Less Margin, More Respins, And New Markets


Semiconductor Engineering sat down to discuss the impact of multi-physics and new market applications on chip design with John Lee, general manager and vice president of ANSYS' Semiconductor Business Unit; Simon Burke, distinguished engineer at Xilinx; Duane Boning, professor of electrical engineering and computer science at MIT; and Thomas Harms, director EDA/IP Alliance at Infineon. What foll... » read more

Influence Of SiGe On Parasitic Parameters in PMOS


In this paper, simulation-based design-technology co-optimization (DTCO) is carried out using the Coventor SEMulator3D virtual fabrication platform with its integrated electrical analysis capabilities [1]. In our study, process modeling is used to predict the sensitivity of FinFET device performance to changes in a silicon germanium epitaxial process. The simulated process is a gate-last flow p... » read more

The Race For Better Computational Software


Anirudh Devgan, president of Cadence, sat down with Semiconductor Engineering to talk about computational software, why it's so critical at the edge and in AI systems, and where the big changes are across the semiconductor industry. What follows are excerpts of that conversation. SE: There is no consistent approach to how data will be processed at the edge, in part because there is no consis... » read more

Debug Tools Are Improving


Semiconductor Engineering sat down to discuss debugging complex SoCs with Randy Fish, vice president of strategic accounts and partnerships for UltraSoC; Larry Melling, product management director for Cadence; Mark Olen, senior product marketing manager for Mentor, a Siemens Business; and Dominik Strasser, vice president of engineering for OneSpin Solutions. Part one can be found here. Part two... » read more

Reusable UPF: Transitioning From RTL To Gate Level Verification


This paper highlights the differences between an RTL UPF and a Gate Level Simulation UPF, and presents a new methodology to write RTL UPF in such a way that minimal changes are required during gate-level power verification. To read more, click here. » read more

New Approaches For Hardware Security


Semiconductor Engineering sat down to discuss a wide range of hardware security issues and possible solutions with Norman Chang, chief technologist for the Semiconductor Business Unit at ANSYS; Helena Handschuh, fellow at Rambus, and Mike Borza, principal security technologist at Synopsys. What follows are excerpts of that conversation. (L-R) Norman Chang, Helena Handschuh, Mike Borza. Pho... » read more

Hybrid Emulation Takes Center Stage


From mobile to networking to AI applications, system complexity shows no sign of slowing. These designs, which may contain multiple billion gates, must be validated, verified and tested, and it’s no longer possible to just throw the whole thing in a hardware emulator. For some time, emulation, FPGA-based prototyping, and virtual environments such as simulators have given design and verific... » read more

How To Optimize Verification


The rate of improvement in verification tools and methodologies has been nothing short of staggering, but that has created new kinds of problems for verification teams. Over the past 20 years, verification has transformed from a single language (Verilog) and tool (simulator) to utilizing many languages (testbench languages, assertion languages, coverage languages, constraint languages), many... » read more

Paving The Way To Autonomous Driving


Over the past couple weeks, four major carmakers began pairing off to jointly develop autonomous vehicles. Numerous reports say Ford will sign a deal with Volkswagen, and BMW is working on Level 4 self-driving vehicles with Daimler, the parent of Mercedes Benz. While this speaks volumes about the enormous cost of developing artificial intelligence systems to drive vehicles, it also points th... » read more

5G OTA Test Not Ready For Production


5G is poised to dominate the wireless world, but over-the-air (OTA) testing of 5G beamforming antennas is still not ready for volume production. Beamforming is a critical element in the millimeter wave version of 5G, because of the limitations of ultra-high-frequency signals. Unlike 4G and its predecessors, millimeter wave technology will not penetrate objects, so signals need to be directed... » read more

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