New MIPI I3C V1.1 Standard Streamlines Peripheral Connectivity with Lower Cost and Higher Bandwidth

The MIPI Alliance (MIPI) develops interface specifications for mobile and mobile-influenced industries. There is at least one MIPI specification in every smartphone manufactured today.

Free 350 pg. Book on SoC Design and Secure Autonomous Driving Webinar

Silvaco has an upcoming webinar IP Solutions for Secure Autonomous Driving on Dec. 3, 10am – 11am (PST) .The webinar will present the risks and necessary countermeasures for securing cyber-physical vehicle systems.

Everything You Want to Know about Silvaco Foundation IP

In the creation of an ASIC or SoC a wide variety of digital components are needed. Standard logic cells are used to implement the high-level description of the chip which is typically written in RTL. A synthesis tool such as Design Compiler or RTL Compiler is used to generate a gate-level netlist built out of the standard logic cells from a cell library. Communication on and off of the chip, requires unique input/output cells or I/Os that can drive off-chip wiring and withstand electrostatic discharges in the range of thousands of volts. The other main category is digital memories typically SRAMS that can take up a significant amount of area on the die for a chip. These 3 categories of digital design IP are called Foundation IP.

System and Method for IP Fingerprinting and IP DNA Analysis

In the world of SoC development, an IP management system is software for the licensing, distribution and compliance administration of design IP for both vendors and consumers of IP.In May 2019 Silvaco was awarded a patent for System and Method for IP fingerprinting and IP DNA analysis. This patent reflects the unique technology inside the Xena® IP Management System from Silvaco.

I/O Design and Characterization – How Can You Compete with Free?

I interviewed Silvaco partner Stephen Fairbanks, CTO of Certus Semiconductor from the show floor at DAC 2019, in Las Vegas, about I/O Design and Characterization. He talks about using the Viola characterization tool from Silvaco for a complex part while under time pressure to produce an accurate model. A full ranscript of the conversation is below.

Launching Samsung Foundry IP as Silvaco IP – What you Need to Know

On Monday, May 13, Silvaco announced that the semiconductor design IP of Samsung Foundry is now marketed, licensed and supported through Silvaco. The addition of Samsung production-proven design IP complements Silvaco’s existing SIPware IP products and solutions—embedded processors, wired interfaces, bus fabrics, peripheral controllers, cores for automotive, consumer and IoT/sensor applications. The initial offering of hard design IP is for the 14nm process node and is expected to extend to advanced technology nodes at 11nm, 10nm and 8nm, as well as mature planar technologies such as 28nm.

Samsung Foundry and Silvaco Begin Partnership to Launch Samsung Foundry Semiconductor IP

On Monday, May 13, Silvaco announced that the semiconductor design IP of Samsung Foundry is now marketed, licensed and supported through Silvaco. The addition of Samsung production-proven design IP complements Silvaco’s existing SIPware IP products and solutions—embedded processors, wired interfaces, bus fabrics, peripheral controllers, cores for automotive, consumer and IoT/sensor applications.

Design IP for Automotive SoCs: Trends and Solutions

The number and complexity of automotive SoCs and Control Systems is growing dramatically to fill the demand for new features in next-generation vehicles. Let's look at the specifics. In new cars you will have an advanced graphical user interface, voice recognition, and intuitive touchscreen capabilities. In addition to driver interactions, electrical control systems assist in both driving and stopping the vehicle. This will drive significant growth of the In-Vehicle Network (IVN) semiconductor market. In 2019, the total market in automotive semiconductors will reach 38 billion US dollars. By 2021, the cumulated annual growth rate (CAGR) for Level 4 Semi-autonomous vehicles will be 19%. Longer range projections are needed for Level-5 autonomous vehicles which have not arrived in the marketplace as yet. By 2030, the CAGR forecast for Level-5 vehicles is 41%. All of this is good news for the electronics industry. Which electronic companies are the top players? NXP, Infineon, Renesas, STMicroelectronics, and Texas Instruments had 1/2 of the market for automotive semiconductors in 2015 and are still market leaders.

Challenges and Solutions of Nanometer Library Characterization

Graham Bell sits down with Bernardo Culau, Director of Characterization, to discuss the challenges and Solutions of Nanometer Library Characterization. They also discuss the webinar on the same topic. You can catch the webinar at this link: Nanometer Library Characterization: Challenges and Solutions.

Chris Browy of Avery Design Sits Down to Discuss Why Silvaco and Avery are Working Together

Silvaco just announced an agreement with Avery Designs for the distribution of Avery’s verification IP (VIP) for the MIPI I3C sensor interface protocol, which is used in smartphones, IoT devices and camera systems; and its VIP for in-car network applications based on the CAN- FD / LIN / FlexRay protocols.