November 2009 - Page 2 of 2 - Semiconductor Engineering

Meeting The Challenge Of Verification In Low-Power Designs

By Ed Sperling - 12 Nov, 2009 - Comments: 0

By Cheryl Ajluni Over the years, new techniques, technologies and design tools have been brought to market with the explicit intent of simplifying design verification. Despite these efforts verification still manages to consume a huge chunk of the time spent during design. By some accounts that number tops 70%. The problem is that verification is hard, and it certainly doesn’t get an easi... » read more

Hypervisors For Managing Power

By Ed Sperling - 12 Nov, 2009 - Comments: 0

By Ed Sperling Hypervisors are headed for a new role inside of multicore chips—managing the various power islands in addition to the cores. A patent application filed by IBM, entitled “Method and system for hypervisor based power management,” shows the company’s intention to use hypervisors for everything from monitoring power consumption rates to scaling power for individual cores.... » read more

Power Trip Advisor

By Ed Sperling - 12 Nov, 2009 - Comments: 0

By Geoffrey James There’s never been a greater demand for power-efficient silicon. As consumer electronic devices get smaller, with increased functionality, battery power becomes a premium resource. At the same time, “Green IT” is a major corporate trend, and the best way to be environmentally sensitive (while saving on energy costs) is to buy technology that ekes the maximum computing o... » read more

Is Power-Aware Simulation A Must-Have?

By Bhanu Kapoor - 12 Nov, 2009 - Comments: 0

By Bhanu Kapoor Is power-aware simulation-based verification necessary? This question has been frequently asked by the designers and becomes even more important in the context of potentially increased costs for simulation, with or without the recessionary environment. Those contending that it is not a must-have point to: --Power-managed designs were being done even when ... » read more

Power Delivery Issues

By Ed Sperling - 10 Nov, 2009 - Comments: 0

By Ed Sperling Reducing the voltage in a system on chip is like turning down the water pressure on a home plumbing system. Pretty soon you find out that not all the faucets work properly because there isn’t enough pressure behind them. While it’s vital to drop the voltage to boost battery life in mobile devices, not to mention reduce the overall power consumption in plug-in devices, t... » read more

Where Do We Go Next?

By Ed Sperling - 06 Nov, 2009 - Comments: 0

Jim Hogan and Paul McLellan opened an interactive, thought-provoking discussion at ICCAD this week on how EDA needs to change to be successful in the year 2020. The conclusion of this well-known duo--Hogan, the VC, and McLellan, the blogger, in their current incarnations--pointed toward optimization and software signoff, given the amount of software that is now moving into designs and t... » read more

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