Author's Latest Posts


Are Models Always The Answer?


Given the shift to system level design and the need to make tradeoffs early in the design process, much emphasis is placed on modeling, and for good reason. Tobias Bjerregaard, CEO of Teklatech reminded that power integrity analysis and signal integrity analysis evolved to be more or less a checkmark from many companies. “They run it and then say, ‘OK, it is fine,’ but they don't think... » read more

System Bits: April 12


Highly aligned, wafer-scale films Rice University researchers, with support from Los Alamos National Laboratory, have created inch-wide, flexible, wafer-scale films of highly aligned and closely packed carbon nanotubes with the help of a simple filtration process. The chirality-enriched single-walled carbon nanotubes assemble themselves by the millions into long rows that are aligned better... » read more

Counterfeiting In The Automotive Supply Chain


While counterfeiting is not a new problem in the automotive space by any means, the stakes are higher all the time when you consider the increase in more sophisticated electronics and electronic systems being designed into vehicles today. While we don’t want to think about the worst case scenario of a counterfeit airbag in the family minivan or a counterfeit battery in a hybrid vehicle, we mu... » read more

The Race To Secure The Car


A shift is underway in the automotive industry to connect cars to each other and to a variety of communications infrastructure, adding many of the features that consumers now expect in mobile devices as well as some new ones that ultimately will lead to autonomous vehicles. But along with those changes are some nagging questions about just how safe that technology will be for consumers and othe... » read more

System Bits: April 5


Encoding electrons with valleytronics Researchers at the U.S. Department of Energy’s Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (Berkeley Lab) have developed a new type of electronics that could lead to faster and more efficient computer logic systems and data storage chips in next-generation devices that they refer to as “valleytronics.” Specifically, the team has experimentally demonstra... » read more

What Cognitive Computing Means For Chip Design


Cognitive computing. Artificial intelligence. Machine learning. All of these are concepts aim to make human types of problems computable, whether it be a self-driving car, a health care-providing robot, or a walking and talking assistant robot for the home or office. R&D teams around the world are working to create a whole new world of machines more intelligent than humans. Designing sys... » read more

System Bits: March 29


Cryptographic system for controlling app access to data Researchers at MIT and Harvard University are hoping to change the fact that users of smartphones have no idea which data items their apps are collecting, where they’re stored, and if they’re stored securely with an application they’ve developed called Sieve. With Sieve, a Web user would store all personal data, in encrypted form... » read more

Coherency, Cache And Configurability


Coherency is gaining traction across a wide spectrum of applications as systems vendors begin leveraging heterogeneous computing to improve performance, minimize power, and simplify software development. Coherency is not a new concept, but making it easier to apply has always been a challenge. This is why it has largely been relegated to CPUs with identical processor cores. But the approach ... » read more

System Bits: March 22


How nanocrystal structures self assemble Researchers at MIT and the Cornell High Energy Synchrotron Source (CHESS) have discovered some of the secrets to a long-hidden magic trick behind the self-assembly of nanocrystal structures, the understanding of which could be used to create more vivid display screens and optical sensory devices. The transformation of simple colloidal particles — b... » read more

Running Out Of Energy?


The anticipated and growing energy requirements for future computing needs will hit a wall in the next 24 years if the current trajectory is correct. At that point, the world will not produce enough energy for all of the devices that are expected to be drawing power. A report issued by the Semiconductor Industry Association and Semiconductor Research Corp., bases its conclusions on system-le... » read more

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