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Ann Mutschler

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Ann Mutschler is senior executive editor at Semiconductor Engineering.

Author's Latest Posts

Power Complexity On The Rise
By Ann Mutschler - 14 Nov, 2019 - Comments: 0

New chip architectures and custom applications are adding significant challenges to chip design and verification, and the problems are becoming much more complex as low power is added into the mix. Power always has been a consideration in design, but in the past it typically involved different power domains that were either on, off, or in some level of sleep mode. As hardware architectures s... » read more

Planning For Failures In Automotive
By Ann Mutschler - 07 Nov, 2019 - Comments: 0

The automotive industry is undergoing some fundamental shifts as it backs away from the traditional siloed approach to one of graceful failure, slowing the evolution to fully autonomy and rethinking how to achieve its goals for a reasonable cost. For traditional automakers, this means borrowing some proven strategies from the electronics world rather than trying to evolve traditional automot... » read more

Service Revenue Growing With Chip Complexity
By Ann Mutschler - 04 Nov, 2019 - Comments: 0

Rising complexity, new markets, and a shortage of in-house expertise are beginning to rekindle demand for services for the first time in nearly a decade. The semiconductor industry has been racing to design chips for a variety of new and existing applications, but they are facing challenges on a number of fronts: Leading-edge chips require new architectures due to a sharp reduction in s... » read more

Tricky Tradeoffs For LPDDR5
By Ann Mutschler - 30 Oct, 2019 - Comments: 0

LPDDR5 is slated as the next-gen memory for AI technology, autonomous driving, 5G networks, advanced displays, and leading-edge camera applications, and it is expected to compete with GDDR6 for these applications. But like all next-gen applications, balancing power, performance, and area concerns against new technology options is not straightforward. These are interesting times in the memory... » read more

Optima Design Launches, Focuses On Functional Safety
By Ann Mutschler - 29 Oct, 2019 - Comments: 1

Autonomous driving is really happening. "Although a concept and dream for many automotive enthusiasts and engineers since the 1950s, now it's really happening," asserted Jamil Mazzawi, founder and CEO of Optima Design, which launched today. “At the same time, everybody knows that if we continue to have accidents, like the Tesla accident or the Uber accident, this will not work. People will... » read more

IP Management And Development At 5/3nm
By Ann Mutschler - 24 Oct, 2019 - Comments: 1

The growing complexity of moving to new process nodes is making it much more difficult to create, manage and re-use IP. There are more rules, more data to manage, and more potential interactions as density increases, both in planar implementations and in advanced packaging. And the problems only get worse as designs move to 5nm and 3nm, and as more heterogeneous components such as accelerato... » read more

Thomas Dolby’s Very Different View Of Progress
By Ann Mutschler - 16 Oct, 2019 - Comments: 4

Thomas Dolby’s hit songs “She Blinded Me with Science” and “Hyperactive!” catapulted him to international fame in the early '80s as a pioneer of New Wave and Electronica by combining a love for invention with a passion for music. The result defined an era of revolutionary music. As record company politics began to overshadow the joy of performing, Dolby turned his attention to Holl... » read more

Using Emulators For Power/Performance Tradeoffs
By Ann Mutschler - 10 Oct, 2019 - Comments: 1

Emulation is becoming the tool of choice for power and performance tradeoffs, scaling to almost unlimited capacity for complex chips used in data centers, AI/ML systems and smart phones. While emulation has long been viewed as an important but expensive asset for chipmakers trying to verify and debug chips, it is now viewed as an essential component for design optimization and analysis much ... » read more

Why EV Battery Design Is So Difficult
By Ann Mutschler - 03 Oct, 2019 - Comments: 4

Automotive batteries always have been treated as plug-and-play parts of a vehicle, but that approach no longer works in electric vehicles. In fact, the battery is now a differentiating factor, and it is the heaviest and most expensive component. What used to be a relatively simple component has been replaced by a variety of sensors to measure complex static thermal and aging effects, as well... » read more

Open ISAs Gaining Traction
By Ann Mutschler - 26 Sep, 2019 - Comments: 0

Open instruction set architectures are starting to gain a foothold, often in combination with other processors, as chipmakers begin to add more specialized compute elements and more flexibility into their designs. There are a number of these open ISAs available today, including Power, MIPS, and RISC-V, and there are a number of permutations and tools available for sale based on those archite... » read more

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