How Software-Driven Tests Support Concurrent Power/Performance Analysis


There’s always been an intimate relationship between performance and power—and it’s one that is acutely affected by architecture. Architectural innovation can yield orders of magnitude improvements in performance/power metrics. For example, we’ve seen a growing popularity in multi-core and heterogeneous core systems with purpose-specific hardware accelerators. These configurations are o... » read more

Managing Power Without Impacting Design Intent


The good news is that there are many techniques available to optimize power in your design. The not-so-good news? Many of these power management techniques also create new complexities in the physical and functional behavior of electronic designs. Fortunately, there’s more good news: implementing a power-aware verification methodology can help you verify power optimization without detracti... » read more

The Role Of Energy-Efficient Circuits In Wearable Healthcare Applications


As beneficial as they are, health monitors for conditions like high blood pressure, arrhythmia, and epilepsy can be uncomfortable and inconvenient due to all of their protruding wires. This opens up an opportunity for designers of wearable healthcare applications. “Wearable electronics are needed for proactive healthcare,” said Dr. Jerald Yoo, an associate professor in the Department of ... » read more

Designing Power-Efficient, Implantable Medical Devices


Medical devices used for treatment traditionally tend to be big, bulky, and full of wires, making them uncomfortable or inconvenient for the patient to use. For Dr. Rikky Muller and Cortera Neurotechnologies, power-efficient, implantable medical devices provide a viable alternative. Muller is an assistant professor of electrical engineering and computer sciences at UC Berkeley. She is also a... » read more

2016 And Beyond


Greek mythology and Roman history are replete with soothsayers, some of whom got it right and others wrong. Cassandra was cursed that her predictions wouldn’t be believed, even though she predicted the Trojan horse. Caesar’s soothsayer predicted the demise of Julius Caesar during the Ides of March, which Caesar himself was skeptical about, but indeed he was murdered before the Ides passed. ... » read more

Is it Hot? Ask Joules


Over the last decade it has become clear that power reduction techniques involving different parts of the chips would become more important than they had historically. In 2G cell phones everything except the real-time clock could be turned off when the phone was not in use. Pre-smartphones, a phone was either making a call (or texting, gaming, etc.) or it was off. In fact, a cell phone can’t ... » read more

Two Constraints-Based Techniques To Address Power-Related Challenges In SoC Design


Power scheduling, power integrity targets, voltage drop—these are just a few of the power-related challenges you’re no doubt managing in your SoC designs. There aren’t any easy answers, but there are some emerging—and promising—techniques. Two such techniques, according to University of Toronto Professor Farid Najm, are constraints generation and constraints-based verification. “... » read more

How Do We Push The Limits Of Power?


Just how far will we be able to push down power in electronics system design? A bit farther, according to experts presenting at the recent Electronic Design Processes Symposium in Monterey. A combination of materials, techniques, technology and cultural change will get the industry there. During a panel session comparing fully-depleted silicon-on-insulator (FD-SOI) with finFET technology, J... » read more

How We’ll Get There from Here


The electronics industry is like a battleship with remarkable handling properties. I thought about it this week sitting at an industry event a day after stumbling across Neptune—the technology project, not the god. Those two experiences forced me to rethink some fundamental assumptions about system design and how the ecosystem responds to change. If you’ve not heard of Neptune, it�... » read more

With Object-Based Audio, Dizzying Design Possibilities


Technology innovation can be dizzying—literally. Walk through a place as vast and cavernous as Mobile World Congress (and walk and walk and walk) and you can’t help but get wobbly at all the innovation in the building. But find your way to the Fraunhofer booth and things get even more interesting. Here, you take a seat outside the booth, slip on a virtual reality headset and settle ... » read more

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