Author Archives: Chris Edwards

About Chris Edwards

Chris Edwards has spent a long time covering electronics and EDA. He is a former Editor-in-Chief of Electronic Engineering Times UK and electronics editor of the IET's Engineering & Technology. His work has appeared in a variety of international newspapers including The Guardian, The Daily Telegraph, The Age and the South China Morning Post.
August 6, 2012

EUV nears last-chance saloon

If you were to dramatize the situation for extreme ultraviolet (EUV) as the next-generation lithography technology for chipmaking as a movie, it would by now be in the difficult third act. Having been through many ups and downs, it’s now lying on a hospital bed and it’s not clear whether the slowing pulse will flatline […]

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August 6, 2012

Aart de Geus on the changing face of EDA

The president and co-CEO of Synopsys provides his take on the mounting influence of software and physical effects in the creation of SoCs.
Article  |  Topics: Commentary, Design to Silicon, Blog - EDA, Embedded, - General, Verification  |  Tags: , , ,   |  Organizations: , ,
August 3, 2012

Synopsys to buy SpringSoft

Synopsys is to acquire SpringSoft, expanding its custom-IC tool base and letting it fold debug into its existing HDL flow.
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July 26, 2012

Xilinx extends Vivado availability

Xilinx says it has made the first public release of its Vivado Design Suite – the reworked design environment for its sub-40mn programmable-logic devices that is based more heavily on concepts from the custom-IC world than its existing ISE toolset.
Article  |  Topics: Blog - EDA, - Product  |  Tags:   |  Organizations:
July 4, 2012

Cadence plans design kit expansion with Sigrity buy

Cadence Design Systems has purchased Sigrity, the specialist in signal and power integrity, in a deal worth approximately $80m, to extend its IC packaging, PCB and IP portfolio.
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June 22, 2012

TSMC updates BCD process with Analog help

Analog Devices has helped developed a new version of TSMC's 180nm BCD process for analog and mixed-signal circuits that slashes noise tenfold compared with the original version released in 2009.
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June 20, 2012

Atrenta buys NextOp for assertion synthesis

Atrenta has taken a step into functional verification with the decision to buy NextOp Software, a specialist in assertion synthesis.
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June 14, 2012

The ETSOI strikes back

A day ahead of Intel's VLSI Technology Symposium paper on its 22nm finFET process, a group led by IBM set out to show that silicon-on-insulator (SOI) devices could do as well not only on low-power, where SOI has traditionally had the edge, but high-performance circuits.
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June 14, 2012

Strained silicon beats TSV stress in 3DICs

Texas Instruments had good news for teams that want to assemble 3DIC stacks using thru-silicon vias (TSVs). The stress induced by the copper TSVs is not as bad as many feared for nanometer-scale transistors.
June 13, 2012

Low-power logic for steampunks

MEMS relay-based devices offer the ultimate in subthreshold leakage: they don't have any. Design and technology advances are promising to overcome problems with reliability, design and speed, according to Tsu-Jae King Liu of UC Berkeley.