Blog Review: May 27


Mentor's Neil Johnson takes a look at achieving a practical verification methodology starting with an exclusively constrained random flow and building up by adding techniques and gauging the consequences. Cadence's Paul McLellan explains the history of neural networks and how we've been trying to mimic the brain for decades, only to see funding dry up until a sudden resurgence of annotated i... » read more

Semiconductor Equipment Growth Resumes For 2020


The December Global Purchasing Managers Index was in zero growth territory (PMI = 50). However, the various country components varied significantly. With IHS Markit PMI data as a gauge of manufacturing activity, following are how some key electronics-producing countries and regions finished 2019. World Manufacturing Growth Flat to Start 2020 (Chart 1) To quote IHS Markit’s chief eco... » read more

Blog Review: Jan. 22


Synopsys' Taylor Armerding explains different types of social engineering scams that target everyone from CEOs to gamers to smart appliance users, and what training and tools can better protect people and their organizations. Mentor's Dennis Joseph points to some important things to consider if you're thinking about switching from GDS to OASIS and some tips for converting files. Cadence's... » read more

Early 2020 Looks Promising For Semi Industry


Reports of 2Q’19 financials from all of the major OEMs in our 213 company global sample show that their electronic equipment sales declined 1.4 percent compared to the same quarter of last year (Chart 1). This OEM group’s combined sales growth peaked in 2018 and then declined and was still falling in the second quarter of this year (Chart 2). Seasonality and currency exchange related ele... » read more

Electronics Industry Business Cycles Look Promising


Although total electronics industry manufacturing activity is still far from expanding (3/12 is below 1.0), key global electronic industry monthly time series appear to have reached their 3/12 bottoms and now have begun to improve (Chart 1). Currently shipments are still shrinking, but at slowing rates. However real growth will only occur when these 3/12s exceed 1.0. Growth rates vary b... » read more

Blog Review: May 22


Synopsys' Taylor Armerding warns that critical infrastructure is still vulnerable to cyber threats, with Kaspersky finding that 42.7% of the industrial control system computers it protected last year were attacked by malware, email phishing, or other threats. Cadence's Paul McLellan listens in as Jon Masters of Red Hat considers how to tackle speculative execution and branch prediction vulne... » read more

Blog Review: April 17


In a video, Mentor's Colin Walls digs into power management in embedded software with a particular look at the Power Pyramid model. Synopsys' Taylor Armerding checks out the state of application security at this year's RSA and finds that while organizations are paying attention to security through training and dedicated teams, roadblocks still remain. Cadence's Paul McLellan considers how... » read more

Blog Review: Feb. 27


Mentor's Harry Foster checks out the trends in language and library adoption for IC/ASIC designs and finds increased adoption of SystemVerilog for both design and verification while UVM remains the dominant verification methodology. Synopsys' Taylor Armerding chats with Chris Clark of Synopsys and Tim Weisenberger of SAE about the weakest points in automotive security and why it's time to mo... » read more

Blog Review: June 27


Applied Materials' Sundeep Bajikar argues that to realize the full potential of AI, new computing architectures are necessary, otherwise AI will quickly become unaffordable. Synopsys' Iain Singleton considers why it may not always be necessary to start at the reset state during formal verification and how to use abstractions to get a head start on bug hunting. Cadence's Meera Collier look... » read more