Author's Latest Posts


System Bits: May 30


Diamonds for quantum computing Quantum computers are experimental devices that offer large speedups on some computational problems, and one promising approach to building them involves harnessing nanometer-scale atomic defects in diamond materials. At the same time, practical, diamond-based quantum computing devices will require the ability to position those defects at precise locations in com... » read more

RISC-V Pros And Cons


Simpler, faster, lower-power hardware with a free, open, simple instruction set architecture? While it sounds too good to be true, efforts are underway to do just that with RISC-V, the instruction-set architecture (ISA) developed by UC Berkeley engineers and now administered by a foundation. It has been known for some time that with [getkc id="74" comment="Moore's Law"] not offering the same... » read more

Toward Continuous HW-SW Integration


Hardware is only as good as the software that runs on it, and as system complexity grows that software is lagging behind. The way to close that gap is to improve the [getkc id="100" kc_name="methodology"] for developing that software in the first place. That includes making sure updates are verified and tested before being pushed out to devices, adding the same kinds of detailed checks that ... » read more

System Bits: May 23


Next-era transistors engage diamonds To advance the development of more robust and energy-efficient electronics, materials scientists from Japan’s National Institute for Materials Sciences have developed a new diamond transistor fabrication process. To address the challenges of silicon, Jiangwei Liu and the team have recently described new work developing diamond-based transistors. “Sil... » read more

Maintaining Power Profiles At 10/7nm


Understanding power consumption in detail is now a must-have of electronic design at 10nm and below, putting more pressure on SoC verification to ensure a device not only works, but meets the power budget. As part of this, the complete system must be run in a realistic manner — at the system-level — when the design and verification teams are looking at the effects of power during hardwar... » read more

System Bits: May 16


Refrigerator for quantum computers Quantum physicist Mikko Möttönen at Aalto University in Finland and his team have invented a quantum-circuit refrigerator, meant to reduce errors in quantum computing. The research results suggest how harmful errors in quantum computing can be removed — a new twist towards a functioning quantum computer. The team reminded that quantum computers use... » read more

Power Just One Piece Of The Puzzle At 10nm And Below


With dynamic power density and rising leakage power becoming more problematic at each new node, it is more important than ever to look at designs today with power in mind from the very start. As part of this complex picture of electronic design today, every piece in the design flow must tie together for the greatest efficiency and optimization. While this is partly power, there are more... » read more

Power Challenges At 10nm And Below


Current density is becoming much more problematic at 10nm and beyond, increasing the amount of power management that needs to be incorporated into each chip and boosting both design costs and time to market. Current per unit of area has been rising since 90nm, forcing design teams to leverage a number of power-related strategies such as [getkc id="143" kc_name="dynamic voltage and frequency... » read more

System Bits: May 9


Graphene adopts exotic electronic states In a platform that may be used to explore avenues for quantum computing, MIT researchers have found that a flake of graphene, when brought in close proximity with two superconducting materials, can inherit some of those materials’ superconducting qualities. They reminded that in normal conductive materials such as silver and copper, electric curren... » read more

Resolving Privacy In The Car


As we increasing connect our vehicles — and therefore ourselves — with the outside world while driving, concerns about privacy are coming up, and for good reason. As I was researching software in the vehicle for this article, Larry Lapides from Imperas Software brought up a good point about how security and privacy in the vehicle will likely be split into two separately addressed issues.... » read more

← Older posts Newer posts →