January 2011 - Semiconductor Engineering

Hot Potatoes
By Ed Sperling - 28 Jan, 2011 - Comments: 0

Matching hardware to software, and software to hardware, is an interesting discussion. It’s also one that usually happens at a very high-level of abstraction, which renders many of the conclusions less than helpful. The software stack is not a single thing. It’s a group of things, all incredibly complex in their own right and increasingly in need of some very detailed integration. The fa... » read more

The Quest To Better Define Applications
By Ed Sperling - 27 Jan, 2011 - Comments: 0

By Ed Sperling For nearly five decades, just being able to get software to run on hardware and communicate with other systems was considered a feat of engineering. But with that part of the technology solved well enough, the next big challenge is to make sure that applications can run as efficiently as possible to maximize performance, minimize power consumption and limit the area required to ... » read more

Connecting System-Level Flows To Implementation Tools
By Ed Sperling - 27 Jan, 2011 - Comments: 0

By Ann Steffora Mutschler With the complexity explosion occurring in SoC design today, there is a relentless force to push design decisions further up in terms of abstraction. Resolving issues at the gate level is not possible any more because there just isn’t enough time or resources. Further, the resulting design may not even be competitive because optimization at the gate level can leave ... » read more

Tailoring IP, Tools And Flows
By Ed Sperling - 27 Jan, 2011 - Comments: 0

By Ann Steffora Mutschler As SoC and system complexity rises continually and software drives much more in a system, specific vertical application areas will require tailored IP and tool flows to allow designers to meet time-to-market demands. Today, many systems are designed around a platform, which contains most of the STAR IP—processors, GPUs, memory controllers, interconnects, memory s... » read more

What’s A Cell Phone?
By Ed Sperling - 27 Jan, 2011 - Comments: 0

By Ed Sperling Just because a smart phone is sold by Verizon or AT&T mobile no longer means that it will be used primarily as a phone. That distinction may sound trivial, but it has deep implications for the components that are used inside of these devices, how they’re used, and who wins the designs. Shifts such as this can also lead to broad changes in who buys the tools to develop t... » read more

The Quest To Better Define Applications
By Ed Sperling - 27 Jan, 2011 - Comments: 0

By Ed Sperling For nearly five decades, just being able to get software to run on hardware and communicate with other systems was considered a feat of engineering. But with that part of the technology solved well enough, the next big challenge is to make sure that applications can run as efficiently as possible to maximize performance, minimize power consumption and limit the area required to ... » read more

Connecting System-Level Flows To Implementation Tools
By Ed Sperling - 27 Jan, 2011 - Comments: 0

By Ann Steffora Mutschler With the complexity explosion occurring in SoC design today, there is a relentless force to push design decisions further up in terms of abstraction. Resolving issues at the gate level is not possible any more because there just isn’t enough time or resources. Further, the resulting design may not even be competitive because optimization at the gate level can leave ... » read more

Embedded Computing Down To Two Major Camps
By Ed Sperling - 27 Jan, 2011 - Comments: 0

By Pallab Chatterjee The 2011 CES show was highlighted by the large number of tablet computers and mobile devices that support Internet access. The form factor for these devices is based on use models, but the computing capabilities are based on the power and operational life between charges. The platforms are drawing diving lines between x86 cores vs ARM cores, and CPUs vs GPUs. While on t... » read more

Tailoring IP, Tools And Flows
By Ann Mutschler - 27 Jan, 2011 - Comments: 0

By Ann Steffora Mutschler As SoC and system complexity rises continually and software drives much more in a system, specific vertical application areas will require tailored IP and tool flows to allow designers to meet time-to-market demands. Today, many systems are designed around a platform, which contains most of the STAR IP—processors, GPUs, memory controllers, interconnects, memory s... » read more

Deja Vu All Over Again
By Ed Sperling - 27 Jan, 2011 - Comments: 0

Every now and then you get the feeling you’ve been here before, and with technology this is a persistent theme. Virtualization looks remarkably similar to time sharing, which is what most engineers in their 40s and 50s used when they were in college. And 3D stacking, particularly the 2.5D version, looks eerily like the old MCM, aka multi-chip module. There’s nothing wrong with resurre... » read more

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