brave New World Of FinFETs


SoCs using 16nm and 14nm finFETs are expected to begin rolling out next year using a 20nm back-end-of-line process. While the initial performance and power numbers are looking very promising, the challenges of designing and building these complex chips are daunting—and there are more problems on the way. First, the good news. Initial results from foundries show a 150% improvement in perfor... » read more

Technologies For Power, Signal, Thermal, And EMI Sign-Off For Chip-Package-PCB Designs


Over the past few years, there has been a marked shift in the way people communicate and use computers. Some of the key changes include the prevalence of mobile internet connected devices such as smartphones and netbooks, the shift to cloud computing using larger centralized data centers, and the increase of electronics in automobiles for guidance, infotainment, and safety control systems. The ... » read more

Transient Current Crunch


When Intel talks, people listen. So when Intel executive VP Dadi Perlmutter said in a keynote at ISSCC in 2012 that transient power noise was one of the most limiting aspects of the chip design process—and how the package and the board inductance are limiting how low they can take the supply voltage—it showed the gravity of the challenge of effectively managing transient power. Transient po... » read more

Reliability Challenges In 16nm FinFET Design


As the IC industry rapidly adopts the 16nm technology node, IC designers are faced with a new wave of reliability challenges. The 16nm node has introduced several changes in the way that the devices are fabricated and how the metal stack-up is built. On one hand designers gain speed, leakage and density improvements. On the other, reliability engineers need to address the narrowing electromigra... » read more

On-Chip MCUs Excel At Power Management


By Ann Steffora Mutschler When it comes to supplying power to an SoC, there is an increasing trend to make it more intelligent—how to control it more accurately, how it is monitored and how it communicates with different aspects of the chip. Traditional power supply models with analog supplies have less of this control, so a number of engineering teams are considering the use of on-chip m... » read more

Buying And Selling EDA Companies


By Ed Sperling Buying companies is the easy part. Integrating them is the hard part. It’s also the point where most acquisitions that go awry actually run into problems. There are widely different strategies for how to accomplish integration. Sometimes they work, other times they don’t. And sometimes both companies are surprised by the outcome—for better or worse. “Either you thi... » read more

Buying And Selling EDA Companies


By Ed Sperling The rule of thumb for mergers and acquisitions is that the majority will fail. So why, despite concerns about big companies buying up the tools of startups, does EDA’s track record look so good? There are a number of answers that are unique to the EDA industry: There is no manufacturing that needs to be absorbed by the acquirer, which greatly simplifies any deal. Sale... » read more

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