The Week In Review: May 28
By Ed Sperling
Mentor Graphics extended Calibre, its DFM platform, to provide comprehensive support for TSMC’s ILVS interoperable rule spec. Interpretation: You can customize rules for performance reasons and still remain in compliance with the foundry’s specs. Score one for sidestepping restrictive design rules without getting into too much hot water.
Cadence is teaming up with IBM to create DDR PHYs, memory controllers and protocols for 32nm SoI. The IP will be used in servers, video games and a slew of other applications. Interesting deal.
eSilicon completed its acquisition of Silicon Design Solutions, which makes IP and provides design services. SDS is headquartered in Milpitas, but it has an advanced circuit design center in Vietnam, making it a great stepping stone for eSilicon to tap into the asian design services market.
Android is getting lots of attention. It’s also turning into a battle zone between ARM and MIPS, both in their own offerings and in their extended offerings through their respective ecosystems. So far, the only one missing from the field is Intel with its Atom chip.
ARM noted the latest release of Android exploits a number of enhancements for its own architecture, including an application framework that improves performance by up to five times and extends battery life.
MIPS announced its support for Android last year and is poised to unveil a list of its own enhancements to that platform at Computex in Taiwan next week.
DAC news is beginning to filter in. Atrenta and AutoESL will demonstrate a working 3D design flow at DAC. It will be interesting to see exactly what they mean by 3D because at this point no two definitions are alike.
ASE, the packaging and test company, is adopting Apache’s co-design and co-analysis tools for its package designs. This is an interesting market because packaging is one of the key areas for development over the next few years as 3D stacking begins taking hold.
Tags: Apache Design Solutions, ARM, ASE, Atrenta, AutoESL, Cadence, eSilicon, IBM, Intel, Mentor Graphics, MIPS, Silicon Design Solutions