Author's Latest Posts


Power/Performance Bits: July 7


Direct solar energy storage Storing solar energy as hydrogen is a promising way for developing comprehensive renewable energy systems. To accomplish this, traditional solar panels can be used to generate an electrical current that splits water molecules into oxygen and hydrogen, the latter being considered a form of solar fuel. However, the cost of producing efficient solar panels makes wate... » read more

The Week In Review: Design/IoT


Synopsys continued its expansion into security with the acquisition of security IP provider Elliptic Technologies. The Canadian company's focus was cryptography cores, security protocol accelerators and processors, Root of Trust embedded security IP modules, secure boot and cryptography middleware as well as content protection IP for integration into SoCs. NXP and Freescale shareholders appr... » read more

Blog Review: July 1


On the eve of his retirement, Cadence's Richard Goering takes a look back at 30 years of covering EDA: the highlights, the lowlights, and the headlights shining into the future. Established nodes are experiencing a much higher demand than one might normally expect at this point in their lifecycle. Mentor's Michael White examines the dynamics and market forces behind the longevity, and the ch... » read more

Power/Performance Bits: June 30


Tiny, solar-powered sensors Last week, at the Symposia on VLSI Technology and Circuits, MIT researchers presented a new power converter chip that can harvest more than 80 percent of the energy trickling into it, even at the extremely low power levels characteristic of tiny solar cells. Previous ultralow-power converters that used the same approach had efficiencies of only 40 or 50 percent. ... » read more

The Week In Review: Design/IoT


IP Sonics released the latest version of the company's flagship NoC, which expands on their interleaved multi-channel technology and includes new layout optimization features for design flows based on modern physical synthesis and place & route tools. Synopsys extended its PCI Express 4.0 IP to support RAS features to help designers ensure data integrity and increase data protection i... » read more

Blog Review: June 24


Rambus' Aharon Etengoff reports on a new development enabling a needle measuring just a few millimeters in length to inject mesh electronics directly into the brain, and the medical possibilities of injectable electronics. ARM's Eoin McCann presents seven topics getting a lot of air time both in the booths and in speeches, presentations and panel discussions at DAC. Synopsys' Michael Posn... » read more

Power/Performance Bits: June 23


Printing 3D circuits from wood Researchers at Chalmers created three-dimensional objects made entirely of cellulose for the first time with the help of a 3D-bioprinter. They also added carbon nanotubes to create electrically conductive material. The difficulty using cellulose derived from wood in additive manufacturing is that cellulose does not melt when heated. Therefore, the 3D printer... » read more

The Week In Review: Design/IoT


Tools Synopsys updated its family of software tools for photonic component and optical communication system design, adding new IMEC foundry component libraries and DSP algorithms for photonic chips, modulator circuits and coherent transceivers, as well as a new platform for modeling large-core multimode fibers. Deals Imagination inked two deals: one with ANSYS for its integrated circui... » read more

Blog Review: June 17


Can big data help farmers produce bigger crops? From Iowa to Indonesia, Rambus' Aharon Etengoff looks at programs combining sensors, drones, and analytics where narrowing the odds of the next catastrophic crop failure is just the beginning. Forget any preconceptions you might have about the non-profit sector, says ARM's Dominic Vergine. UNICEF's global procurement hub looks and runs like an ... » read more

Power/Performance Bits: June 16


Lighting up graphene A team of scientists from Columbia University, Seoul National University, and Korea Research Institute of Standards and Science demonstrated an on-chip visible light source using graphene as a filament. They attached small strips of graphene to metal electrodes, suspended the strips above the substrate, and passed a current through the filaments to cause them to heat up.... » read more

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