Can Nano-Patterning Save Moore’s Law?


For years the academic community has explored a novel technology called selective deposition. Then, more than a year ago, Intel spearheaded an effort to bring the technology from the lab to the fab at 7nm or 5nm. Today, selective deposition is still in R&D, but it is gaining momentum in the industry. With R&D funding from Intel and others, selective deposition, sometimes called ALD-e... » read more

Stop Getting Burned By Power Consumption Surprises


Very rarely these days do we get silicon back and find that we have missed our timing or test constraints by a significant margin. We have robust EDA tools, libraries and design methodologies in place to ensure that we can cleanly signoff against these constraints. However, we do continue to see too many unfortunate “surprises” in silicon related power (energy) consumption and thermal issue... » 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

Raising The IQ Of Your MEMS-Based IC Design Flow


By Nicolas Williams and Qi Jing Internet of Things (IoT) applications depend on smart objects that interact with the real world. So your IoT project is likely to contain ICs that integrate micro electro-mechanical systems (MEMS), such as accelerometers, pressure sensors, motors, and microphones that acquire data for analysis. These projects are finding their way into automobiles, phones, and... » read more

Abstraction: Necessary But Evil


Abstraction allows aspects of a design to be described in an executable form much earlier in the flow. But some abstractions are breaking down, and an increasing amount of lower-level information has to be brought upstream in order to provide estimates that are close enough to reality so informed decisions can be made. The value of abstractions in design cannot be overstated. High levels of ... » read more

Looking Back At The IoT?


No one can claim the IoT suffers from a lack of attention. A quick search of ProQuest for all mentions of the phrase “Internet of Things” since 2005 turns up 1.5 million results, or more than 400 pieces of content a day. That trumps many other topics, tech-related or otherwise, over the same period of time. For comparison: “smart phone” (478K results), “Apple Computer” (362K results... » read more

Executive Insight: Lip-Bu Tan


Lip-Bu Tan, president and CEO of Cadence, sat down with Semiconductor Engineering to talk about consolidation, Moore's Law, and where the opportunities are in the IoT and automotive markets. What follows are excerpts of that conversation. SE: What are the big concerns for the semiconductor industry in general, and EDA in particular? Tan: Top on my list is all the consolidation that's goin... » read more

EDA, IP Numbers Up


EDA and IP numbers increased another 8.5% in Q2, with all regions but Japan showing positive growth. Total revenue was $1.91 billion for the quarter, up from $1.76 billion in Q2 of 2014. The largest category, computer-aided engineering, was $657.2 million for the quarter, up 9.6% compared with the same period last year. IC physical design was $379.2 million, up 6% year over year, and IP was ... » read more

Is The 2.5D Supply Chain Ready?


A handful of big semiconductor companies began taking the wraps off 2.5D and fan-out packaging plans in the past couple of weeks, setting the stage for the first major shift away from Moore's Law in 50 years. Those moves coincide with reports of commercial [getkc id="82" kc_name="2.5D"] chips from chip assemblers and foundries that are now under development. There have been indications for... » read more

Is HW Or SW Running the Show?


In the past, hardware was designed and then passed over to the software team for them to add their contribution to the product. This worked when the amount of software content was small and the practice did not significantly contribute to product delays. Over time, the software content grew and today it is generally accepted that software accounts for more product expense than hardware, takes l... » read more

← Older posts Newer posts →