Mentor Graphics introduced a tool for thermal characterization for semiconductor packaging and design, which has become essential as density on an SoC continues to grow, along with both active and static power leakage. The new FloTHERM IC solution is a Web-based platform that simplifies many of the characterization and validation tasks.

Rumors of Magma’s death appear to have been overstated. The company generated revenues of $31 million for its fiscal Q3, ended Jan. 31. It had a net loss of $2.6 million, but when you compare that to a net loss of $78 million in the previous year—not to mention that the company beat expectations—things are definitely on the upswing. Revenue is expected to be relatively flat over the next quarter. Like many EDA companies these days, proof of success will be the bottom line, not the top line. Magma says it has positive cash flow.

Intel Capital and a group of 24 VC firms pledged to invest $3.5 billion in U.S.-based technology companies over the next two years. Intel’s share will be $200 million. In addition, a group of 17 technology companies ranging from Intel to EMC, Cisco, Marvell and Broadcom said they will increase their hiring of college graduates—some by doubling their hiring over previous years—to sustain the market for future scientists and engineers. This is very good news.

IBM put a green spotlight on the lithography process, creating fluorine-free photo-acid generator compounds that are used to transfer patterns onto wafers. Green is good, and in IBM’s case it’s also the green that comes from licensing patents.

TSMC is collaborating with Dialog Semiconductor on a bipolar-CMOS-DMOS technology that can improve power management in chips for portable devices. Dialog, in case the name doesn’t ring a bell, is based in Stuttgart, Germany.

GlobalFoundries Singapore—the company previously known as Chartered Semiconductor—announced a tender offer for any and all of its senior notes due in 2010. Consider this yet another step in a complete takeover of this foundry by ATIC, the Abu Dhabi-based investment powerhouse.

By Ed Sperling

Arteris raised $9.7 million in a new “strategic” round of funding. While that may not seem like a lot of money, what’s far more interesting is who led that group—ARM and Qualcomm. Our take is that ARM thinks the NoC is a potential alternative to AMBA, the on-chip bus standard created by ARM, even though it won’t come out and say that. And Qualcomm is going to need NoCs to solve some of the complexity of power islands and multiple cores. Other investors are Synopsys and Japan’s giant DoCoMo Capital. This may speak volumes about the future of NoCs.

Mentor Graphics’ displaced workers program is the kind of industry involvement we need to see more of. So far, 452 engineers have taken classes through the program, and there are more classes available. Retooling is always a good idea, even if you’re not unemployed. For information, click here.

Synopsys was chosen by Hisilicon as its primary EDA partner. If the name sounds unfamiliar, just remember that Hisilicon is a subsidiary of Huawei—the Cisco of China. (There are some at Cisco who still insist that relationship is literal, even though Cisco dropped its IP theft lawsuit back in 2004.)

Actel updated its Q4 financial outlook. Revenues are expected to be right on target, which is up sequentially 2% to 6%. There’s nothing like hitting your numbers after a long recession.

Along the same lines, TSMC’s sales edged up 0.6% in November vs. October. If that doesn’t sound like much, consider that the foundry’s sales were down 17% for the first 10 months. November 2009 sales, incidentally, are 52% higher than November 2008. Break out the plastic cups.

TSMC is either feeling good about its numbers or looking for a hedge in the future–or both. The company invested $193 million in Motech Industries, a Taiwanese solar cell manufacturer that also owns its own fabs. In the recent downturn, though, solar didn’t work particularly well as a hedge strategy.

Mentor expanded its Questa multi-view verification components library to support the latest standards, including USB 3.0, Ethernet 40/100G and DDR2.

Cadence won a deal with AppliedMicro, which has standardized on Cadence’s Encounter platform.

By Ed Sperling

Synopsys’ Navraj Nandra poses a very interesting question: Can high k/metal gate survive in the 28nm low-power race. That all depends on who you ask. The answer might not be the same for Intel as a fabless company working off restrictive design rules. Nevertheless, this blog is worth a read.

The issue of reliability has been a topic of serious discussion for months as we push toward 32/28nm. Tradeoffs in power, performance, area and the sheer complexity of increased density and manufacturability have raised red flags everywhere among designers. Now comes the real-world example. Check out what happened when Cisco’s Ramanathan Sambamurthy and his associates used an environment for constrained verification to apply a stress test.

What exactly is software simulation? It sounds clear-cut enough, but Mentor’s Colin Walls proves otherwise. It’s an interesting look at how differently embedded software engineers see the world from their brethren on the hardware side. It’s no wonder they don’t share tables in the cafeteria. Question: ‘Is this seat taken?’ Answer: ‘In some respects yes, in others, no.’

Cadence’s Jason Andrews takes a look at the memory intensiveness of debugging and why it matters in system-level design. It may be intrusive, but it’s certainly not intuitive.

The United States celebrated World Standards Day yesterday—a week ahead of the real birthday of ISO. So much for standards. Did they not notice the calendar, or was something else happening next week? Check out Karen Bartleson’s column for why this is a big deal, anyway.

If you can follow Frank Schirrmeister’s moving chart you get the rapid eye movement award. You’ll get the general idea, and the blog is quite interesting, but don’t stare at that graphic too long. Hint: Click quickly and it will open up something you can actually read.

What can you do with USB 3.0. Synopsys’ Eric Huang posed that question. There’s no right answer, but it does at least inspire some interesting guesses.

By Ed Sperling

Santa Clara, Calif.—Feb. 5, 2009—Cross-cultural communication has always had its challenges, but globalization is raising it from the level of nuisance to necessity.

Across the board, from systems companies to those that develop the tools to build the components that go into those systems, building international teams that can embrace a single corporate culture has emerged as one of the big business challenges.

“The main learning about having different sites around the globe is respecting the culture of where that site is,” Rich Goldman, vice president of strategic alliances at Synopsys, said during a panel at DesignCon. “Engineers are the same around the world, so there is a certain level of communication that always works. But at another level, cultures are very different. What you may think is the worst thing possible is a normal part of culture for another country. You have to go to that country to experience it. That’s the only way to overcome differences.”

And overcoming those differences is essential. Cisco’s vice president of engineering, Sri Hosakote, said globalization is a core competency of every company that does business in a global economy. “It’s a skill that is mandatory,” he said.

Hosakote said one of the keys is getting employees in other countries to understand the corporate mission the same way employees do in a place like Silicon Valley. That frequently requires bringing managers to the United States, letting them sit in on meetings and work in Silicon Valley and sometimes even enrolling them in executive courses at schools like Stanford. He said when that happens, “they get it.”

“It takes two to five years to get a culture of globalization,” he said. “Collaboration is the hardest piece. It’s particularly hard when it comes to multiple sites.

But there’s more to operating in a global environment than just a common vision. There also has to be an efficient structure everywhere. Brani Buric, executive vice president of marketing and sales at Virage Logic, said that for every situation—whether the operation is located in a place where labor is cheap or expensive—the office has to be optimized.

“What we’re seeing with globalization is just the first phase,” Buric said. “A couple of years from now this will go way beyond product engineering and R&D. New markets are opening and we will see good product specs for markets in places like China. There will be R&D, specs, marketing, implementation and a sales channel in these places.

One facet of globalization is outsourcing. While outsourcing continues to gain ground in markets such as IT services and support, many technology companies believe the cost differential is not enough to offset the benefits of having their own operation—whether it’s R&D or sales—in a foreign country.

“Sometimes running it ourselves is cheaper in some ways,” said Kirk Law, vice president of systems products engineering at NetApp. “There are a lot of different ways to measure value. It’s not just a spreadsheet decision.”