Author's Latest Posts


System Bits: May 1


Tiniest implanted wireless nerve stimulator UC Berkeley researchers, co-led by Rikky Muller, who is also assistant professor of electrical engineering and computer sciences at Berkeley, have built what they say is the smallest volume, most efficient wireless nerve stimulator to date. Before this milestone, UC Berkeley engineers demonstrated the first implanted, ultrasonic neural dust sensor... » read more

Partitioning Becomes More Difficult


The divide-and-conquer approach that has been the backbone of verification for decades is becoming more difficult at advanced nodes. There are more interactions from different blocks and features, more power domains, more physical effects to track, and far more complex design rules to follow. This helps explain why the number of tools required on each design—simulation, prototyping, em... » read more

More Nodes, New Problems


The rollout of leading-edge process nodes is accelerating rather than slowing down, defying predictions that device scaling would begin to subside due to rising costs and the increased difficulty of developing chips at those nodes. Costs are indeed rising. So are the number of design rules, which reflect skyrocketing complexity stemming from multiple patterning, more devices on a chip, and m... » read more

Tech Talk: Improving Verification


Frank Schirrmeister, senior group director for product management and marketing at Cadence, discusses how to verify different use cases, focusing on software, low-power designs, connectivity, and a variety of end markets. https://youtu.be/gK-0vmIWxJs » read more

System Bits: April 24


Some superconductors carry spin currents A few years ago, researchers from the University of Cambridge showed that it was possible to create electron pairs in which the spins are aligned: up-up or down-down. The spin current can be carried by up-up and down-down pairs moving in opposite directions with a net charge current of zero, and the ability to create such a pure spin super-current is an... » read more

Designing 5G Chips


5G is the wireless technology of the future, and it’s coming fast. The technology boasts very high-speed data transfer rates, much lower latency than 4G LTE, and the ability to handle significantly higher densities of devices per cell site. In short, it is the best technology for the massive amount of data that will be generated by sensors in cars, IoT devices, and a growing list of next-g... » read more

System Bits: April 17


Smartphone microscopes transformed into lab-grade devices with deep learning UCLA Samueli School of Engineering researchers have demonstrated that deep learning techniques can discern and enhance microscopic details in photos taken by smartphones in order to improve the resolution and color details of smartphone images so much that they approach the quality of images from laboratory-grade mic... » read more

High-Performance Memory Challenges


Designing memories for high-performance applications is becoming far more complex at 7/5nm. There are more factors to consider, more bottlenecks to contend with, and more tradeoffs required to solve them. One of the biggest challenges is the sheer volume of data that needs to be processed for AI, machine learning or deep learning, or even in classic data center server racks. “The design... » read more

System Bits: April 10


Ultrafast laser beam steering for autonomous cars Researchers at Purdue University and Stanford University reported they have found a novel laser light sensing technology that is more robust and less expensive than currently available with a wide range of uses, including a way to guide fully autonomous vehicles. The team said this innovation is orders of magnitude faster than conventional l... » read more

Committing To Automotive


The autonomous driving effort has hit some painful speedbumps lately, with Tesla and Uber feeling the brunt of these. Unfortunately, the recent fatal accidents demonstrate just how challenging it is to get this technology right, and why some in this space have downshifted their efforts to learn from what happened and how to prevent it going forward. This prompted Nvidia to suspend its effort... » read more

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