Category Archives: ASIC Industry Market Trends

Beyond RTL part 2: Domain-Specific Languages

This is the second part of my “Beyond RTL” series, where I examine alternatives to Register Transfer Level (RTL). The first part talks mostly about High-Level Synthesis, its genesis, and the state of the art of free and commercial tools that transform C/C++/SystemC to RTL. I highlighted the fundamental limitations that these

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Beyond RTL part 1: High-Level Synthesis

Let’s say for a minute that you believe that it is finally time to drop RTL (maybe it was my previous post that convinced you). What can I say? I’m glad! You now have to pick among several competing technologies, each with its pros and cons, each of course claiming to be the best,

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2014 top MEMS Players ranking: Rising of the first MEMS titan

With an impressive 20% growth in MEMS revenue compared to 2013, and sales revenues of more than $1.2B, Robert Bosch GmbH is the clear #1. From Yole Développement’s yearly analysis of “TOP 100 MEMS Players”, analysts have released the “2014 TOP 20 MEMS Players Ranking”. This ranking shows the clear

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The 6 Must-Do’s for Semiconductor Fabless Start-ups

Getting funding for a semiconductor startup is not getting easier. According to CBIngishts, there have been fewer than 20 Angel/Seed and Series A deals in the USA in each year since 2009.
 
So where is all the funding channeled to? In 2013, close to a quarter of all VC

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Physics, Not Economics, will end Moore’s Law

Bob Colwell, Director of the Microsystems Technology Office (MTO) at the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA), recently made a compelling statement about the end of Moore’s Law: “When Moore’s Law ends, it will be economics that stops it, not physics. Follow the money.”
 
If we move beyond Moore’s

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The Future of Custom ASICs

For decades, electronics product innovation has been incremental in nature, relying largely on the next generation of semiconductors to deliver performance improvement. For almost 50 years Moore’s Law has delivered 2x performance (power or cost) improvement in semiconductors every 18 months, outpacing any product or system level innovation cycle that

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