The Week In Review: July 17
DAC is coming and so is the end of the recession. In preparation for both events—although the end of the recession will be a bit harder to pinpoint–brace yourself for a flood of products to start hitting the market over the next couple months. It doesn’t matter that it’s the beginning of summer and some companies have shuttered their operations for a week or more.
Synopsys introduced its DesignWare IP solution for PCI Express 3.0, which includes digital controllers, PHY and verification IP. Translation: You don’t want to build this stuff yourself because it adds absolutely no value to your design.
Mentor Graphics has been busy signing up distributors in Asia. It signed one in China earlier this month for its PCB design flow and high-speed signal interconnect simulation, and this week it signed up Trident Techlabs to distribute a number of different products. There are a lot of design houses cropping up in Asia, and relationship selling is critical. Distribution offers a quick way into those markets.
Virage Logic took a similar step last month, signing up CoreEL in India as its sales rep.
Cadence jumped into the TLM world with both feet with a unified TLM-driven design and verification flow. Expect to see more announcements in this space by all vendors as it becomes darned near impossible to get chips out the door on time at 32nm and beyond without some type of modeling.
Back up at 65nm, Chartered Semi introduced a platform for RF to enable single-chip apps and began production of its 65nm low-power process.
And if you’re wondering about the overall tech market, at least the PC sector is up. Intel’s numbers show strong growth at the top line and on the bottom line, where gross margins rose 5.5%. Break out the party hats.
–Ed Sperling
