Author's Latest Posts


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

System Bits: April 22


To mimic human cognition In the field of neuromorphic engineering, researchers study computing techniques that could someday mimic human cognition and to this end, electrical engineers at the Georgia Institute of Technology recently published a "roadmap" that details innovative analog-based techniques that could make it possible to build a practical neuromorphic computer. [caption id="attac... » read more

Improving Yield Of 2.5D Designs


While progress is being made on the packaging side of 2.5D design, more needs to be resolved when it comes to improving yields. Proponents of 2.5D present compelling benefits. Arif Rahman, a product architect at Altera, noted that the industry trend of silicon convergence is leading to multiple technologies being integrated into single-chip solutions. “2.5D/3D integration has multiple adva... » read more

Power/Performance Bits: April 15


Smaller is not always better While Moore’s Law-esque shrinking has allowed for economies of scale in many industries, when it comes to nanomedicine, however, smaller is not always better, according to researchers at UCLA. They have determined that the diminutive size of nanowire-based biosensors -- that healthcare workers use to detect proteins that mark the onset of heart failure, cancer an... » read more

System Bits: April 15


Making game play more engaging Engineers at Stanford University have developed what could be the next big thing in interactive gaming: handheld game controllers that measure the player's physiology and alter the game play to make it more engaging. The prototype controller was born from research conducted in the lab of Gregory Kovacs, a professor of electrical engineering at Stanford, in collab... » read more

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