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Ann Mutschler

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Ann Mutschler is senior executive editor at Semiconductor Engineering.

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Partitioning The Problem
By Ann Mutschler - 07 Aug, 2014 - Comments: 0

Whether it is solving a very tricky equation, cleaning out your hard drive or creating a power-aware test plan for your SoC, it helps to break the problem down into smaller pieces. There is so much involved with writing a test plan these days, let alone one that is power aware that I wasn’t all that surprised to hear from Erich Marschner, verification architect at Mentor Graphics that in t... » read more

Test Becomes Power-Aware
By Ann Mutschler - 07 Aug, 2014 - Comments: 0

Power-aware test plans are changing, becoming far more extensive than the minimalist plans that were common just a few years ago. In the past would determine if they could power their design up, power it down, then they’d declare it done. “Sometimes they would find they could power it up and power it down once, but they couldn’t power it up a second time because they’d forgotten to ... » read more

Power/Performance Bits: August 5
By Ann Mutschler - 05 Aug, 2014 - Comments: 0

Popeye would be proud According to physicists at Purdue University, spinach holds the promise of being able to convert sunlight into a clean, efficient alternative fuel. The Purdue team is part of an international group using spinach to study the proteins involved in photosynthesis, the process by which plants convert the sun’s energy into carbohydrates used to power cellular processes. ... » read more

System Bits: August 5
By Ann Mutschler - 05 Aug, 2014 - Comments: 0

A better conductor There are now new clues about one of the baffling electronic properties of the iron-based high-temperature superconductor barium iron nickel arsenide, according to a Rice University-led team of U.S., German and Chinese physicists that has discovered, based on sophisticated neutron measurements, of a link between magnetic properties and the material’s tendency, at sufficien... » read more

Chip Security Features Abound…But Are They Enough?
By Ann Mutschler - 04 Aug, 2014 - Comments: 0

There are a number of security features to protect devices today from attack that SoC design team can include, some of which extract only a small cost to the power and performance. A few of these include the following, according to Bernard Murphy, CTO at Atrenta: --Secure boot, which is a very common thing in embedded systems now in which there are trusted execution environments (TEE) to... » read more

Designing For Security
By Ann Mutschler - 04 Aug, 2014 - Comments: 0

Some level of security is required in SoC today, whether it is in hardware, software or — most commonly — both. Of course, there is a price to pay from a power and performance perspective, but thankfully just a small one in most cases. The explosion of consumer devices has driven the need for increased security features in smart cards, smart phones, personal computers, home networks, and... » read more

IP Integration Challenges Rising
By Ann Mutschler - 24 Jul, 2014 - Comments: 0

It’s not just [getkc id="80" comment="lithography"] that is putting a crimp in sub-28nm designs. As more functions, features, transistors and software are added onto chips, the pressure to get chips out the door has forced chipmakers to lean more heavily on third-party IP providers. Results, as you might expect, have been mixed. The number of blocks has mushroomed, creating its own web of ... » read more

High-Level Gaps Emerge
By Ann Mutschler - 24 Jul, 2014 - Comments: 0

Semiconductor Engineering sat down to discuss the attributes of a high-level, front-end design flow, and why it is needed at present with Leah Clark, associate technical director for digital video technology at Broadcom; Jon McDonald, technical marketing engineer at Mentor Graphics; Phil Bishop, vice president of the System Level Design System & Verification Group at Cadence; and Bernard Mu... » read more

System Bits: July 22
By Ann Mutschler - 22 Jul, 2014 - Comments: 0

All graphene is not the same Widely touted as the most electrically conductive material ever studied, researchers at the University of Pennsylvania now understand that all graphene is not the same. With so few atoms comprising the entirety of the material, the arrangement of each one has an impact on its overall function. The team has used an advanced microscope to study the relationship be... » read more

Power/Performance Bits: July 22
By Ann Mutschler - 22 Jul, 2014 - Comments: 0

Lasers to replace quartz in electronics? While nearly all electronics today require devices called oscillators that create precise frequencies, future high-end navigation systems, radar systems, and even possibly tomorrow's consumer electronics will require references beyond the performance of quartz, according to researchers at Caltech. In fact, these researchers have developed a method to... » read more

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