All of my blogs are now up for sale! ;)

My dear friends, as most of you are probably aware, Webstatsdomain.org has estimated Pradeep's Point! at a whopping $19.1 billion in July 2014. As I write this post, the number has slightly reduced to $16.6 billion. Pradeep's Point! is my flagship blog! ;) 

Friends, I am now in the process of selling off Pradeep's Point! as well as all of my other blogs! I hope that they will all remain, as will the content, but the owner (or owners) will be different! Perhaps, the blogs could have a different name!

Maybe, the new owners will try and keep me on board, too! ;) (I hope, they do).

It's been a long time! I started Pradeep's Point! back in 2007, having just returned after my second stint in Hong Kong and China. Actually, it was initially under Blogspot as Pradeep Chakraborty's Blog - when it won the first international award - Pradeep Chakraborty's Blog was selected as the best in the world in the Electronic Hardware category for 2008-10, by Electronics Weekly, UK. I remember and would again like to thank all of those folks who voted for me to the first ever international title! :)

Next, Pradeep Chakraborty's Blog received an Honorable Mention @ Blognet Awards 2009! That's also the time when someone succeeded in adding malware to that blog, and there was absolutely no fault of mine, and it was later removed by Google! I recall spending an entire night migrating the content to Wordpress, where I had a secondary blog - Pradeep's Point!

I moved on to Wordpress, migrated all of the posts, and Pradeep's Point! was reborn, or rather, born!

Thereafter, it has been hugely satisfying journey for me! I managed to pick up at least one international award / international recognition for all of my blogs, every year, till this year! ;) These are:

* PC’s Semicon Blog awarded the Top Digital Media Blog by Online IT Degree (in November 2010).

* Green Gadget of Texas, USA, awarded Pradeep's Point! as the “Featured Tech Site” for 2011!

* In 2012, Gorkana, UK, selected Pradeep's Point! as the Blog Influencer 2012!

* PC's Telecom Blog listed among Best VoIP blogs by HostedSwitch, USA.

* In Feb. 2013, PC's Electronic Components Blog selected as 100 Top Resources for Electrical Engineers on ElectricalEngineeringSchools.org, USA.

* In August 2014, PC's Electronic Components Blog was ranked 11th in the "Top 101 Best Resources for Electrical Engineers.”

Now, this year, the huge estimation of Pradeep's Point! by Webstatsdomain.org!

As I write, two folks - from Bangalore -- are trying to gather funds to buy Pradeep's Point! Although, my personal preference is for a very good friend! :)

The other five blogs up for sale are:
* PC's Semiconductors Blog. (Won an award)
* PC's Solar Photovoltaics Blog.
* PC's Electronics Blog.
* PC's Electronic Components Blog. (Won two awards)
* PC's Telecom Blog. (Won an award)

I already have feelers, again from Bangalore, for buying out PC's Semiconductors Blog and PC's Electronic Components Blog. Again, I would prefer, if a friend, hopefully, tried to buy all of them, together! One blog definitely can't do without the other - that's my estimation! ;) Well, let's see what happens!

So, my dear friends, once again, it has been a pleasure serving you all via my blogs! Now, they are in the process of being sold off. Whoever buys those, will definitely have a great future! :) (In case, I change my mind, the blogs will remain as they are! ;) )

About time ;) I guess!! Thanks everyone, for your tremendous love and continuous support! :)

"I'd rather attempt to do something great and fail, than to attempt to do nothing and succeed!" -- Robert H. Schuller. Yep, I definitely agree!

Cadence now realizing EDA 360 vision: Nimish Modi

The EDA 360 was an industry vision. It reflected a change in market requirements. It was application driven system design. From a Cadence perspective, the company has done system design enablement, according to Nimish Modi, senior VP, marketing and business development, Cadence Design Systems Inc.

In Apple's case, the iOS is unique. Cadence feels that the heart of the design is the SoC. The electrical analysis is becoming very important. For instance, how do you optimize before tape-out? Hardware and software conversion presents a huge problem as well. The IP plays an important part. Cadence did IP-as-a-service. It now has an IP strategy.

Today, EDA is about possibility, not productivity. Cadence provides tools and content for semiconductor and systems companies. It is now realizing the EDA 360 vision.

On IP
According to Modi, each IP is immensely complex. Standards based or interface IP is not enough! Silicon-proven design is the need of the hour. Now, more and more IP blocks are said to be coming together.

FPGA-based prototyping
Cadence is offering the Palladium XP, and its primary use is for system verification. Software development is becoming a little bit difficult. People are providing software prototypes. The Palladium compile, turnaround and debug are very fast, best-in-class. All memory, clocking, partitioning, etc., is now automated.

The capacity of the Protium platform is 100 million gates. It will enable hardware and software developers. The use model for Protium is:
* Hardware folks use it for hardware regression.
* Software folks use it for early software development.

The main value proposition is the faster bring-up time. Also, the Palladium hybrid model helps customers overcome the boot problem. It is a hybrid of emulation and virtual prototyping. The dynamic power analysis is another issue. The Palladium hybrid model helps to do the testing.

Collaboration with ARMARM provides processor IPs. Cadence works closely with ARM. Cadence is also co-optimizing its tools to provide the best PPA. Physical libraries and tools get optimized. Cadence's tools are optimized for ARM architecture. Cadence is also the first ones on the access to the V8 ARM models.

Need for efficient product development ecosystem: CDNLive 2014

According to Vasudevan Aghoramoorthy, VP at Wipro Technologies, a product-centric approach targets multiple customers as well as diverse needs.An example is the desktop server. He was delivering the guest keynote on day two at the CDNLive 2014 in Bangalore, India.

For an app-centric approach, it addresses one specific market and has multiple end customers.Examples are set-top boxes and mobile phones. A services-centric approach addresses the service providers' needs. Examples would be PoS machines, base stations, ATMs, patient monitors, etc.

A customer-centric approach has diverse needs. These are faster time-to-market, diversification into complementary markets, reduction in product costs, completion of product portfolio, market development, expansion and customization, as well as leveraging analytics.

As a case study, he referred to Wipro engineering a low-cost, low-power ATM with battery back-up. It has been implemented with multi-language display and voice instruction, with spoil-proof keyboard. It also has a fingerprint biometric reader, and serves as a tamper-proof machine for secured transactions.

What did the product development process achieve? Product cost was reduced by 60 percent, and power consumption was reduced by 50 percent. The concept to deployment time was 10 months. An innovative design was used to address the strict power requirements. Wipro used an agile approach to develop the product.

Another case was of a patient-monitoring machine at a fraction of the cost. There was cost reduction by 5X at the physician's end and 50 percent at the patient's end. There was ease of use for physicians as connectivity options were enabled for smartphones and tablets.

All of these cases tell us that the product development ecosystem must be efficient. Product management and understanding use cases are key. In Wipro's  case, the development methodology was adapted to market needs. Product differentiation can be done by software. There is a need for cross-disciplinary engineering skills. It will lead to newer methodologies, enabling joint reviews in collaboration for cross-disciplinary projects.

Market opportunities are available for product development and retaining value. Market-driven needs drive innovation, and possibly, lead to the growth of the ESDM sector in India.

Diverse requirements for IoT evolving: Charlie Huang

According to Charlie Huang, senior VP, Worldwide Field Operations and System & Verification Group, Cadence, today, we are talking about tremendous data growth. Mobile has been driving the growth of semiconductors, besides medical, industrial, consumer and automotive electronics as well.

Trends are also driving disruptive opportunities -- from driving growth in China to growth in India. He was delivering the keynote on day two at the CDNLive 2014 in Bangalore, India.

"We can innovate to build things that are yet to be imagined. Greater things are yet to come for the Indian semicon design opportunities.

"Today, the iPad has become a system of systems. Now, everyone is waiting for the next big thing. People are also talking about the IoT. Everything will get revolutionized by the newer SoCs. Diverse requirements for IoT have been evolving. There are development challenges from all directions. More functions also means that more IP cores need to be integrated and verified. The IP cores per SoC is likely to be 123 in 14nm, from 108 in 20/22nm. The complexity is just unimaginable!

"Eighty percent of SoC development costs come from software, verification and validation. We should now look at innovating software design with SoC design.

Cadence has invested substantially in IP. It enables system design enablement from end product down to chip level. System-level design with high level synthesis is used to shorten the development cycle and get better quality of results (QoR).

IoT gathering pace as revolution: Guru Ganesan

By 2020, there will be over 8 billion people on our planet. This will also bring tremendous innovations and challenges. ARM has been connecting intelligence at every level, said Guru Ganesan, president and MD, ARM India.

He was delivering the guest keynote at the recently held CDNLive 2014 event in Bangalore, India.

Newer apps are helping connect with the world. As per Gartner, $27 billion worth apps were downloaded in 2013. By 2020, this is estimated to rise to $80 billion.

According to Ganesan, consumer trends are driving innovation in embedded apps, including rich user interface (UI). ARM is also at the heart of wearable technologies, for example, Smart Glasses from Google. Some examples from India include Lechal from Ducere Technologies, GOQ Pi remote fitness companion, Fin+ navigation and device control gesture based device from RHLVision, and Smarty Ring that brings instant smartphone alerts to your fingers from Chennai.

So, what are the key requirements for wearables? These are video/image, audio, display, software, OS, connectivity and battery life! In 2013, over 1 billion smartphones were shipped. Further, mobile data should grow 12 times over between now and 2018.

In medical electronics, besides humans, it has extended to keeping the cattle healthy and have intelligent agriculture with OnFarm, by using sensors. IoT as a revolution is gathering pace. As per a survey conducted by ARM, 95 percent of the users expect to be using IoT over the next three years. Common standards are being developed for interoperability. Similarly, mobility and connectivity are also happening in automotives.

Now, let's see the development challenges for high-end embedded. Embedded applications today integrate more functions. Consequently, design and verification challenges continue to grow. Further, lot of smart devices are now generating lot of data. The question is: how are we using that data?

Ganesan added that by 2020, there will be new challenges in transportation, healthcare, energy and education. Once devices start communicating with each other, we are likely to see the evolution of a smart infrastructure.

Innovating in system of systems: Lip Bu-Tan

There have been innovations of innovations happening in the global technology industry. IoT, mobility, cloud computing, etc., are creating opportunities for the system of systems, according to Lip-Bu Tan, president and CEO, Cadence Design Systems Inc. He was delivering the main keynote. at the recently held CDNLive 2014 in Bangalore, India,

Some of the trends driving semiconductor growth in end markets include automotives at $24 billion, computers at $76 billion, industrial electronics at $14,1 billion, medical electronics at $12.5 billion, and mobile phones at $100 billion. In India, especially, lot of fabless companies are said to be coming up.

The tablet is a system of systems. It has communications, navigation, recording and photography, etc. Even the automotive vehicle is a convincing example. Next, there is the IoT. There are said to be diverse needs for the IoT.

There are said to be several challenges for the system of systems. Some of these are more IP and software requirements, and more needs for low power and mixed signal. System design enablement requires system integration, packaging and board, etc.

Cadence has a comprehensive SoC IP solution. The mixed signal verification solution ensures functionality, reliability and performance. Cadence also introduced the Voltus-Fi custom power integrity solution in Shanghai the week before. Its Quantus QRC extraction solution gives up to 5X performance.

Next, the Jasper acquisition expands the Cadence development suite. Cadence also provides the FPGA-based prototyping with Palladium flow for software development.

Tan concluded that new technologies always require closer collaboration -- from IP through manufacturing. Cadence is here to help designers innovate -- from systems to silicon.

Cadence Quantus solution meets 16nm FinFET challenges

Cadence Design Systems Inc. recently announced the Quantus QRC extraction solution had been certified for TSMC 16nm FinFET.

What's the uniqueness about the Cadence Quantus QRC Extraction solution?  KT Moore, senior group director – Product Marketing, Digital and Signoff Group, Cadence Design Systems, said: "There are several parasitic challenges that are associated with advanced node designs — especially FinFET – and it’s not just about tighter geometries and new design rules. We can bucket these challenges into two main categories: increasing complexity and modeling challenges.

"The number of process corners is exploding, and for FinFET devices specifically, there is an explosion in the parasitic coupling capacitances and resistances. This increases the design complexity and sizes. The netlist is getting bigger and bigger, and as a result, there is an increase in extraction runtimes for SoC designs and post-layout simulation and characterization runtimes for custom/analog designs.

"Our customers consistently tell us that, for advanced nodes, and especially for FinFET designs, while their extraction runtimes and time-to-signoff is increasing, their actual time-to-market is shrinking and putting an enormous amount of pressure on designers to deliver on-time tapeout. In order to address these market pressures, we have employed the massively parallel technology that was first introduced in our Tempus Timing Signoff Solution and Voltus IC Power Integrity Solution to our next-generation extraction tool, Quantus QRC Extraction Solution.

"Quantus QRC Extraction Solution enables us to deliver up to 5X better performance than competing solutions and allows scalability of up to 100s of CPUs and machines."

Support for FinFET features
How is Quantus providing significant enhancements to support FinFET features?

Parasitic extraction is at the forefront with the introduction of any new technology node. For FinFET designs, it’s a bit more challenging due to the introduction of non-planar FinFET devices. There are more layers to be handled, more RC effects that need to be modeled and an introduction of local interconnects. There are also secondary and third order manufacturing effects that need to modeled, and all these new features have to be modeled with precise accuracy.

Performance and turnaround times are absolutely important, but if you can’t provide accuracy for these devices — especially in correlation to the foundry golden data — designers would have to over-margin their designs and leave performance on the table.

Best-in-class accuracy
How can Cadence claim that it has the 'tightest correlation to foundry golden data at TSMC vs. competing solutions'? And, why 16nm only?

According to Moore, the foundry partner, TSMC, asserts that Quantus QRC Extraction Solution provides best-in-class accuracy, which was referenced in the recent press announcement:

“Cadence Quantus QRC Extraction Solution successfully passed TSMC’s rigorous parasitic extraction certification requirements to achieve best-in-class accuracy against the foundry golden data for FinFET technology.”

FinFET structures present unique challenges since they are non-planar devices as opposed to its CMOS predecessor, which is a planar device. We partnered with TSMC from the very beginning to address the modeling challenges, and we’ve seen many complex shapes and structures over the year that we’ve modeled accurately.

"We’re not surprised that TSMC has recognized our best-in-class accuracy because we’re the leader in providing extraction solutions for RF designs. Cadence Quantus QRC Extraction Solution has been certified for TSMC 16nm FinFET, however, it’s important to note that we’ve been certified for all other technology nodes and our QRC techfiles are available to our customers from TSMC today."

India needs to learn from Intersolar North America show!

Intersolar North America successfully concluded its seventh annual show in the heart of the United States’ largest solar market, California. More than 17,000 visitors from 74 countries visited 530 exhibitors.

The show had the latest innovations in the photovoltaic, energy storage, balance of systems, mounting and tracking systems, and solar heating and cooling market sectors.

It just shows how the USA has evolved as a leading market for solar PV over the years. One could feel USA creeping up on China! Which brings me to the other significant news.

Recently, there was news regarding the USA-China solar dispute. USA has won huge anti-dumping tariffs in the US-China solar panel trade case. A preliminary decision by the US Department of Commerce has imposed significant tariffs on Chinese solar modules in the anti-dumping portion of the case.

The decision has also closed SolarWorld's "loophole," which is said to have allowed Chinese module manufacturers to use Taiwanese cells in their modules, circumventing US trade duties.

Will this affect the Chinese PV module suppliers? Perhaps, not that much. Why so? China itself has a very huge domestic market for solar PV. They can continue to do well in China itself. It can also sell solar PV modules in India, as well, besides other regions in the Asia Pacific.

That brings me back to Intersolar North America 2014. Why was there such a low presence of Indian companies? The exhibitor list for the show reads only two -- Lanco Solar Pvt Ltd and Vikram Solar Pvt Ltd. Where are the others?

If one looks at the Ministry for New and Renewable Energy (MNRE) website, there is a notification stating that a National Solar Mission (NSM) is being implemented to give a boost to solar power generation in the country. It has a long-term goal of adding 20,000 MWp of grid-connected solar power by 2022, to be achieved in three phases (first phase up to 2012-13, second phase from 2013 to 2017 and the third phase from 2017 to 2022).

Well, the MNRE has also put up a release stating complaints received about the non-function of the systems installed by channel partners. Without getting into details, why can't Indian suppliers get to the ground and work up solidly? Some of the complaints are actually not even so serious. System not working. Channel partner not attending complaint! And, plant not working due to inverter (PPS) burnt down. These should be attended to quickly, unless, there is some monetary or other issue, which, at least, I am not aware of!

The CNA Corp.s Energy, Water, & Climate division released two studies earlier this week, which found that cost-effective options that power plants can use to cut water use can also help plants reduce CO2 emissions.

The first report, Capturing Synergies Between Water Conservation and Carbon Dioxide Emissions in the Power Sector, focuses on strategy recommendations based on analyses of water use and CO2 emissions in four case studies, which are detailed in the second report, A Clash of Competing Necessities: Water Adequacy and Electric Reliability in China, India, France, and Texas.

CNA's Energy, Water, & Climate division released two studies, which found that cost-effective options that power plants can use to cut water use can also help plants reduce CO2 emissions.

“It’s a very important issue,” said lead study author Paul Faeth, director of Energy, Water, & Climate at CNA. "Water used to cool power plants is the largest source of water withdrawals in the United States and France, and a large source in China and India.”

“The recommendations in these reports can serve as a starting point for leaders in these countries, and for leaders around the world, to take the steps needed to ensure the reliability of current generating plants and begin planning for how to meet future demands for electric power.”

India needs to learn from the Intersolar North America show. It also needs to look carefully at CNA's reports. It is always great and good work that attracts global attention. India has all of the requred capabilities to do so!