The Week In Review: Manufacturing


China’s Jiangsu Changjiang Electronics Technology (JCET) has made a bid to acquire STATS ChipPAC for $780 million, according to reports. This year’s top-20 chip ranking includes two pure-play foundries--TSMC and UMC--and six fabless companies, according to IC Insights. GlobalFoundries is forecast to be replaced in this year’s top 20 ranking by fabless IC supplier Nvidia, according to t... » read more

Week In Review: Manufacturing, Design, Test


Look for a nasty political campaign in Idaho, according to Bloomberg. Business leaders from Micron Technology and others in Idaho are endorsing the incumbent Republican candidate over a Tea Party challenger. The challenger, Bryan Smith, is a conservative Republican running for Idaho’s second congressional district. He is running against 16-year incumbent Mike Simpson. Simpson is supposedly pr... » read more

The Next Big Threat: Power And Performance


In the shiny world of consumer electronics and powerful computers, taking a grinder to the outside of a package may sound more like safecracking than sophisticated electronic code hacking. The reality is there is more in common than most semiconductor companies would like to admit, and the starting point often is just as crude. To no small extent, systems on chip have become miniature safes.... » read more

SPOTLIGHT ON FD-SOI, FINFETS AT IEEE SOI CONFERENCE
;1-4 OCT, NAPA


The 38th annual SOI Conference is coming right up. Sponsored by IEEE Electron Devices Society, this is the only dedicated SOI conference covering the full technology chain from materials to devices, circuits and system applications. Chaired this year by Gosia Jurczak (manager of the Memories Program at imec), this excellent conference is well worth attending. It’s where the giants of the ... » read more

A Brief History Of Power Formats


Barry Pangrle A lot has happened in the industry in the way of power format standards over the past seven years. I’m going to attempt to hit on some of the highlights over that time period, especially with regards to the “Big 3” EDA vendors to hopefully put it all into better context for our readers. Early on, circa 2005, Mentor Graphics was working on a power format referred to as th... » read more

5 Ways To Cut Power


By Ed Sperling Low energy consumption with minimal leakage has emerged as the most competitive element in an IC design, regardless of whether it involves a plug, a battery, or whether it’s powered by a gasoline engine. While components on an SoC aren’t always power-aware, they’ll have to be in the future as consumers focus first on energy efficiency. With rising fuel costs, a concern ... » read more

The Rising Stake In Software Tools


By Ed Sperling The growing importance of software and off-the-shelf IP in semiconductor design is beginning to change the dynamics of the entire EDA tools business, setting off a string of acquisitions as the largest players realign themselves to take advantage of this shift. The most recent example: Mentor Graphics’ acquisition this week of CodeSourcery, a GNU-based Linux toolchain and s... » read more

Moving To Open-Source Software


By Ann Steffora Mutschler With the typical cost of software accounting for 40% to 60% of an SoC, semiconductor OEMs are under more pressure than ever to meet margins. As a result, they are drawing on their ecosystem partners to provide a more complete foundation including hardware, software, FPGA prototypes, verification IP and virtual models, as well as an increasing demand for open source so... » read more

Experts At The Table: Evolving Standards


System-Level Design sat down with Keith Barkley, senior engineer in IBM’s systems and technology group; Steven Schulz, president and CEO of Silicon Integration Initiative (Si2); Yatin Trivedi, director of standards and interoperability programs at Synopsys; Ian Mackintosh, chairman of the OCP International Partnership (OCPIP), and Michael Meredith, vice president of technical marketing at For... » read more

NoC Your SoCs Off


By Ed Sperling The network on a chip (NoC) approach is gaining ground as an essential part of a system on a chip (SoC), providing the same kind of time-to-market advantage that well-tested intellectual property blocks provide. This follows almost eight years of hype about NoCs potential with little to show for it. Times have changed and there appear to be two main drivers, one technological a... » read more

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