News
Accellera, Spirit Consortium merger hints at future of ESL design 6/11/2009
The merger aims to bridge the language-based design and IP-assembly worlds and will exploit the fact that the two organizations have been working in complementary areas of front-end design and verification.Akya reveals dynamically reconfigurable logic technology 5/28/2009
IP-based offering reduces risk and increases flexibility of custom chip designs.EUV prints critical layers for 22-nm SRAM 5/14/2009
IMEC (Interuniversity Microelectronics Center) reports having used ASML’s EUV (extreme-ultraviolet) Alpha lithography tool to print the contact and metal patterns for a 22-nm-node SRAM cell—apparently, the first application of the tool for multiple layers at this density. The SRAM cell is both tiny—at 0.Power-supply modulation steps up handset-power-amp efficiency 4/9/2009
RF-engineering company Nujira has extended the reach of its efficiency-boosting technology for power amplifiers into the handset. The company has until now focused on the infrastructure side of communications, selling its HAT (high-accuracy-tracking) power-line modulators into applications such as base stations.IMEC shows flexible packaged-IC assemblies 4/9/2009
Researchers at IMEC (Interuniversity Microelectronics Consortium) and at Ghent University recently demonstrated results from a 3-D integration process using highly thinned ICs with flexible packaging, materials to create fully flexible circuit assemblies. Researchers thinned an IC die to a thickness of 25 microns.In-Depth
Designing portability into silicon IP 6/11/2009
Design foundry portability into IP cores, rather than applying it after the fact.Troubleshooting a transaction-level model 6/11/2009
Seemingly minor violations of the TLM 2.0 standard can turn a system-level model into an agent of evil in your design flow.Eliminate Sallen-Key stopband leakage with a voltage follower 5/14/2009
Novel design techniques help reduce stopband leakage in your filter designs.RFIDs power themselves 5/4/2009
The IC Insider takes a look at the charge pump of Alien Technology's Alien Higgs RFID.Power fortunes: Estimating power in FPGA designs 4/23/2009
As FPGAs enter new applications, designers must estimate power consumption early, closely watch it, and then attempt to measure the results.Experts
Closing the ESL gap 6/16/2009
GUEST OPINION: Plenty of commentary has been written about the promise of ESL and how it remains unfulfilled. The truth is that engineers have been successfully designing with ESL tools for years.A modest proposal for IP 6/11/2009
The US patent system needs fixing to the point that there are debates over just whose interests we should fix first.Selecting the correct process geometry and options 5/14/2009
Most of the custom chips today, including ASICs, ASSPs (application-specific standard products), and special-purpose custom chips, have function blocks that do not require leading-edge processes."In-design" physical verification is "on-time" physical verification 5/11/2009
GUEST OPINION It's no longer practical to wait until the end of the physical design of an IC to do physical verification.Innovating out of the downturn 4/23/2009
GUEST OPINION: If history is any indicator, innovation, not the business cycle, will pull the semiconductor industry out of recession. But this time young, innovative companies jumping on advanced processes may play a disproportionate role.DesignIdeas
