The Week In Review: Design/IoT


Mergers/Acquisitions ARM acquired Offspark, a Dutch company specializing in IoT communications security. Use of Offspark's PolarSSL embedded Transport Layer Security (TLS) solution is widespread in the IoT industry. PolarSSL will be rebranded mbed TLS and integrated into ARM's mbed OS. Tools Mentor Graphics is bringing together a suite of technologies that enable a multi-platform appro... » read more

The LP R&D Ecosystem


I don’t know about you, but I’m always fascinated to learn new things about chip design. New techniques for power reduction, new ways to use existing tools, new tools in general. Some of this is happening at universities, some in happening in industry consortiums or partnerships, and despite what some people say from time to time, there is still innovation happening within the EDA companie... » read more

How Long Will Your Battery Last?


Designing an IP block or memory subsystem to fit within a power budget is essential for building energy efficiency into hardware and software. There's only one catch—it's meaningless to the end customer. Twenty years ago this was a pretty straightforward formula. If you used a device consistently, whether it was a computer or a calculator or an electric motor, then you would burn up X numb... » read more

Who Pays For EDA Shift Left?


While working on the predictions articles for 2015 (markets, design, semiconductors, tools and flows), a number of companies talked about the great shift left that is happening in the industry. What was surprising was the number of companies that mentioned it, and in very different ways. It is clear that shift left does not mean the same thing to all people. While they all see it addressing ... » read more

The Art Of LP Analog


The best way to reduce power in analog chips is to make architectural changes or adopt a new architecture for the individual block. However, there are also some design techniques used to reduce power in analog circuitry. Unlike digital circuitry, which allows an engineer to leverage a low power library and optimize through a constraints file with the EDA software to reduce power, the same do... » read more

Emulation Uses Increase


For more than two decades, [getkc id="30" comment="emulation"] was a technology in search of a market. While on paper it has always made sense to speed up simulation, using hardware acceleration was so pricey that few companies could justify the cost. Fast-forward to today and emulation is a major contributor to the bottom line at all of the Big Three [getkc id="7" kc_name="EDA"] companies. ... » read more

With Responsibility Comes Power


The debate continues as to whether [getkc id="106" kc_name="power"] has risen to become a primary design consideration, or if it remains secondary to functionality and performance. What is indisputable is the rise in the importance of both power and energy conservation. As technology improves, additional aspects of the design flow are being affected. With that, the focus for power reduction is ... » read more

Power Management Verification Requires Holistic Approach


Semiconductor Engineering sat down to discuss power management [getkc id="10" kc_name="Verification"] issues with Arvind Shanmugavel, senior director, applications engineering at [getentity id="22021" e_name="Ansys-Apache"]; Guillaume Boillet, technical marketing manager at [getentity id="22026" e_name="Atrenta"]; Adam Sherer, verification product management director at [getentity id="22032" e_... » read more

Calibrating Electronics Thermal Simulation Models


‘Rubbish In, Rubbish Out’ is a common and well-accepted fact in the world of thermal simulation—actually any type of simulation, for that matter. Regardless of the technical capabilities of your thermal simulation tool, the accuracy of prediction will always be tightly coupled to the accuracy of the input data. In terms of electronics thermal simulation, the prediction of the internal ... » read more

Postcards From The Edge (Of The Cloud)


The view from the edge of the cloud is pretty spectacular. Out here, there’s endless possibility. But out here on the edge, there’s turbulence, the cold buffeting swirl of today’s engineering challenges. On the edge, some see the Internet of Things (IoT) stalled. I wrote about this last month. The first wave of IoT devices — especially wearables — has quickly commoditized, driven b... » read more

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