Security Concerns Weigh Down Open-Source EDA


Open-source EDA tools are free, readily available, and growing in numbers, but many chipmakers are wary of using them due to security concerns. On the plus side, proponents say these tools can help attract fresh new talent to chip design. Yet despite their spread online — GitHub alone has more than 140 EDA-specific repositories — using visible source code can provide new avenues of attac... » read more

Chip Industry Week In Review


SK hynix and TSMC plan to collaborate on HBM4 development and next-generation packaging technology, with plans to mass produce HBM4 chips in 2026. The agreement is an early indicator for just how competitive, and potentially lucrative, the HBM market is becoming. SK hynix said the collaboration will enable breakthroughs in memory performance with increased density of the memory controller at t... » read more

Startup Funding: October 2023


Investors are betting heavily on data center technology, with October funding going to companies developing data processing units (DPUs) to accelerate a variety of tasks, a near-memory distributed dataflow architecture for AI, and liquid cooling technology. Much of this is linked to the build-out of the edge, closer to the source of the data than the cloud but not as compute-intensive. Other ... » read more

Toward Domain-Specific EDA


More companies appear to be creating custom EDA tools, but it is not clear if this trend is accelerating and what it means for the mainstream EDA industry. Whenever there is change, there is opportunity. Change can come from new abstractions, new options for optimization, or new limitations that are imposed on a tool or flow. For example, the slowing of Moore's Law means that sufficient prog... » read more

Startup Funding: January 2022


China's startups are the star of the month once again, with more companies based or co-headquartered in the country receiving funding in January 2022 than the rest of the world combined. Exact investment figures for Chinese startups are frequently not reported, but based on minimum amounts given, they raised more than the rest of the world as well. The largest round of the month went to a co... » read more

Week In Review: Design, Low Power


Marvell will acquire Innovium, a provider of Ethernet data center switches, in an all-stock transaction valued at $1.1 billion. Innovium's switching architecture is optimized for ultra-low latency, optimized power, high performance, and telemetry in cloud applications and will join Marvell's portfolio of data center products to provide "architectural choice and flexibility to meet a diverse set... » read more

Week In Review: Design, Low Power


Siemens will acquire Supplyframe, a supply chain intelligence, sourcing, and marketplace platform for the electronics industry, for $700 million. The company operates on a software-as-a-service model and will serve as the nucleus of Siemens’ digital marketplace strategy, according to Cedrik Neike, member of the Managing Board of Siemens AG. “Supplyframe’s ecosystem and marketplace intelli... » read more

Week In Review: Design, Low Power


Tools & IP Arm added two new platforms to its product roadmap: the Neoverse V1, and the Neoverse N2, the second-generation N-series platform. The V1 platform supports Scalable Vector Extensions (SVE), provides 50% better single-threaded performance over N1, and targets high-performance cloud, HPC, and machine learning applications. The N2 provides 40% higher single-threaded performance com... » read more

Startup Funding: July 2020


A number of semiconductor and design companies took in funding this month, from a mega round for a data center switch maker to seed grants for two Canadian companies and new funding for an IP marketplace. China continues to be a hot area for electric vehicles, with one company raising half a billion for its two models currently in production. For July, we highlight fifteen startups that raised ... » read more

Open Source Hardware Risks


Open-source hardware is gaining attention on a variety of fronts, from chiplets and the underlying infrastructure to the ecosystems required to support open-source and hybrid open-source and proprietary designs. Open-source development is hardly a new topic. It has proven to be a successful strategy in the Linux world, but far less so on the hardware side. That is beginning to change, fueled... » read more

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