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Ann Mutschler

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Ann Mutschler is senior executive editor at Semiconductor Engineering.

Author's Latest Posts

Zonal Architectures Play Key Role In Vehicle Security
By Ann Mutschler - 17 Nov, 2021 - Comments: 1

The automotive ecosystem is starting to shift toward zonal architectures, making vehicle functionality less dependent on the underlying hardware and allowing more flexibility in what gets processed where. The impact of that shift is both broad and significant. For carmakers, it could lead to hardware consolidation and more options for failovers in case something goes wrong with any system in... » read more

Debugging Embedded Applications
By Ann Mutschler - 10 Nov, 2021 - Comments: 0

Debugging embedded designs is becoming increasingly difficult as the number of observed and possible interactions between hardware and software continue to grow, and as more features are crammed into chips, packages, and systems. But there also appear to be some advances on this front, involving a mix of techniques, including hardware trace, scan chain-based debug, along with better simulation ... » read more

Partitioning For Better Performance And Power
By Ann Mutschler - 28 Oct, 2021 - Comments: 0

Partitioning is becoming more critical and much more complex as design teams balance different ways to optimize performance and power, shifting their focus from a single chip to a package or system involving multiple chips with very specific tasks. Approaches to design partitioning have changed over the years, most recently because processor clock speeds have hit a wall while the amount of d... » read more

HBM3: Big Impact On Chip Design
By Ann Mutschler - 14 Oct, 2021 - Comments: 0

An insatiable demand for bandwidth in everything from high-performance computing to AI training, gaming, and automotive applications is fueling the development of the next generation of high-bandwidth memory. HBM3 will bring a 2X bump in bandwidth and capacity per stack, as well as some other benefits. What was once considered a "slow and wide" memory technology to reduce signal traffic dela... » read more

Making Batteries Denser And Safer
By Ann Mutschler - 07 Oct, 2021 - Comments: 0

Battery technology is improving swiftly, driven by the rapidly rising demand for electric vehicles and the vast body of knowledge developed by the semiconductor industry. The market for electric vehicles (EVs) is on a fast upward trajectory, with global sales predicted to grow more than 12 times to more than 31 million vehicles. In fact, EVs will account for almost a third of new vehicle sal... » read more

Optimization Driving Changes In Microarchitectures
By Ann Mutschler - 23 Sep, 2021 - Comments: 0

The semiconductor ecosystem is at a turning point for how to best architect the CPU based on the explosion of data, the increased usage of AI, and the need for differentiation and customization in leading-edge applications. In the past, much of this would have been accomplished by moving to the next process node. But with the benefits from scaling diminishing at each new node, the focus is s... » read more

Data Tsunami Pushes Boundaries Of IC Interconnects
By Ann Mutschler - 22 Sep, 2021 - Comments: 0

Rapid increases in machine-generated data are fueling demand for higher-performance multi-core computing, forcing design teams to rethink the movement of data on-chip, off-chip, and between chips in a package. In the past, this was largely handled by the on-chip interconnects, which often were a secondary consideration in the design. But with the rising volumes of data in markets ranging fro... » read more

Long-Haul Trucking With Fewer Drivers
By Ann Mutschler - 13 Sep, 2021 - Comments: 1

The trucking industry is betting heavily on increasing levels of autonomy and electrification to reduce the cost of moving goods and to overcome persistent problems. The economics of autonomous driving are compelling, not least of which is an almost perpetual shortage of qualified drivers. But there also are a number of technical hurdles to making this work. On top of the challenges facing t... » read more

Modeling Chips From Atoms To Systems
By Ann Mutschler - 26 Aug, 2021 - Comments: 1

Complexity in hardware design is spilling over to other disciplines, including software, manufacturing, and new materials, creating issues for how to model more data at multiple abstraction levels. Challenges are growing around which abstraction level to use for a particular stage of the design, when to use it, and which data to include. Those decisions are becoming more difficult at each ne... » read more

Lowering Energy Per Bit
By Ann Mutschler - 12 Aug, 2021 - Comments: 0

Energy is emerging as a focal point in chip and system design, but solving energy-related issues needs to be dealt with on a much broader scale than design teams typically see. Energy is the amount of power consumed over a period of time to perform a given task, but reducing energy is a lot different than reducing power. It affects everything from operational costs and system performance to ... » read more

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