How Semiconductor IP Became Critical To SoC Design


By Mark Templeton In 1991, I had the good fortune to be a member of the founding team of Artisan Components. We started the company believing that demand was about to appear for semiconductor intellectual property. We had a few data points. We knew that before a company could start a new chip project, they first had to design and verify all kinds of generic building blocks – things like ... » read more

The Emergence Of The OpenDataPlane Standard


With the great expansion of networks to encompass exabytes of traffic, billions of mobile devices, and billions more endpoints in the Internet of Things, a new era of creative network usage and applications is upon us. The exciting advances in network services ― such as 4G and 5G ― are leading to the acknowledgement by silicon vendors and application developers of the important role of work... » read more

Blog Review: May 6


How do you choose between bulk planar transistors, FinFETs, and FD-SOI? Cadence's Richard Goering got some answers during a session at the Electronic Design Process Symposium. Check out the Q&A in the second part, too. Synopsys' Michael Posner tackles a question about the differences between a prototyping bridge and hybrid prototypes and the limitations each has to solve various kinds of... » read more

One-On-One: Dark Possibilities


Professor Michael Taylor’s research group at UC San Diego is studying ways to exploit dark silicon to optimize circuit designs for energy efficiency. He spoke with Semiconductor Engineering about the post-Dennard scaling regime, energy efficiency from integrated circuits all the way up to data centers, and how the manufacturing side can help. What follows are excerpts of that conversation. (P... » read more

Blog Review: April 29


Start your engines. At the Western US Freescale Cup, ARM's Sadanand Gulwadi had a front-row seat to the ingenuity displayed in autonomous model car racing. From turning an abandoned factory into the world's largest indoor farm to the millions invested in mining passing asteroids, Ansys' Bill Vandermark celebrates a week of Earth Day with his top five picks to read. "There is no Department... » read more

Problems Ahead For EDA


You may have discovered that the Semiconductor Engineering Knowledge Center (KC) provides various ways in which data can be viewed. One way is to see what events happened in a given year. During the 1990s, company activity in terms of new startups and acquisitions reached a peak, and in 1997 there were at least 29 startups that the KC contains and 25 companies acquired (let us know if there wer... » read more

The Week In Review: Design/IoT


Mergers & Acquisitions Synopsys continued expansion into the software security market with the acquisition of Codenomicon. The Finnish company was in the headlines this time last year when it discovered the Heartbleed bug during product testing. Tools Mentor Graphics released Calibre xACT, a parasitic extraction platform which automatically optimizes extraction techniques based on ... » read more

Tech Talk: Virtual Prototyping


Bill Neifert, CTO of Carbon Design Systems, talks with about the intersection of IP and EDA, driven in particular by ARM's new architecture. [youtube vid=1OopYWmRarE] » read more

Blog Review: April 22


DARPA thinks machine-brain interfaces are poised to become an industry-changing technology. Rambus' David G. Stork brings us emerging developments in the field from the Neural Engineering Boot Camp. If you live in an area that doesn't get quite enough sun for solar panels, how about a smart window that harvests energy from wind and rain? In this week's top five picks, Ansys' Justin Nescott a... » read more

The Week In Review: Design/IoT


Mergers & Acquisitions ARM made two acquisitions related to Bluetooth radio: Wicentric, a Bluetooth Smart stack and profile provider, and Sunrise Micro Devices (SMD), a provider of sub-one volt Bluetooth radio IP. The IP of both companies will be integrated to form ARM's new low-power radio IP portfolio. Numbers EDA revenue grew 11.9% in Q4 2014 to $2.1 billion, a new record for th... » read more

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