Author's Latest Posts


Is My iPhone Hurting The Earth?


Of course we all know that power is the number one consideration in SoC design today but despite the fact that it is so well accepted and felt acutely by design and verification teams, we are still missing the boat as far as the bigger picture. From the perspective of a wanna-be treehugger, I think we fall short in realizing the grand impact of all this focus on power savings. The very a... » read more

Power/Performance Bits: May 6


Boosting image quality UCLA researchers have created a device based on a new material and manufacturing process that they say could lead to a significant leap in the quality of images on smartphones, computer displays, TVs and inkjet printers. The new material and manufacturing process are used to produce semiconductors that are essential to LCDs and organic light-emitting diode (OLED) disp... » read more

System Bits: May 6


Nonlinear optical resonance The drive to develop ultrasmall and ultrafast electronic devices using a single atomic layer of semiconductors, such as transition metal dichalcogenides, has received a significant boost. Researchers with Berkeley Lab have recorded the first observations of a strong nonlinear optical resonance along the edges of a single layer of molybdenum disulfide. The existence ... » read more

Executive Insight: Wally Rhines


Semiconductor Engineering sat down with Wally Rhines, chairman and CEO of Mentor Graphics, to discuss what is required for EDA to grow, key areas of opportunity for EDA growth and going against the grain. The interview is part of an ongoing series of in-depth interviews with top executives from all segments of the industry. SE: What keeps you awake at night? Rhines: Actually nothing keeps... » read more

Securing Chip Data More Critical Than Ever


Everywhere you turn in the mainstream media, it is easy to find stories of security breaches – from Target not adequately protecting customer data to cars allegedly being hacked to hackers themselves showing how easy it is to do what they do. As technology increases in complexity, so do the hackers themselves. This is a problem. As such, chipmakers are increasingly becoming aware of vulner... » read more

System Bits: April 29


Beyond graphene Researchers at The University of Manchester have shown how they can control the properties of stacks of 2D materials, opening up the potential for new, previously-unimagined electronic devices. The isolation of graphene at the University in 2004 led to the discovery of many other 2D crystals and while graphene has an unrivaled set of superlatives, these crystals cover a larg... » read more

Power/Performance Bits: April 29


Lithium-free flexible battery A Rice University laboratory has flexible, portable and wearable electronics in its sights with the creation of a thin film for energy storage. The researchers have developed a flexible material with nanoporous nickel-fluoride electrodes layered around a solid electrolyte to deliver battery-like supercapacitor performance that combines the best qualities of a h... » read more

How To Improve Debug Productivity


In the realm of SoC verification world, it often takes a very short amount of time to write the testbench and the code, and the rest of the time — up to 90% — is spent debugging. After all, verification is essentially finding the bugs in a design. Debugging essentially has evolved over the years on the same path and complexity curve as design. Now debugging needs to evolve to keep pace, ... » read more

Extending UVM To Analog


As SoC complexity has grown, so too has the need to model the analog/mixed-signal content in a similar way as the digital content to make simulation easier. One way to do this is within the context of the Universal Verification Methodology (UVM). In fact, this can and is being done today with UVM as it stands, according to a number of industry sources. However, there is also growing interest... » read more

Power/Performance Bits: April 22


Plasmonics could improve solar performance, data storage According to researchers at Purdue University, plasmonic metamaterials that operate at high temperatures could significantly improve solar cell performance and make advanced computer data storage technology possible that uses heat to record information on a magnetic disk. These materials could make it possible to harness clouds of ele... » read more

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