Week In Review: Design, Low Power
By Jesse Allen - 29 Jan, 2021 - Comments: 0

The CXL Consortium published the Compute Express Link 2.0 specification. CXL is an interconnect that maintains memory coherency between the CPU memory space and memory on attached devices. CXL 2.0 adds support for switching for fan-out to connect to more devices, memory pooling for increased memory utilization efficiency and providing memory capacity on demand, and support for persistent memory... » read more

Week In Review: Auto, Security, Pervasive Computing
By SE Staff - 29 Jan, 2021 - Comments: 0

Automotive/Mobility Chip makers in Taiwan will “do their best” to “squeeze out more chips” said Taiwan’s Minister of Economic Affairs Wang Mei-hua after having lunch with representatives of TSMC, UMC, Vanguard International Semiconductor Corp, and Powerchip Semiconductor Manufacturing Co., according to the Taipei Times. After the auto industry initially cut automotive chip orders bec... » read more

Von Neumann Upset
By Brian Bailey - 28 Jan, 2021 - Comments: 0

My recent article about the von Neumann architecture received some quite passionate responses, including one that thought I was attempting to slight the person. That was most certainly not the intent, given that the invention enabled a period of very rapid advancement in computers and technology in general. The process of invention and engineering are both quite similar and yet different. In... » read more

Have It All With No-Compromise DFT
By Geir Eide - 28 Jan, 2021 - Comments: 0

The dramatic rise in manufacturing test time for today’s large and complex SoCs is rooted in the use of traditional approaches to moving scan test data from chip-level pins to core-level scan channels. The pin-multiplexing (mux) approach works fine for smaller designs but can become problematic with an increase in the number of cores and the design complexity on today’s SoCs. The next revol... » read more

AI And ML Applications Require Advanced Datapath Verification
By Kiran Vittal - 28 Jan, 2021 - Comments: 0

In popular usage, the term “artificial intelligence” (AI) once conjured up images of robot armies subjugating humans or evil computers outsmarting their users, as in '2001: A Space Odyssey.' In recent years, AI has become a part of daily life for much of the planet’s population. People use voice commands to interact with their smartphones, smart speakers and even TV remote controls. Sophi... » read more

Roaring ’20s For The Chip Industry
By Brian Bailey - 28 Jan, 2021 - Comments: 0

2020 was a good year for the semiconductor industry and the EDA industry that fuels it, but 2021 has the opportunity to be even better. New end application markets continue to open, and what were once seen as technical hurdles are leading to a multitude of innovative solutions, all of which need suitable tooling. No company can afford to invest everywhere, and so for EDA companies, their rel... » read more

Bug Escapes And The Definition Of Done
By Hagai Arbel - 28 Jan, 2021 - Comments: 0

National Semiconductor's design center (NSTA) in Herzliya was the place where I fell in love with chip verification. I joined the team in 1999, still during my BSc, and met a group of innovators with a passion to create great ASICs and improve the way we did it at all costs. It was fast-moving learning for me, both on the verification engineering and verification management sides of things. ... » read more

Big Changes In Verification
By Ann Mutschler - 28 Jan, 2021 - Comments: 0

Verification is undergoing fundamental change as chips become increasingly complex, heterogeneous, and integrated into larger systems. Tools, methodologies, and the mindset of verification engineers themselves are all shifting to adapt to these new designs, although with so many moving pieces this isn't always so easy to comprehend. Ferreting out bugs in a design now requires a multi-faceted... » read more

Hyperscaling The 21st Century Engineer
By Frank Schirrmeister - 28 Jan, 2021 - Comments: 0

While January is the month of predictions for many, I have made it a habit to look back and see how previous forward-looking assessments have worked out. It is fascinating to see how many past predictions were off and how little has changed in some areas. Twenty years ago, in January 2001, the front cover of IEEE Spectrum set the theme of ubiquitous connectivity in an always-on world. Some o... » read more

Taming Non-Predictable Systems
By Brian Bailey - 28 Jan, 2021 - Comments: 0

How predictable are semiconductor systems? The industry aims to create predictable systems and yet when a carrot is dangled, offering the possibility of faster, cheaper, or some other gain, decision makers invariably decide that some degree of uncertainty is warranted. Understanding uncertainty is at least the first step to making informed decisions, but new tooling is required to assess the im... » read more

← Older posts Newer posts →

  • Sponsors

About

Navigation

Connect With Us

Copyright ©2013-2026 SMG   |  Terms of Service  |  Privacy Policy