Semiconductor 101...and Sunday Brunch

If you have been reading Breakfast Bytes regularly for the last couple of years, you will know that I have a side gig in presenting an introduction to our industry called EDA 101. I wrote a post about this including a video of the 2019 version of the presentation called EDA 101 Video. In the last year, I have given an updated version of this presentation several times: to all our interns, to the Defense Acquisition University, and more. Since I added a lot more content on semiconductors and systems, I renamed the presentation Semiconductor 101.

I had to record a version of the presentation. As it happens, this is to be shown in Australia, so there are a whole load of reasons I'm not going to present this in person even though I'd love a trip to Australia in the abstract. When I worked for VaST Systems Technology our engineering was in Sydney, so I have been there a couple of times, although only to Sydney—so I need to resist the temptation to say I've "seen" Australia like occasionally people spend a weekend in Manhattan and think that they have seen the US.

By the way, this was recorded with an application called Camtasia, which creates what I disparagingly call "talking PowerPoint".  I was under time pressure to get this done otherwise, I'd have done something more engaging. I have a green screen at home, and some lighting, and I know how to use iMovie. You will have seen a lot of this in action if you watch the weekly Sunday Brunch video that I make that summarizes the posts from the previous week. Here are a couple of those:

Also, don't forget there is an email version of Sunday Brunch that can be waiting for you when you get to the office on Monday morning. To sign up for that, just click on the "sign me up" button at the end of this (and every other) Breakcast Bytes post.

Table of Contents

Here is the table of contents. I assume that this was automatically generated by Camtasia from the titles on the PowerPoint slides. If you click on any of the timings, they are links to the correct point in the video (they will take you to the YouTube website).

• 00:00 If you click this link you can watch the whole video on YouTube
• Semiconductor 101 00:48
• Cadence Intelligent System Design Strategy 02:14
• What is EDA? 03:20
• Semiconductor Economics 04:10
• Moore’s Law 04:46
• Semiconductor Economics 04:49
• Moore’s Law is Exponential 06:17
• Transistor Density Example 06:58
• Inverse Moore’s Law: What Drove Semiconductor (and EDA) 08:00
• In the Past 08:23
• Present Reality: The New Normal 09:15
• Manufacturing 09:26
• Semiconductor Processes 10:57
• Wafers 200mm and 300mm 11:17
• Fabs 12:12
• Fabs: Inside 12:53
• A Modern Fab Costs $10-20B 13:45
• The Fabless Revolution 16:23
• I Wrote a Book on It 16:32
• Design 17:00
• Chip Design is NOT like Other Design 17:48
• R&D Expenses Are ~40% of Cadence Revenue 18:22

• IC Design: Simple Canonical Flow 21:44 (if you can only afford a few minutes to watch, start on this slide and learn how chips are designed)
• IC Design: Cadence Product Names 23:37
• Chip Design is NOT like Other Design 25:17
• Not Just for Semiconductor Companies Any More 26:11
• AMD Radeon VII 27:08
• Cost of Design (Including Software) 27:42
• It Has to Fly 27:55
• Risk Management 28:48
• Systems 28:53
• Chips Go on Boards 29:11
• More than Moore…Systems in Package (SiP) 30:20
• Systems Contain Software 31:09
• Emulate Before You Fabricate 31:48
• End Markets 31:55
• The Day the Semiconductor World Changed 32:30
• Mobile: the Biggest Semiconductor Market 33:03
• Automotive 33:55
• Aerospace 34:45
• High Performance Computing (HPC) 35:34
• Internet of Things (IoT) 37:03
• Intelligent System Design 37:28
• Cadence Intelligent System Design Strategy 38:45
• Breakfast Bytes 38:46

Or you can watch the video here (40 minutes):

Sign up for Sunday Brunch, the weekly Breakfast Bytes email.

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