Smart mobile SoCs: Intel

Wed, 16 May 2012 15:59:00 -0500

Talk about an unusual position. Intel finds themselves very much currently outside when it comes to mobile SoCs for phones and tablets. After several attempts at soul-searching and a true understanding of the term �low-power� (not meaning 3W, but instead < 1W), they finally have a part � in the form of �Medfield�, aka the Atom Processor Z2460 - that can technically compete for business while their roadmap develops.

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<h1>DSP IP core? CEVA is the undisputed worldwide leader, with 90% market share</h1>
<p>Wed, 16 May 2012 10:54:00 -0500</p>
Anybody working in the wireless handset segment probably knows that CEVA is the provider of DSP IP cores, and if you are simply a wireless handset user, you should know that the baseband digital signal processing is the function allowing your phone to process the RF (analog) signal coming from the outside world. If you have been involved in the wireless segment before 2002, you may remember a company named DSP Group: the merge of the IP licensing division of DSP Group and Parthus has been named CEVA, and CEVA has enjoyed 90% market share for DSP IP products in 2011, according with the Linley Group. A 90% market share simply means that CEVA� DSP IP have been integrated into 1 billion IC shipped in production in 2011!<br />
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Analyzing Cortex Performance

Wed, 16 May 2012 07:45:00 -0500

CPAK sounds like something politicians create to collect money, but in fact it is a Carbon Performance Analysis Kit. It consists of models, reference platform, initialization software (for bare metal CPAKs) or OS binary (for Linux and Android based CPAKs). They are (or

Piper Jaffray Chip Analyst Spanks Intel!

Tue, 15 May 2012 19:30:00 -0500

This just in from Tech Trader Daily, quoting

MIPS, ARM, ARC, Imagination, Ceva

Tue, 15 May 2012 16:59:00 -0500

The Linley Group, whose conference on mobile I recently attended, has some interesting data about the processor core market. Firstly, the numbers are big: CPU cores shipped in over 10 billion chips last year which is up 25% on last. ARM has a share of 78% of that entire market. The big surprise to me was the #2 was not MIPS but Synopsys with the ARC processor that they acquired with Virage. They have a 10% share. MIPS can only manage 6%.

ARM licensees shipped 7.9 billions chips on which ARM collected an average royalty of 4.6� down a little from 4.8� the year before. By contrast, MIPS licensees shipped just 650M chips

View from the top: Michael Buehler-Garcia

Tue, 15 May 2012 10:30:00 -0500

Yesterday I met with Michael Buehler-Garcia, Director of Marketing at Mentor Graphics for Calibre in Wilsonville, Oregon to get an update on what's coming up at DAC, the premier conference and trade show for our industry.

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<h1>Cadence Update 2012!</h1>
<p>Mon, 14 May 2012 21:00:00 -0500</p>
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What�s new at Cadence? Quite a bit actually. I have always been a Cadence fan, I mean really, they gave birth to modern EDA. Unfortunately, Cadence really lost me during the Avant! legal action, the Mike Fister years, and EDA360. Recently, however, Cadence has made

TSMC Tops Intel, Samsung in Capacity!

Sun, 13 May 2012 19:00:00 -0500

While I was marlin fishing in Hawaii last week I missed some interesting comments from TSMC executives at the Technology Symposium in Taiwan, a much different show than the one here in San Jose I�m told. It is good to see TSMC setting the record straight

DAC: Finding Somewhere to Eat

Sun, 13 May 2012 15:00:00 -0500

I am not going to attempt to give you any restaurant advice beyond what I�ve already done by listing the good places near the conference center. San Francisco reputedly has over 3000 restaurants so I don�t know anything about more than a tiny fraction. However, with that many restaurants, most places are pretty good. If not, they close and the space gets taken over by someone else.

If you look real close at the #49 DAC floor plan you will see the tiny Intel booth dwarfed by those of TSMC, GlobalFoundries, Samsung, and ARM. The number one semiconductor company in the world does not have the budget for the cornerstone conference of the