February 2016 - Semiconductor Engineering

Seeing Debug for What It Is
By Neil Johnson - 29 Feb, 2016 - Comments: 0

Debug is problem solving. For many hardware developers, debug is a purpose. Finding a bug is a victory! Heck, debug can be flat out heroic. I’m sure we can all think back to colleagues that put in a few 80 hour, coffee fueled weeks, with managers peering over both shoulders, to fix an insidious string of bugs that threatened to further demolish a broken schedule and sabotage tape-out. W... » read more

Preparing For The IoT Data Tsunami
By Ann Mutschler - 29 Feb, 2016 - Comments: 0

Engineering teams are facing a flood of data that will be generated by the [getkc id="76" comment="Internet of Things"], both from the chip design side and from the infrastructure required to handle that data. There are several factors that make this problem particularly difficult to deal with. First, there is no single data type, which means data has to be translated somehow into a usable f... » read more

Getting Ready For The IoT
By Emerson Hsiao - 29 Feb, 2016 - Comments: 0

A major change is underway in the semiconductor industry, and it is being driven by the Internet of Things. Gartner defines the IoT as a “network of dedicated physical objects (things) that contain embedded technology to sense or interact with their internal state or external environment. The IoT comprises an ecosystem that includes things, communication, applications and data analysis.” ... » read more

Optimizing Enterprise-Class SSD Host Controller Design With Arteris FlexNoC Network-On-Chip Interconnect IP
By Arteris - 26 Feb, 2016 - Comments: 0

Solid state storage is rapidly supplanting rotary storage in data center computing, driven by the competing needs for lower power consumption, lower latency and higher bandwidth. But the inherent unreliability of flash cells mandates the use of sophisticated host controllers to guarantee data reliability and endurance for enterprise solid state disks (SSD). Leading enterprise SSD companies have... » read more

The Week In Review: Manufacturing
By Mark LaPedus - 26 Feb, 2016 - Comments: 0

What was the mood at this week’s SPIE Litho? “EUV sentiment is improving among chipmakers as ASML makes progress toward HVM metrics; however, there is still much hedging around timing and readiness. We view EUV adoption as likely to be slow and gradual through 2020,” said Weston Twigg, an analyst with Pacific Crest Securities, in a report. “In order for ASML to hit the higher levels of ... » read more

The Week In Review: Design/IoT
By Jesse Allen - 26 Feb, 2016 - Comments: 0

Tools Synopsys incorporated automated analog and mixed-signal debug capabilities into its Verdi SoC debug platform, which now provides comprehensive hierarchical and schematic views of both the analog and digital portions of designs and automated tracing across analog and digital blocks. Mentor announced three applications for the Veloce emulation platform focused on overcoming unpredicta... » read more

What’s After Smartphones?
By Ed Sperling - 25 Feb, 2016 - Comments: 2

One of the unique things about the semiconductor industry is that it has fueled the digital revolution almost entirely by focusing on its core competencies of performance, power and area. There are few, if any, industries that can tie global growth and success to what amounts to an almost isolationist business model. Salespeople have to sell those chips, of course. Marketers have to create ... » read more

Tech Talk: 2.5D Issues
By Ed Sperling - 25 Feb, 2016 - Comments: 0

Bill Isaacson, director of ASIC marketing at eSilicon, about how viable this packaging approach is, organic vs. inorganic interposers, where the problems are, thermal coupling, interposer cost, and what will change over the next couple years. » read more

Racing To Design Chips Faster
By Ed Sperling - 25 Feb, 2016 - Comments: 6

A shift is underway to develop chips for more narrowly defined market segments, and in much smaller production runs. Rather than focusing on shrinking features and reducing cost per transistor by the billions of units, the emphasis behind this shift is less about scale and much more about optimization for specific markets and delivering those solutions more quickly. As automotive, consumer e... » read more

IP Requirements Changing
By Brian Bailey - 25 Feb, 2016 - Comments: 0

Twenty years ago the electronics industry became interested in the notion of formalizing re-use through third-party IP. It has turned out to be harder than anyone imagined. In 1996, the Virtual Socket Interface Alliance ([getentity id="22845" comment="VSIA"]) was formed to standardize the development, distribution and licensing of IP. Soon afterward, companies with a couple of people in a ga... » read more

← Older posts

  • Sponsors

About

Navigation

Connect With Us

Copyright ©2013-2024 SMG   |  Terms of Service  |  Privacy Policy