DAC 2019: Day 1


The last time that DAC was in Las Vegas was 2001. Much has changed since then. The first day kicked off with the usual ceremonies and then two short keynotes. A change from previous years is that keynotes are now on the show floor. This is presumably to ensure that once the keynotes are over, everyone sees the vendor booths. During the commencement session, it was also announced that all cof... » read more

How To Integrate An Embedded FPGA


Choosing to add programmable logic into an SoC with an eFPGA is just the beginning. Other choices follow involving how many lookup tables (LUTs), how much routing and what topology, how will data be transferred in and out of the fabric, does data need to be coherent with system memory, how will it be programmed and tested, and what RTL functions need to be embedded into the programmable fabric ... » read more

Intellectual Property: Trust… But Verify


For those around the microelectronic component industry for many years, we have seen quite a transformation of capability, sourcing of the supply chain, and now threats to these devices that drive the technology in our world today. These integrated circuits (ICs), once so simple as a few transistors, have continued to follow Moore’s Law and are now made up of tens of billions of transistor... » read more

Adding Order And Structure To Verification


You can't improve what you can't measure, and when it comes to methodologies the notion of measurement becomes more difficult. Add in notions of the skills, capabilities and experience levels of individuals within an organization, which may affect their ability to adopt certain technologies, and it requires considerable attention. This is where concepts such as capability maturity models (CM... » read more

Analog Fault Simulation


Anand Thiruvengadam, senior staff product marketing manager at Synopsys, drills down into the need for fault simulation in analog circuits in automotive designs. » read more

Evolution Of Verification Engineers


Semiconductor Engineering sat down to discuss the implications of having an executable specification that drives verification with Hagai Arbel, chief executive officer for VTool; Adnan Hamid, chief executive office for Breker Verification; Mark Olen, product marketing manager for Mentor, a Siemens Business; Jim Hogan, managing partner of Vista Ventures; Sharon Rosenberg, senior solutions archit... » read more

In-Chip Monitoring Becoming Essential Below 10nm


Rising systemic complexity and more potential interactions in heterogeneous designs is making it much more difficult to ensure a chip, or even a block within a chip, will functioning properly without actually monitoring that behavior in real-time. Continuous and sporadic monitoring have been creeping into designs for the past couple of decades. But it hasn’t always been clear how effective... » read more

Incremental System Verification


Semiconductor Engineering sat down to discuss the implications of having an executable specification that drives verification with Hagai Arbel, chief executive officer for VTool; Adnan Hamid, chief executive office for Breker Verification; Mark Olen, product marketing manager for Mentor, a Siemens Business; Jim Hogan, managing partner of Vista Ventures; Sharon Rosenberg, senior solutions archit... » read more

Chiplet Momentum Builds, Despite Tradeoffs


Chip design is a series of tradeoffs. Some are technical, others are related to cost, competitive features or legal restrictions. But with the nascent 'chiplet' market, many of the established balance points are significantly altered, depending on market segments and ecosystem readiness. Chiplets provide an alternative mechanism for integrating intellectual property (IP) blocks into a semico... » read more

ASIC/IC Trends With A Focus On Factors Of Silicon Success


“The more you know, the more you know you don't know.” ― Aristotle, 4th C. BC When Aristotle uttered this humble aphorism, he wasn’t telling us to throw up our hands and not bother with learning. He was encouraging us to continue digging deeper, to get answers and ask questions of those answers — that the thrills and rewards of study are truly without end. This is a big part of ou... » read more

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