Blog Review: Nov. 23


Siemens EDA's Harry Foster looks at multiple data points to get a sense of effort spent in FPGA verification and increasing demand for FPGA verification engineers. Synopsys' Rimpy Chugh, Himanshu Kathuria, and Rohit Kumar Ohlayan argue that the quality of the design and testbench code is critical to a project’s success and that linting offers a comprehensive checking process for teams to s... » read more

Mastering FOWLP And 2.5D Design Is Easier Than You Think


IC packaging has come into its own, where once traditional packaging was a “necessary evil,” today’s packaging can add significant value. There is an increase in functional density and flexibility by providing a platform for heterogeneous design assembly. Where designs implemented in an SoC can become too large to yield satisfactorily and too difficult to implement on one process node, pa... » read more

EDA Tools For Quantum Chips


Commercially viable quantum computers are at least several years away, but some researchers already are questioning whether existing EDA tools will be sufficient for designing quantum chips and systems. That’s because quantum design requirements at times transcend classical rules about materials, temperature, and structure — rules that are foundational for the majority of EDA products on th... » read more

The Drive Toward Virtual Prototypes


Chipmakers are piling an increasing set of demands on virtual prototypes that go well beyond its original scope, forcing EDA companies to significantly rethink models, abstractions, interfaces, view orthogonality, and flows. The virtual prototype has been around for at least 20 years, but its role has been limited. It has largely been used as an integration and analysis platform for models t... » read more

Blog Review: Nov. 16


Siemens EDA's Jake Wiltgen explains the difference between transient and permanent faults when designing to the ISO 26262 standard, including where they come from and key ways to protect against them. Synopsys' Vikas Gautam points to how the economics of designing large SoCs is driving chiplet-based designs and the need for die-to-die standards such as UCIe, along with the key protocol verif... » read more

Improving Reliability In Automobiles


Carmakers are turning to predictive and preventive maintenance to improve the safety and reliability of increasingly electrified vehicles, setting the stage for more internal and external sensors, and more intelligence to interpret and react to the data generated by those sensors. The number of chips inside of vehicles has been steadily rising, regardless of whether they are powered by elect... » read more

Week In Review: Semiconductor Manufacturing, Test


U.S. President Joe Biden appears ready to increase pressure on Japan and the Netherlands to help block the flow of advanced chip technology to China, where it can be used to develop cutting-edge weapons. "You will see Japan and Netherlands follow our lead," U.S. Commerce Secretary Gina Raimondo told CNBC. Japan plans to budget ¥350 billion ($2.38 billion) in a research collaboration with th... » read more

Taking Power Much More Seriously


An increasing number of electronic systems are becoming limited by thermal issues, and the only way to solve them is by elevating energy consumption to a primary design concern rather than a last-minute optimization technique. The optimization of any system involves a complex balance of static and dynamic techniques. The goal is to achieve maximum functionality and performance in the smalles... » read more

Are You Paying Proper Attention To Your ESD Design Windows?


Electrostatic discharge (ESD) issues in integrated circuit (IC) chip designs have become more critical at advanced semiconductor process nodes, due to shrinking transistor dimensions and oxide layer thickness [1]. There are many ESD design rules and flows that designers check for common ESD issues, such as topological checks for the existence of ESD protection devices, current density (CD) chec... » read more

Solving Thermal Coupling Issues In Complex Chips


Rising chip and packaging complexity is causing a proportionate increase in thermal couplings, which can reduce performance, shorten the lifespan of chips, and impact overall reliability of chips and systems. Thermal coupling is essentially a junction between two devices, such as a chip and a package, or a transistor and a substrate, in which heat is transferred from one to the other. If not... » read more

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