Author Archives: paulmcl

For sale, a fab, cost $40/second

Posted on February 19, 2009 by paulmcl

Semiconductor technology is a mass-production technology. Enormous functionality can be delivered in a chip that costs a few dollars. But only if you want to buy a lot of them. Further, to keep Moore’s Law on track, the scale of … Continue reading →

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Guest blog: Mike Smayling

Posted on February 18, 2009 by paulmcl

Today’s guest blog is from Mike Smayling, who is the senior VP product technology at Tela Innovations. He has a background in both the semiconductor industry at Texas Instruments, and semiconductor equipment at Applied Materials. In a couple of earlier … Continue reading →

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DFM: Design for manufacturing

Posted on February 17, 2009 by paulmcl

Yesterday I gave a brief overview of lithography and the need for DFM tools to calculate and verify what needs to go on the mask so that we end up with what we want on the die. The need to … Continue reading →

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Lithography for dummies (well, us EDA guys)

Posted on February 16, 2009 by paulmcl

You probably already know that designs are transferred onto chips using a photographic process. The wafer is coated in a solution called photoresist and then exposed to light passed through a “mask” which alters its chemical composition. The exposed (or … Continue reading →

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Request

Posted on February 13, 2009 by paulmcl

I’m actually on vacation in Mexico next week, in fact I should be on a plane as you read this, but we never go dark here and the blog will continue under autopilot. In fact it will be lithography week, … Continue reading →

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One hit wonders

Posted on February 13, 2009 by paulmcl

Venture capitalists have the concept of a zombie. Just like in the movies, a zombie company is one of the living dead. It is a company that is not burning through cash, and so is not going to go bankrupt … Continue reading →

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Survival of the fittest EDA companies

Posted on February 12, 2009 by paulmcl

It’s the 200th anniversary of Darwin’s birthday today. Not to mention Abraham Lincoln’s. On a personal note, Darwin went to university at Edinburgh and then Cambridge (the real one in England, not that one near Boston), as did I but … Continue reading →

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The book that changed everything

Posted on February 11, 2009 by paulmcl

Until 1979, IC design was done by specialists who understood every aspect of the design from semiconductor fabrication, transistor characteristics, all the way up to small blocks of a maybe a thousand gates which was the limit of chip fabrication … Continue reading →

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EDA: not boring enough

Posted on February 10, 2009 by paulmcl

EDA is fun. Innovation is fun and not many businesses require as much innovation as EDA. Working in an EDA startup in particular was (and still can be) a lot of fun because the ratio of innovation to meetings, company … Continue reading →

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Magma must die

Posted on February 8, 2009 by paulmcl

Actually, it doesn’t need to be Magma. I just agree with Isadore that it would be better for EDA if one of the full-line EDA suppliers went away. Magma is taking on the mantle of sick man of the industry … Continue reading →

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