Hot Topic:
Intellectual property (IP)

EDN

• ARM IP group wrestles complexity of 32-nm physical design
  
  Author: By Ron Wilson, Executive Editor | Date: Oct 27, 2009
  A presentation at the recent ARM Developers' Conference reveals the extent to which library developers will shield chip designers from the challenges of 32-nm lithography.
• IP quality lies beyond compliance testing
  
  Author: By Navraj Nandra, Synopsys Inc | Date: Oct 8, 2009
  Of course you want your standard-interface IP to pass compliance testing. But that accomplishment is just the beginning. Complete quality assurance for IP cores has far more challenges.
• CoreEL named Virage Logic representative in India
  
  Date: Jul 1, 2009
  Virage Logic Corp has announced it has expanded its presence in India with the appointment of CoreEL as its sales representative.
• In search of a better DRAM: evolving to floating bodies
  
  Author: By Serguei Okhonin, PhD, Innovative Silicon | Date: Sep 17, 2009
  Widely investigated floating-body memories appear to be compelling replacements for conventional DRAMs. A new floating-body memory uses the intrinsic bipolar transistor to store significantly greater charge.
• Motorola joins Via Licensing joint licensing program for near field communications
  
  Date: Jul 1, 2009
  Via Licensing Corp has announced that Motorola Inc has joined its joint licensing program for patents related to the practice of near field communications (NFC) as a licensor.
• Tool bundles target FPGAs
  
  Author: By Graham Prophet, Europe Editor | Date: Jun 25, 2009
  Xilinx this year introduced two families of Virtex-6 and Spartan-6 FPGAs that enable targeted-design platforms. The company is now adding domain-specific-tool support to the targeted-platform concept. Xilinx’ ISE (integrated software environment) Design Suite 11.1 offers interoperable
• Accellera, Spirit Consortium merger hints at future of ESL design
  
  Author: By Ron Wilson, Executive Editor | Date: Jun 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.
• Virage Logic intends to acquire ARC International
  
  Author: By Ron Wilson, Executive Editor | Date: Aug 18, 2009
  The acquisition would add configurable CPU cores and the company's development environment, and perhaps more significantly, several powerful clusters of application-specific hardware and software IP to the Virage portfolio, complementing the company's strengths in foundation digital IP, memory IP,
• High-level software for embedded-system design: doing your job?
  
  Author: By Rick Nelson, Editor-in-Chief | Date: Jul 9, 2009
  Domain experts are gaining more control of embedded-system design, but electronic- and code-design skills remain key to successful projects.
• EDAC reports easing in fall of EDA revenues in Q1
  
  Author: By Ron Wilson, Executive Editor | Date: Jul 15, 2009
  EDA revenue was down 10.7% year over year in Q1, but, according to EDA Consortium Chairman and Mentor Graphics CEO Walden Rhines, that may actually be moderately good news.
• Start-up offers dynamically reconfigurable logic technology
  
  Author: By Graham Prophet, Europe Editor | Date: Aug 6, 2009
  Start-up Akya is offering IP (intellectual property) to allow IC designers to include reconfigurable logic on their ASSPs (application-specific standard products) or ASICs (application-specific integrated circuits). The company delivers both reconfigurable-logic fabric and IP blocks to execute
• Take Your Intellectual Property to an Auction
  
  Author: Jon Titus | Date: Jun 12, 2009
  Titus regularly contributes articles on electronics and measurement. He has extensive experience designing with microprocessors and microcontrollers, and developed data-acquisition and instrument-control systems and taught many courses on software and hardware design. A recipient of the George R.
• Intel to pay AMD $1.25B to end legal battle
  
  Author: By Suzanne Deffree, Managing Editor, News | Date: Nov 12, 2009
  Intel and AMD agree to end all outstanding legal disputes between the companies, including antitrust litigation and patent cross license disputes.The rivals also obtain patent rights from a new five-year cross license agreement.
• Tapeout on EDN: Electronic Design, News, Strategy
  
  In Tapeout, experienced physical design consultant Pallab Chatterjee offers case studies, observations, and hands-on personal experience on the technology and art of back-end IC design.
• E Ink, Freescale enter IP agreement for eBook silicon
  
  Author: By Ron Wilson, Executive Editor | Date: Oct 20, 2009
  Freescale will integrate E Ink’s Vizplex display controller IP onto Freescale’s ARM-based microcontroller SoCs.
• Companion processor supports video editing on the phone
  
  Author: By Graham Prophet, Europe Editor | Date: Feb 19, 2009
  Semiconductor start-up Movidia has announced the MA1110 multimedia processor for mobile phones. The MA1110 operates as an attached processor to the baseband or to another applications processor in medium- to high-end phone designs to enable high-performance in-phone-video postproduction in real
• MIPS inks Altera licensing deal
  
  Author: By Suzanne Deffree, Managing Editor, News | Date: Oct 6, 2009
  Art Swift, VP of marketing at MIPS, noted that the license has the potential to broaden MIPS' user base.
• Evolving IP market spawns a raft of new approaches
  
  Author: By Tam Harbert, Contributing Editor | Date: Jan 1, 2009
  Whether it’s by asserting patent rights or defending against so-called trolls, entrepreneurs and investors are trying new IP business models.
• NXP, Virage licensing deal sees IP exchange, employees transfer, R&D center development
  
  Author: By Suzanne Deffree, Managing Editor, News | Date: Oct 12, 2009
  At the multifaceted agreement's core is the transfer of a part of NXP’s CMOS IP rights and certain engineering talent and equipment to Virage Logic, a move that is expected to significantly reduce costs at NXP as the company continues its efforts to focus on high-performance mixed signal.
• IEEE takes dip in the patent pool
  
  Author: By Suzanne Deffree, Managing Editor, News | Date: Dec 8, 2008
  The IEEE Standards Association and Via Licensing team to foster IP licensing programs for IEEE standards.