Alternative Text

Ann Mutschler

  (all posts)
Ann Mutschler is senior executive editor at Semiconductor Engineering.

Author's Latest Posts

Are You A Disrupter?
By Ann Mutschler - 14 Mar, 2013 - Comments: 0

I read a fascinating article recently about how to be a disrupter and how to avoid being disrupted. It goes through the characteristics of a disrupter such as: unencumbered development, unconstrained growth, new product cycles and undisciplined strategy. It also gives the example of how the standalone GPS unit market tanked in a matter of two weeks once smartphone mapping apps became availab... » read more

The New Platform-Based Design
By Ann Mutschler - 28 Feb, 2013 - Comments: 0

By Ann Steffora Mutschler Driven by the continued explosion in design costs, the term ‘platform-based design’ is evolving. A platform used to be viewed as an actual chip with some configurability on it that a semiconductor company promoted. Their customers would buy that chip in volume, configure it to their requirements, and sell it inside their end devices. The definition has beco... » read more

The Rise Of Layout-Dependent Effects
By Ann Mutschler - 28 Feb, 2013 - Comments: 0

By Ann Steffora Mutschler Designing for today’s advanced semiconductor manufacturing process nodes brings area, speed, power and other benefits but also new performance challenges as a result of the pure physics of running current through tiny wires. Layout-dependent effects (LDE), which emerged at 40nm and are having a larger impact at 28 and 20nm, introduce variability to circuit ... » read more

Good Pattern Flow Ahead For 14, 10nm
By Ann Mutschler - 21 Feb, 2013 - Comments: 0

By Ann Steffora Mutschler Given complexity, yield, power and other challenges with leading edge manufacturing, semiconductor foundries increasingly have been forced to require more and more restrictive design rules with each new process node. “They keep adding more design rules and more operations to a particular check to eliminate corner cases where in manufacturing they saw some variant... » read more

Good Times For Analog Designers
By Ann Mutschler - 14 Feb, 2013 - Comments: 1

By Ann Steffora Mutschler For a number of technological reasons, analog/mixed-signal design and low-power design are converging, and with that comes both challenges and opportunities. As far as challenges go, process variations at 14nm, 20nm and even 28nm have increased significantly to include DFM impacts such as layout-delay effects. On the digital side, those process changes affect... » read more

Managing Electrical Communications Better
By Ann Mutschler - 14 Feb, 2013 - Comments: 0

By Ann Steffora Mutschler Managing the electrical components of signal paths between IC, package, board and system is no small task, and it’s only growing in complexity. Understanding how to correctly optimize the communications within a system is critical given that the I/O power is becoming a significant portion of the overall chip power as the number of bits and the speed at which t... » read more

Thermal On My Mind
By Ann Mutschler - 14 Feb, 2013 - Comments: 0

Oh heat, how I miss thee… in the dead of winter of course. And while heat is a good thing for my garden, it’s not so great when it comes to my, your and everyone’s electronic devices. I’ve been reflecting a lot on this topic since researching thermal management for my article, “Too Hot To Handle.” You see, I have a favorite laptop. It’s a MacBook Pro with a nice, large screen a... » read more

Apple’s Impact On Battery Power
By Ann Mutschler - 17 Jan, 2013 - Comments: 0

More than one person I’ve spoken with lately has pointed out the fact that battery life is no longer the most important thing when a consumer is choosing a smartphone. Wait! I thought power was the #1, be all end all in the mobile area. It was, until the Apple iPhone showed up on the scene and stole the show, dazzling consumers with the touch screen, unique features, and very Apple-like ex... » read more

What Happened To Statistical Static Timing Analysis?
By Ann Mutschler - 19 Dec, 2012 - Comments: 0

About five years ago if you listened to the marketing messages in the EDA industry, you would have thought it would be impossible to produce chips without statistical static timing analysis (SSTA). Fast forward to now and the industry seems to have put this approach on the back burner. So what happened? “The idea was that if you modeled your design instead of using a corner-based approa... » read more

Keeping Pace With Moore’s Law
By Ann Mutschler - 19 Dec, 2012 - Comments: 0

By Ann Steffora Mutschler As the number of transistors doubles with each move to a smaller manufacturing process technology, there are questions as to whether the current cadre of place and route tools will be able to keep in lock step. Have no fear, assured Saleem Haider, senior director of marketing for physical design and DFM at Synopsys. “For the increase in densities that we get with... » read more

← Older posts Newer posts →

  • Sponsors

About

Navigation

Connect With Us

Copyright ©2013-2026 SMG   |  Terms of Service  |  Privacy Policy