Predictions: Manufacturing, Devices And Companies

By Brian Bailey - 18 Jan, 2018 - Comments: 0

Some predictions are just wishful thinking, but most of these are a lot more thoughtful. They project what needs to happen for various markets or products to become successful. Those far reaching predictions may not fully happen within 2018, but we give everyone the chance to note the progress made towards their predictions at the end of the year. (See Reflection On 2017: Design And EDA and Man... » read more

Machine Learning’s Growing Divide

By Brian Bailey - 11 Jan, 2018 - Comments: 7

[getkc id="305" kc_name="Machine learning"] is one of the hottest areas of development, but most of the attention so far has focused on the cloud, algorithms and GPUs. For the semiconductor industry, the real opportunity is in optimizing and packaging solutions into usable forms, such as within the automotive industry or for battery-operated consumer or [getkc id="76" kc_name="IoT"] products. ... » read more

Predictions: Markets And Drivers

By Brian Bailey - 11 Jan, 2018 - Comments: 0

Semiconductor Engineering received a record number of predictions this year. Some of them are just wishful thinking, but many are a lot more thoughtful and project what needs to happen for various markets or products to become successful. Those far reaching predictions may not fully happen within 2018, but we give everyone the chance to note the progress made towards their predictions at the en... » read more

Could Liquid IP Lead To Better Chips? (Part 3)

By Brian Bailey - 09 Jan, 2018 - Comments: 0

Semiconductor Engineering sat down to discuss the benefits that could come from making IP available as abstract blocks instead of RTL implementations with Mark Johnstone, technical director for Electronic Design Automation for [getentity id="22499" e_name="NXP"] Semiconductor; [getperson id="11489" p_name="Drew Wingard"], CTO at [getentity id="22605" e_name="Sonics"]; Bryan Bowyer, director of ... » read more

Reflection On 2017: Design And EDA

By Brian Bailey - 03 Jan, 2018 - Comments: 0

People love to make predictions, and most of the time they have it easy, but at Semiconductor Engineering, we ask them to look back on the predictions they make each year and to assess how close to the mark they were. We see what they missed and what surprised them. Not everyone accepts our offer to grade themselves, but most have this year. (Part one looked at the predictions associated with s... » read more

Reflections On 2017: Manufacturing And Markets

By Brian Bailey - 28 Dec, 2017 - Comments: 0

People love to make predictions, and most of the time they have it easy, but at Semiconductor Engineering, we ask them to look back on the predictions they make each year and to assess how close to the mark they were. To see what they missed and what surprised them. Not everyone accepts our offer to grade themselves, but many have this year. This is the first of two parts that looks at the pred... » read more

And The Winner Is…

By Brian Bailey - 21 Dec, 2017 - Comments: 0

Finding out what resonates with our readers is important, so each year I look back through the list of the best-read articles for the channels that I write for. While this simple strategy does favor articles published during the early part of the year, the fact that our readership continues to grow, partially offsets this bias. For example, in Low Power/High Performance (LPHP) a quarter of the ... » read more

Is Verification Falling Behind?

By Brian Bailey - 21 Dec, 2017 - Comments: 1

Every year that [getkc id="74" comment="Moore's Law"] is in effect means that the [getkc id="10" kc_name="verification"] task gets larger and more complex. At one extreme, verification complexity increases at the square of design complexity, but that assumes that every state in the design is usable and unique. On the other hand, verification has not had the luxury that comes with design reuse b... » read more

EDA Challenges Machine Learning

By Brian Bailey - 14 Dec, 2017 - Comments: 1

Over the past few years, [getkc id="305" kc_name="machine learning"] (ML) has evolved from an interesting new approach that allows computers to beat champions at chess and Go, into one that is touted as a panacea for almost everything. While there is clearly a lot of hype surrounding this, it appears that machine learning can produce a better outcome for many tasks in the EDA flow than even the... » read more