Recently (by which I mean over the course of the past year or two), with respect to artificial intelligence (AI) at the edge (where the “internet rubber” meets the “real-world road”), I’ve been bemused and bewildered, flabbergasted and dumbfounded, and entranced and enthralled. To cut a long story short (which is opposite to the way I usually like to do things), I’ve been captivated by courageous claims and tempted by tortuous promises of delectation and delight. As I pen these words, I’m thinking about things like affordable, off-the-shelf microcontroller units (MCUs) or related single-chip ..read more

Highlights: Production-ready digital and analog design flows, powered by Synopsys.ai EDA suite, on TSMC N3/N3P and N2 drive successful results and accelerate analog design migration Certified Synopsys physical verification solution on TSMC N3P and N2 nodes accelerates full-chip physical signoff Collaboration on silicon photonics leveraging Synopsys 3DIC Compiler and Photonics IC solution and TSMC’s COUPE technology to further enhance system performance for AI and multi-die designs Broad portfolio of Synopsys Foundation and Interface IP, in development for TSMC N2/N2P,  ..read more

As I may have mentioned on occasion, when it comes to quantum computing, one of my favorite quotes comes from the Night Watch tome of Terry Pratchett Discworld series. The quote in question reads as follows: “It’s very hard to talk quantum using a language originally designed to tell other monkeys where the ripe fruit is.” You can’t argue with logic like that. Have you ever wondered what it would be like to have a conversation with a real-world incarnation of Dr. Sheldon Cooper from The Big Bang Theory? Well, I was just chatting with Dr. William “Bill” McGann, who could give Sheldon a run for ..read more

MILPITAS, Calif. — April 9, 2024 — Aiming to help the global semiconductor workforce expand its skills to address the talent gap, SEMI today announced the expansion of the SEMI University learning platform to include in-person trainings. Complementing SEMI U online courses, the semiconductor curriculum is designed for technicians, engineers and non-technical staff ranging from new hires to experienced workers looking to advance their careers. The courses cover subjects including front-end and back-end manufacturing operations, principles of chip design, and rapidly evo ..read more

Are you involved in developing SoCs? Are you banging your head against the wall, desperately trying to determine why you aren’t obtaining the performance promised by the providers of your processor, interconnect, and DDR memory controller IPs? Do I have good news for you? (Spoiler alert. The answer to the last question is a resounding “Yes!”) In many ways I envy the young engineers who are coming up today because they have such awesome technologies to play with. On the hardware side, they can create sophisticated SoCs containing billions of transistors implemented in eye-wateringly small semi ..read more

The awesome new AMD devices to which I’ve just been introduced have sparked a trip down memory lane (I know you’re surprised, because I pride myself on my laser-like focus that prevents me from wandering off into the weeds). I remember the 1970s and early 1980s when we thought the simple programmable logic devices (PLDs) of the time were so cool. Those were heady days when chip manufacturers tried to outdo each other by constantly coming up with new architectures based on different incarnations of AND and OR arrays. The chips’ creators also had lots of fun conceiving new acronyms based on the ..read more

Like so many of the technologies we take for granted today, I managed to find myself embroiled in the very early days of hardware emulation. This refers to the process of imitating the behavior of one piece of hardware (typically a silicon chip you are in the process of designing) with another piece of hardware (typically a special-purpose emulation system). For the purposes of these discussions, I’m going to throw the term application-specific integrated circuit (ASIC) around with gusto and abandon. However, everything I say in this column is equally applicable to application-specific standa ..read more

Kuala Lumpur, 19 March 2024 – With the Southeast Asia semiconductor sector attracting growing worldwide investments as more regions diversify their supply chains, the stage is set for SEMICON Southeast Asia 2024 as visionaries and experts gather May 28-30 at MITEC in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia for insights into the latest industry developments, trends and innovations and critical areas including sustainability, smart manufacturing, and workforce development. Registration is open. Themed Boosting Agility and Resiliency of the Global Electronics Supply Chain, SEMICON So ..read more

News Highlights: Announces Synopsys.ai customer momentum with applications including DSO.ai and VSO.ai delivering significant improvements in PPA, turn-around time, and more; Drives multi-die design innovation with Platform Architect – Multi-Die and new Synopsys.ai capability, 3DSO.ai, for AI-driven 3D design space optimization using native thermal analysis; Unveils new state-of-the-art hardware-assisted verification systems for faster, higher capacity emulation and prototyping; Announces new Synopsys Cloud Hybrid Solution, enabling seamless “burst to cloud” EDA capability; Fur ..read more

Enabling Synopsys’ industry-leading full AI-driven EDA stack on the NVIDIA GH200 Grace Hopper Superchip; projecting up to 15x run-time gains across design, verification, simulation and manufacturing Integrating Synopsys.ai generative AI capabilities for chip design with the NVIDIA AI Enterprise software platform — including NVIDIA microservices — and NVIDIA accelerated computing infrastructure Extending Synopsys automotive virtual prototyping solutions with NVIDIA Omniverse to deliver next-generation digital twins SUNNYVALE, Calif., March 18, 2024 – Building on more than three deca ..read more