Author's Latest Posts


System Bits: Feb. 9


Securing RFID chips Researchers at MIT and Texas Instruments have developed a new type of radio frequency identification (RFID) chip that they say is virtually impossible to hack, and which could secure credit cards, key cards, and pallets of goods in warehouses. The researchers reminded that if such chips were widely adopted, it could mean that an identity thief couldn’t steal your credi... » read more

Designing SoCs For Hybrids


Hybrid vehicle sales are growing, driven by a global concern for lower vehicle emissions and consumer demand for better economy. This has set off a rush by semiconductor companies to provide key components for those vehicles because they are much more reliant on electronics than regular gasoline-powered vehicles. But the changeover is not as straightforward as it might sound. Hybrid vehicles... » read more

Hybrid Vehicles = More Verification


While it is probably no surprise to anyone even slightly familiar with the complexity of hybrid electric vehicle systems, these designs require more intense verification than traditional combustion engine systems. To fill out the picture, Mick Tegethoff, director, AMS product marketing at Mentor Graphics, reminded that verification is a very broad term. “Let's say you are doing circuit sim... » read more

System Bits: Feb. 2


Wearable sensors reveal health data from sweat In the name of science, UC Berkeley researchers want you to break out into a sweat — so it can be analyzed, of course. Specifically, the researchers have created a flexible sensor system that can measure metabolites and electrolytes in sweat, calibrate the data based upon skin temperature and sync the results in real time to a smartphone. The... » read more

Upcoming Hurdles For The Semiconductor Industry


Semiconductor Engineering sat down to discuss upcoming challenges and hurdles to overcome for the semiconductor industry with Vic Kulkarni, senior vice president and general manager, RTL Power Business at Ansys-Apache; Chris Rowen, Fellow and CTO, IP Group at Cadence; Subramani Kengeri, vice president, Global Design Solutions at GLOBALFOUNDRIES; Simon Davidmann, CEO of Imperas Software; Michael... » read more

Using Agile Methods For Hardware


[getkc id="182" kc_name=agile development"] methodology for software is getting a much closer look by hardware teams these days, because what used to work in SoC design and verification isn't working nearly as well with rising complexity. Development processes need to be constantly evolved to determine how to be more productive, deliver higher quality, cut costs in development, and how to g... » read more

System Bits: Jan. 26


Precisely controlling graphene molecules Researchers at UCLA’s California NanoSystems Institute have found that in the same way gardeners may use sheets of plastic with strategically placed holes to allow plants to grow but keep weeds from taking root, the same basic approach can be applied in terms of placing molecules in the specific patterns they need within tiny nanoelectronic devices, w... » read more

System Bits: Jan. 19


Electromagnetic properties of graphene-boron nitride materials Rice University and Montreal Polytechnic researchers reported that developing novel materials from the atoms up goes faster when some of the trial and error is eliminated. The work aims to simplify development of certain exotic materials for next-generation electronics. Specifically, Rouzbeh Shahsavari, a Rice materials scient... » read more

Bridging Hardware And Software


Methodology and reuse are two fairly standard concepts when it comes to semiconductor design, but they're viewed completely differently by hardware and software teams. It's a given that hardware and software have different goals and opinions about how best to do design. And while all agree that a single methodology can pay dividends in future chips, there is disagreement over who should shap... » read more

More Uses For Hypervisors


Hypervisors are showing up in more places than ever before as a quick and inexpensive way to utilize multiple cores and multiple chips more effectively and more securely. This marks an interesting twist for a technology that originally was developed as a way of enabling virtualization on a PC, allowing users to run multiple incompatible applications on the same computer. That was followed in... » read more

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