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Week In Review: Design, Low Power


Nvidia's proposed acquisition of Arm is officially off. The deal faced significant pushback from regulatory agencies in the UK, USA, and Europe, which feared it would reduce or limit competition in areas like data center. Nvidia indicated it would continue working with Arm, and it will retain a 20-year Arm license. (SoftBank will retain the $1.25 billion prepaid by Nvidia.) SoftBank said it wil... » read more

Blog Review: Feb. 9


Arm's Mark Inskip walks through how the Morello program built a demonstration of the architecture that enables fine-grained memory protection and highly scalable software compartmentalization based on the CHERI (Capability Hardware Enhanced RISC Instructions) architectural model, from IP development and SoC design to creating software and a demonstration board. Synopsys' Plamen Asenov and su... » read more

Power/Performance Bits: Feb. 7


Stopping interference in integrated photonics Researchers at EPFL and Purdue University combined integrated photonics and MEMS to develop an electrically driven optical isolator-on-a-chip that transmits light in only one direction. Optical isolators are useful to prevent reflected light from other components compromising or interfering with an on-chip laser’s performance. They are often c... » read more

Week In Review: Design, Low Power


Tools & IP Ansys updated its product suite, adding new tools and workflows in Ansys 2022 R1. It adds Phi Plus meshing technology to improve simulation of PCB and complex 3D IC packaging. It also introduces RedHawk-SC SigmaDVD, a statistically realistic modeling technique to identify the worst-case dynamic voltage-drop in hours and make it possible to achieve near 100% coverage of all relev... » read more

Startup Funding: January 2022


China's startups are the star of the month once again, with more companies based or co-headquartered in the country receiving funding in January 2022 than the rest of the world combined. Exact investment figures for Chinese startups are frequently not reported, but based on minimum amounts given, they raised more than the rest of the world as well. The largest round of the month went to a co... » read more

Blog Review: Feb. 2


Synopsys' Stelios Diamantidis shares some predictions for AI in 2022, including the three markets that will push new AI chips, the increasing need for trust chains, the entry of non-traditional companies, and the impact of AI in chip design. Siemens EDA's Ray Salemi checks out how Python and SystemVerilog can work together to boost the verification ecosystem by taking advantage of what each ... » read more

Power/Performance Bits: Feb. 1


Seaweed-inspired energy harvesting Researchers from Dalian Maritime University, Georgia Institute of Technology, and Sun Yat-sen University developed flexible power generators that mimic the way seaweed sways to efficiently convert surface and underwater waves into electricity to power marine-based devices. Networks of sensors are spread across coastal zones, collecting information on curre... » read more

Week In Review: Design, Low Power


Kalray, a provider of programmable data processing and storage acceleration cards for data centers, will acquire Arcapix Holdings, which provides software-defined storage and data management solutions for data-intensive applications. "I am delighted at the prospect of this acquisition that will accelerate our go-to-market and strengthen our key position in the data-intensive storage market. It ... » read more

Blog Review: Jan. 26


Arm's Mark Inskip shares how the Morello prototype architecture, aimed at improving the security of hardware, was developed, from the creation of the prototype architecture specification, followed by the design and implementation of a new CPU, through to the development of a new SoC, hardware platform, development tools, toolchains, and software. Cadence's Paul McLellan looks at how the RISC... » read more

Power/Performance Bits: Jan. 25


Nanoscale 3D optics Researchers at Rice University and University of Houston are using 3D printing to build nanostructures of silica for micro-scale electronic, mechanical, and photonic devices. “It’s very tough to make complicated, three-dimensional geometries with traditional photolithography techniques,” said Jun Lou, a professor of materials science and nanoengineering at Rice. �... » read more

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