Considering Semiconductor Implementation Aspects Early During Network-on-Chip Development


As they say, while history may not repeat itself, it sure rhymes. In 2015, I wrote the blog "Why Implementation Matters To System Design And Software." At the time, I mused that while abstraction is essential in system design, it has limitations that users must consider. Critical decisions, such as those regarding power and performance, require more accuracy than can be feasibly abstracted. ... » read more

When Less Can Be More With Smart Module Design: Part 1


Size and power often seem like opposite sides of a coin. When you reduce size – one of the ever-pressing goals in our industry – you inevitably reduce power. But does that have to be the case? By shifting our thinking from the chip to the module design, there’s no need to flip a coin. In IGBT modules, chip shrinkage leads to an increased thermal impedance, which then impacts performanc... » read more

Automotive Growing In 2023


Automotive has to be one of the most fascinating industries where semiconductors and the semiconductor ecosystem are making huge strides. From the evolution of increasingly autonomous vehicles, to more immersive driver and passenger comfort and infotainment experiences, along with additional safety-related features, it’s a rich development environment. I recently had the opportunity to dis... » read more

Protecting High-Speed Network Traffic With MACsec


By Dana Neustadter and Jerry Lotto There is an ever-increasing demand for bandwidth, driven by an exponential growth in the number of devices connected to the cloud and a broadening variety of sensors, applications, and services, resulting in an explosion of data traffic. This in turn, drives the proliferation of high bandwidth interfaces such as Ethernet, PCIe/CXL, and DDR to sustain faster... » read more

Leveraging The Benefits Of A FIPS 140 CMVP Certified Root Of Trust IP


Expectations that security IP designs meet the highest security standards are growing rapidly. As companies face increased product development costs and time pressure, choosing an IP that has been certified demonstrates not just compliance with a standard, but offers a valuable tool to reducing overall project risk. The Federal Information Processing Standard (FIPS) 140 is published by NIST,... » read more

A New Era In Requirements Management


Project teams face a host of challenges when developing semiconductors compliant to a safety critical market. ISO 26262 drives state-of-the art safety critical designs for automotive electronics, DO-254 for airborne electronics hardware, and IEC61508 for industrial electronics, to name a few. In the context of ISO 26262, much of the discussion in recent years has been on challenges addressin... » read more

Security Highlight: Exploiting Persistent Faults In Crypto


At the most recent CHES workshop, Hossein Hadipour of the Graz University of Technology presented an important step forward in exploiting persistent faults in crypto. Differential Fault Analysis (DFA) is a well-known attack class that can lead to the compromise of a secret key when faults are injected during the execution of a cryptographic implementation. However, injecting transient fault... » read more

Automotive Security Vulnerabilities From Afar


Don't confuse automotive security with automotive safety, things like functional safety (FuSa) and ISO 26262. You need security to have safety. But security is its own thing. In a modern connected car, there are two places for security vulnerabilities. One is in the car itself. And the other is back at base in the automotive manufacturer's (OEM in the jargon) data centers, which the cars are co... » read more

Micro FPGAs And Embedded FPGAs


When people hear “FPGA” they think “big, expensive, power hungry.”  But it doesn’t need to be that way. Renesas has announced their Forge FPGA family. Details are at their website and in one of the many articles that covered their press release. Forge FPGAs show that FPGAs don’t have to be big, power hungry, and expensive. Forge FPGAs are tiny, draw standby current measure... » read more

Architecting Hardware Protection For Data At Rest, In Motion, And In Use


Planning the security architecture for any device begins with the security threat model. The threat model describes the types of attacks that the device or application may face and needs to be protected against. It is based on what attackers can do, what level of control they have over the product (i.e., remote, or direct access), and how much money and effort they are willing and able to spend... » read more

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