What Does “Low Power Optimization” Mean To You?


As I was researching some new low power capabilities, I asked this question of nearly every designer I met: “How important is low power optimization?” It turns out that it’s a pretty useless question because of course it’s important to just about everyone. After all, reducing power improves reliability and reduces design costs. And for chips destined for certain applications, such as mo... » read more

The Evolution Of Deep Learning For ADAS Applications


Embedded vision solutions will be a key enabler for making automobiles fully autonomous. Giving an automobile a set of eyes – in the form of multiple cameras and image sensors – is a first step, but it also will be critical for the automobile to interpret content from those images and react accordingly. To accomplish this, embedded vision processors must be hardware optimized for performanc... » read more

Large-Screen Compute Transformation Is Here


Mobile development never sleeps. Unlike some application areas where a technology takes root, grows and evolves quickly, and then plateaus when the products are mature, mobile is a different beast. It influences other areas of technology, bringing a new look and life to older applications. Since 2009, each smart phone generation has delivered improved performance at the same or lower power c... » read more

Libraries: Standardization and Requirements For Power-Aware Dynamic Simulation


INTRODUCTION Multivoltage (MV) based power-aware (PA) design verification and implementation methodologies requires special power management attributes in libraries for standard, MV and Macro cells for two distinctive reason. The first aspect is to provide power and ground (also bias) supply or PG-pin information, which is mandatory for PA verification. The second reason is to provide a distin... » read more

Power Just One Piece Of The Puzzle At 10nm And Below


With dynamic power density and rising leakage power becoming more problematic at each new node, it is more important than ever to look at designs today with power in mind from the very start. As part of this complex picture of electronic design today, every piece in the design flow must tie together for the greatest efficiency and optimization. While this is partly power, there are more... » read more

The Efficiency Problem


Part one of this report addressed the efficiency problem in neural networks. This segment addresses efficiencies in training, quantization, and optimizing the network and the hardware. Minimize the Bits (CNN Advanced Quantization) Training a CNN involves assigning weight vectors to certain results, and applying adaptive filters to those results to determine the positives, false positives, a... » read more

The SerDes – Terabit Ethernet Connection


400 Gigabit Ethernet (400GbE) and 200 Gigabit Ethernet (200GbE) are currently slated for official release by the IEEE P802.3cd Task Force in December 2017. Although there is not yet an official IEEE roadmap detailing what lies beyond 400GbE, doubling to 800GbE will likely become a reality when single-lane 112Gbps links hits the market. This technology will allow for larger lane bundles, providi... » read more

Voice Recognition’s Role In Safer, More Secure Car Design


By Soshun Arai, ARM, and Mark Sykes, Recognition Technologies Look around the dashboard of a modern car and you will see dials, buttons and knobs everywhere. While each has its own purpose, they can confuse and distract people, especially when a driver should be paying attention to the road. Add to this new laws that promise harsher punishments for drivers using mobile devices, and you can s... » read more

Building One Interface Subsystem For Multiple IoT SoCs


When designing SoCs for Internet of Things (IoT) applications, designers quickly realize that their most efficient use of resources will result in chips that can address multiple end applications. Consumer products require connectivity or edge devices, and networking or enterprise companies are broadening their reach to home networking and cloud services, like remote processing, that complement... » read more

Calibre Evolves Constantly


I find it truly amazing that despite the constantly changing tide in the digital IC design industry that some tools have remained in that number 1 spot for over a decade. The three tools that immediately come to mind are Synopsys’ PrimeTime and Design Compiler and Mentor’s Calibre. I remember back when I first started covering the industry in the mid-1990s that Quad Design’s Motive sta... » read more

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