Reduced Power To The People!


Fifteen years ago, many of us involved in writing the design chapter of the ITRS (International Technology Roadmap for Semiconductors) already knew that power/energy consumption eventually would become a major problem for the industry’s growth. Engineers developing microprocessors (CPUs and DSPs) and graphics engines (GPUs) led the wave of predictions, because extrapolating known trend data s... » read more

Test Challenges Grow


Semiconductor Engineering sat down to discuss current and future test challenges with Dave Armstrong, director of business development at Advantest; Steve Pateras, product marketing director for Silicon Test Solutions at Mentor Graphics; Robert Ruiz, senior product marketing manager at Synopsys; Mike Slessor, president of FormFactor; and Dan Glotter, chief executive of Optimal+. SE: In our ... » read more

Blog Review: April 2


Mentor’s Nazita Saye compares roadway roundabouts to networked systems. One roundabout works fine, but add in a bunch of them and you have a massive traffic jam. How many roundabouts are in your design? Cadence’s Richard Goering interviews Stan Kroliskoski, chair of the IEEE Design Automation Standards Committee, about four working groups on EDA standards and what’s ahead. Speaking ... » read more

Get Ready For DVCon Europe


By Martin Barnasconi DVCon Europe, a new conference and exhibition around design and verification, will be held Oct. 14-15 in Munich, Germany. Call for abstracts for DVCon Europe is open through April 8. The obvious question is why DVCon Europe. DVCon and its predecessor conferences have been held successfully in the Silicon Valley for more than 20 years. The conference is extremely success... » read more

450mm Standards Update


By Kevin Nguyen SEMI has published more than 19 Standards for 450mm generation.  New standards are being created to facilitate supplier and user for material and equipment.  Revisions to published standards are needed as improvements are constantly identified. The Japan Assembly & Packaging Technical Committee (TC) Chapter has initiated document 5636 in effort to meet the demand... » read more

The Week In Review: Design


Tools Synopsys rolled out a new version of its software technologies for static and formal verification, which it says increases performance by up to five times. Also new are improved debug and low-power verification with native power simulation, and an integrated IP portfolio. Cadence uncorked a new version of its PCB and packaging environment, which it says speeds up timing closure by as ... » read more

Abstractions: The Good, Bad And Ugly


Raising the level of abstraction has become almost a mantra among chipmakers and tools developers. By moving the vantage point up a couple rungs on the ladder, it’s easier to see how the individual parts of a design go together, to identify problems in the design as well as fixes to problems, and it all can happen much more quickly. That’s the theory, at least. And in most cases, it’s ... » read more

A Perspective On Open Process Specification


It is the job of the Process Design Kit (PDK) engineers to deliver a high-quality PDK that properly represents the process requirements and constraints and supports the design flows used by their customers. The PDK engineer takes multiple inputs describing the process and the devices and circuitry in the process and generates the output in the form of OpenAccess technology libraries (techDB), d... » read more

Defining The Next Standard Cell


Synopsys, Intel and IBM all contributed technology to Si2 to create a standard version of parameterized cells, or PCells, for mixed-signal designs. The move is an attempt to smooth out design incompatibilities using Synopsys and Cadence technology. Cadence is the clear market leader in this space. But as more technology is developed using different vendors'  tools for integration in complex... » read more

Experts At The Table: What’s Missing In The IoT


Semiconductor Engineering sat down to discuss the future of the IoT with Oleg Logvinov, director of market development for STMicroelectronics’ Industrial and Power Conversion Division; Martin Lund, senior vice president of the IP Group at Cadence; Naveed Sherwani, president and CEO of Open-Silicon; and Damon Hernandez, a member of the Web3D Consortium. What follows are excerpts of that conver... » read more

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