Is Verification At A Crossroads?


As SoC verification methodologies and technologies have continued to mature, it’s an interesting time for engineering teams as they look to meet time to market goals and cut costs in an environment of cutthroat profit margins. Whether it is hardware emulation, FPGA prototyping, virtual prototyping or traditional software simulation, each platform has its strengths and drawbacks, with overl... » read more

Plug-And-Play Test Strategy For 3D ICs


As the industry transitions to 3D ICs, new test strategies are being developed to meet to two 3D IC test goals: improving the pre-packaged test quality and establishing new tests between the stacked die. Solutions for 3D IC test are developing rapidly and are based on mature technologies. In this paper, we describe a test strategy for 3D ICs based on a plug-and-play architecture that allows die... » read more

Blog Review: Feb. 26


Got enough time for verification? How about a verification conference? In preparation for DVCon, Real Intent’s Graham Bell grills a panel of experts on where design ends and verification begins. The answer: It depends. Mentor’s Dennis Brophy points to the new version of the Universal Verification Methodology as a reason to attend DVCon next week. Even if you don’t plan to attend, ther... » read more

Manufacturing Bits: Feb. 25


Intel joins DSA consortium Arkema, ASML, Intel and others have formed a new consortium in the emerging directed self-assembly (DSA) arena.The group, dubbed PLACYD, is a European funded consortium. Part of the Seventh Framework European Programme (FP7) and funded by ENIAC JU (European Technology Platform for Nanoelectronics), the project includes Arkema, CEA-Leti, STMicroelectronics, Intel,... » read more

Are Processors Running Out Of Steam?


Check out any smart phone these days and you’ll find some reference to the number of cores in the device. It’s not the number of cores that makes a difference, though—or even the clock speed at which they run. Performance depends on the underlying design for how they’re utilized, how often that happens, how much memory they share, how much interaction there is between the cores, and the... » read more

Many Stresses Impact TSVs


Too much stress in humans is typically not beneficial, and the same goes for 3D-ICs with through-silicon vias (TSVs). Stress effects here come from the fact that copper, which is the conductor of choice for the TSVs, and silicon have different coefficients of thermal expansion. “If you can imagine that a via will be etched through the silicon, copper will be deposited inside and then t... » read more

Does It Take A Catastrophe?


What makes a company search for new verification methods and tools? Sometimes organizations change, proactively, because they are wise and want to avoid problems; but sadly, more often it is a catastrophe that forces change. This was the case with a large U.S. supplier of safety-critical and high-reliability ICs. After a failed chip, it finally moved from simply verifying the analog and digi... » read more

Impact Of Illumination On Model-Based SRAF Placement For Contact Patterning


Sub-Resolution Assist Features (SRAFs) have been used extensively to improve the process latitude for isolated and semi-isolated features in conjunction with off-axis illumination. These SRAFs have typically been inserted based upon rules which assign a global SRAF size and proximity to target shapes. Additional rules govern the relationship of assist features to one another, and for random log... » read more

Blog Review: Feb. 19


Adding a GUI to an RTOS? It may sound counterintuitive, but Mentor’s Colin Walls looks at why and where they’re being used. Cadence’s Richard Goering infuses some humor into signal integrity, which could definitely use it, courtesy of Eric Bogatin and Henny Youngman. When was the last time you saw a signal integrity engineer rolling on the floor in hysterical laughter? Well, there’s ... » read more

The Week In Review: System-Level Design


Cadence bought TranSwitch’s high-speed interface IP assets. TranSwitch, which made chips for communications equipment, filed for bankruptcy in November. (The company’s Web site is no longer active.) Cadence also won a deal with Microsoft, which will use Tensilica processors in the new Xbox One audio subsystem. And Cadence rolled out HiFi Audio Tunneling for Android, which takes advantage of... » read more

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