Semiconductor Engineering: The Road Ahead For 2014: Development Tools
New approaches, higher levels of abstraction, increased integration and more market consolidation will define the semiconductor industry this year. The natural conclusion of market shifts that are driving changes in semiconductors, and which in turn drive the tools and IP needed to create those systems.
To be expected, the changes fall into a few areas:
- New tools, techniques and changes required for smaller geometries;
- A migration to higher-levels of abstraction and the changing verification needs;
- Increasing integration of technologies, such as analog, digital, sensors etc., and
- Acquisitions and consolidation.
One area of verification that is making inroads into the traditional simulation-based verification involves formal methods. „Growth in formal verification, be it for direct usage or cloaked as static verification solutions, is hard to ignore, says Raik Brinkmann, president and CEO of OneSpin Solutions. „When we look back, 2014 will be seen as the year of formal verification, as 2009 was the year of emulation.
