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Brian Bailey

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Brian Bailey is Technology Editor/EDA for Semiconductor Engineering.

Author's Latest Posts

Will Domain-Specific ICs Become Ubiquitous?
By Brian Bailey - 16 May, 2024 - Comments: 0

Questions are surfacing for all types of design, ranging from small microcontrollers to leading-edge chips, over whether domain-specific design will become ubiquitous, or whether it will fall into the historic pattern of customization first, followed by lower-cost, general-purpose components. Custom hardware always has been a double-edged sword. It can provide a competitive edge for chipmake... » read more

Can Models Created With AI Be Trusted?
By Brian Bailey - 06 May, 2024 - Comments: 0

EDA models that are created using AI need to pass more stringent quality and cost benefit analysis compared to many AI applications in the broader industry. Money is hanging on the line if AI gets it wrong, and all the associated costs must be factored into the equation. Models are some of the most expensive things a development team can create, and it is important to understand the value th... » read more

Is There Any Hope For Asynchronous Design?
By Brian Bailey - 25 Apr, 2024 - Comments: 6

In an era when power has become a fundamental design constraint, questions persist about whether asynchronous logic has a role to play. It is a design style said to have significant benefits and yet has never resulted in more than a few experiments. Synchronous design utilizes a clock, where the clock frequency is set by the longest and slowest path in the design. That includes potential var... » read more

Revitalizing DAC
By Brian Bailey - 25 Apr, 2024 - Comments: 0

The 61st Design Automation Conference is just two months away and as I get closer to retirement, I know there will only be a few remaining for me. I entered the EDA industry in 1980, so have been involved with it for almost 45 years. Over that period, I have only missed a few. It is interesting how the conference has changed over the years. In the early days, DAC was only a conference, where... » read more

Memory On Logic: The Good And Bad
By Brian Bailey - 11 Apr, 2024 - Comments: 0

The chip industry is progressing rapidly toward 3D-ICs, but a simpler step has been shown to provide gains equivalent to a whole node advancement — extracting distributed memories and placing them on top of logic. Memory on logic significantly reduces the distance between logic and directly associated memory. This can increase performance by 22% and reduce power by 36%, according to one re... » read more

NoCs In 3D Space
By Brian Bailey - 03 Apr, 2024 - Comments: 0

A network on chip (NoC) has become an essential piece of technology that enables the complexity of chips to keep growing, but when designs go 3D, or when third-party chiplets become pervasive, it's not clear how NoCs will evolve or what the impact will be on chiplet architectures. A NoC enables data to move between heterogeneous computing elements, while at the same time minimizing the resou... » read more

Career Transitions
By Brian Bailey - 28 Mar, 2024 - Comments: 0

Many people change their career path, sometimes to take on new challenges, sometimes following opportunity or money. As we learn, we develop both expertise and skill sets and in many cases expertise in one area has diminished value in another, meaning that it becomes more difficult to switch as we get older. But there are times when both knowledge and skills can be fully transferred, making the... » read more

What’s Missing In 2.5D EDA Tools
By Brian Bailey - 28 Mar, 2024 - Comments: 0

Gaps in EDA tool chains for 2.5D designs are limiting the adoption of this advanced packaging approach, which so far has been largely confined to high-performance computing. But as the rest of the chip industry begins migrating toward advanced packaging and chiplets, the EDA industry is starting to change direction. There are learning periods with all new technologies, and 2.5D advanced pack... » read more

Optimizing Energy At The System Level
By Brian Bailey - 18 Mar, 2024 - Comments: 0

Power is a ubiquitous concern, and it is impossible to optimize a system's energy consumption without considering the system as a whole. Tremendous strides have been made in the optimization of a hardware implementation, but that is no longer enough. The complete system must be optimized. There are far reaching implications to this, some of which are driving the path toward domain-specific c... » read more

Design Tool Think Tank Required
By Brian Bailey - 29 Feb, 2024 - Comments: 1

When I was in the EDA industry as a technologist, there were three main parts to my role. The first was to tell customers about new technologies being developed and tool extensions that would be appearing in the next release. These were features they might find beneficial both in the projects they were undertaking today, and even more so, would apply to future projects. Second, I would try and ... » read more

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