Plotting IBM Micro’s Future


It’s been a wild ride for IBM’s Microelectronics Group. Neither IBM, nor the other parties involved, have made any public comments about the recent events concerning IBM Micro. Much of the drama has played out in the media. Based on those reports, here’s a rough outline of the events. Not long ago, IBM put its loss-ridden chip unit on the block to shore up the company’s bottom lin... » read more

The Week In Review: Design


Tools Cadence rolled out a custom power integrity tool for dealing with transistor-level electromigration and IR drop with SPICE-level accuracy. It works in conjunction with the company’s existing power integrity tool for cell-level power signoff. Open-Silicon established a high-speed SerDes technology center of excellence to speed design and production of ASICs using high-speed serial co... » read more

The Week In Review: Manufacturing


Many are suffering from “fragiphoniphobia” without even realizing it, according to Kyocera. This is the fear of fragile phones and worries about the drops and spills ruining our smartphones and disrupting our lives. A recent survey from comScore revealed that 73% of consumers surveyed rated drop protection or scratch-proof/shatter-proof screens as the most desirable durability feature, whil... » read more

Next-Generation Sustainability Gets More Challenging


The semiconductor industry has made major progress on reducing energy usage and water consumption, and effectively abating its emissions, as companies made sustainability a core requirement in their design of new processes and tools. But it’s about to get considerably harder. That means more opportunities to add value with innovative technologies, and also more need for collaboration. Next... » read more

The Week In Review: Manufacturing


Here’s a sad commentary on the state of Japan’s electronics industry: Some Japanese electronics giants are converting unused factories and fabs into agricultural growing facilities, according to The Wall Street Journal. Last month, for example, Fujitsu began selling lettuce from the Aizu-Wakamatsu plant. It's officially over. IBM's talks to sell its chip unit to GlobalFoundries have offi... » read more

Improving The PPA Equation


The next generation of semiconductors may look very much like the existing generation. But like the old Porsche ads that required arrows to point to the improvements, because from the outside things basically looked the same, there should be plenty of impressive stuff inside. As the cost per transistor continues to rise at advanced nodes, the focus for most companies is no longer about shrin... » read more

The Week In Review: Manufacturing


IBM’s move to sell its chip business to GlobalFoundries may have stalled or is dead, according to the Albany Times Union and other news outlets. New York Governor Andrew Cuomo announced that the state will partner with over 100 private companies, led by GE, to launch the New York Power Electronics Manufacturing Consortium. GE will be a lead partner in a fab, housed at the CNSE Nano Tech co... » read more

Blog Review: July 16


Mentor’s Scott Salzwedel describes a conversation that could very well happen in the future and it raises an interesting idea. As medical electronics proliferate, will emergency medical teams need to include out systems engineers? Cadence’s Brian Fuller has a summer engineering project that resembles the Bridge Over the River Kwai. He should win an Oscar for this one. Ansys’ Bill ... » read more

GPUs Dominate (Again) The Green500 List


The Green500 has released its latest list of the top 500 most energy-efficient Supercomputers. The top 17 are heterogeneous systems (systems that use more than one type of processor), with the top 15 systems all using NVIDIA Kepler K20 GPUs paired with Intel Xeon CPUs. Still at the top of the list is the Tokyo Institute of Technology GSIC Center’s TSUBAME-KFC, an oil-cooled Kepler powered ... » read more

DAC’s Front Line…Soha, Chuck And Me


In Brazil the drama continues, though that may be understating what happened yesterday. I’m still rendered nearly speechless by the result from Belo Horizonte, where all sorts of history was made. Of course I’m thrilled that Germany has a chance to win its first World Cup since 1990, though like much of Fussball-fandom I’m stunned and even a bit unnerved at how easy they made it look in t... » read more

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