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Ann Mutschler

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Ann Mutschler is senior executive editor at Semiconductor Engineering.

Author's Latest Posts

IP Subsystems: What Works, What Doesn’t
By Ann Mutschler - 21 Aug, 2014 - Comments: 0

The [getkc id="81" kc_name="SoC"] landscape has changed substantially over the past decade and so have some of the definitions for aspects of the system—particularly the [getkc id="43" kc_name="IP"] subsystem. “We’ve been at the point for some time for large SoCs that what we thought about as a building block 10 years ago is now too small,” said [getperson id="11489" p_name="Drew Win... » read more

System Bits: Aug. 19
By Ann Mutschler - 19 Aug, 2014 - Comments: 0

Revealing the purity of graphene Graphene may be tough, but those who handle it had better be tender, according to researchers from Rice University and Osaka University who have come up with a simple way to spot contaminants given that the environment surrounding the atom-thick carbon material can influence its electronic performance. It is so easy to accidentally introduce impurities into ... » read more

Power/Performance Bits: Aug. 19
By Ann Mutschler - 19 Aug, 2014 - Comments: 0

Spray-on power In a discovery that could help cut the cost of solar electricity, a team of scientists at the University of Sheffield has fabricated perovskite solar cells using a spray-painting process. The researchers had used the spray-painting method previously to produce solar cells using organic semiconductors - but using perovskite is a major step forward, they asserted. Efficient ... » read more

Power/Performance Bits: Aug. 12
By Ann Mutschler - 12 Aug, 2014 - Comments: 0

Putting waste heat to use According to MIT, it is estimated that more than half of U.S. energy — from vehicles and heavy equipment, for instance — is wasted as heat, which mostly escapes into the air. However, an MIT professor and his team have begun to change that with thermoelectric materials that convert temperature differences into electric voltage.About a decade ago, Gang Chen, the C... » read more

System Bits: Aug. 12
By Ann Mutschler - 12 Aug, 2014 - Comments: 0

Wearable, continuous disease monitoring A new wearable vapor sensor being developed at the University of Michigan could one day offer continuous disease monitoring for patients with diabetes, high blood pressure, anemia or lung disease, according to researchers there. The new sensor, which can detect airborne chemicals either exhaled or released through the skin, would likely be the first w... » read more

IP Reaches Back To Established Nodes
By Ann Mutschler - 07 Aug, 2014 - Comments: 0

Driven by the [getkc id="76" kc_name="IoT"] and wearable market opportunity, [getkc id="81" kc_name="SoC"] developers are shifting backward to established nodes, and what is learned at the leading-edge nodes is being leveraged in reverse as IP is ported backward to improve functionality. [getkc id="43" kc_name="IP"] certainly can be improved to work faster at older geometries, stressed Krish... » read more

Partitioning The Problem
By Ann Mutschler - 07 Aug, 2014 - Comments: 0

Whether it is solving a very tricky equation, cleaning out your hard drive or creating a power-aware test plan for your SoC, it helps to break the problem down into smaller pieces. There is so much involved with writing a test plan these days, let alone one that is power aware that I wasn’t all that surprised to hear from Erich Marschner, verification architect at Mentor Graphics that in t... » read more

Test Becomes Power-Aware
By Ann Mutschler - 07 Aug, 2014 - Comments: 0

Power-aware test plans are changing, becoming far more extensive than the minimalist plans that were common just a few years ago. In the past would determine if they could power their design up, power it down, then they’d declare it done. “Sometimes they would find they could power it up and power it down once, but they couldn’t power it up a second time because they’d forgotten to ... » read more

Power/Performance Bits: August 5
By Ann Mutschler - 05 Aug, 2014 - Comments: 0

Popeye would be proud According to physicists at Purdue University, spinach holds the promise of being able to convert sunlight into a clean, efficient alternative fuel. The Purdue team is part of an international group using spinach to study the proteins involved in photosynthesis, the process by which plants convert the sun’s energy into carbohydrates used to power cellular processes. ... » read more

System Bits: August 5
By Ann Mutschler - 05 Aug, 2014 - Comments: 0

A better conductor There are now new clues about one of the baffling electronic properties of the iron-based high-temperature superconductor barium iron nickel arsenide, according to a Rice University-led team of U.S., German and Chinese physicists that has discovered, based on sophisticated neutron measurements, of a link between magnetic properties and the material’s tendency, at sufficien... » read more

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