Reducing SoC Power With NoCs And Caches


Today’s system-on-chip (SoC) designs face significant challenges with respect to managing and minimizing power consumption while maintaining high performance and scalability. Network-on-chip (NoC) interconnects coupled with innovative cache memories can address these competing requirements. Traditional NoCs SoCs consist of IP blocks that need to be connected. Early SoCs used bus-based archi... » read more

Managing Performance in Modern SoC Designs


As industries like automotive, consumer electronics, telecommunications and artificial intelligence (AI) push for greater processing power, efficiency and scalability, system-on-chip (SoC) designs have rapidly evolved to meet these demands. With the growing complexity of modern SoCs, designers face the challenge of managing an increasing number of interconnected IP blocks while ensuring seamles... » read more

Streamlining Complex Semiconductor Designs With IP-XACT-Based Structured Assembly


Semiconductor design is rapidly evolving because technologies such as AI and machine learning (ML) applications push the boundaries of complexity and specialization. Modern chips require hundreds or thousands of IP blocks, leading to significant design challenges. Multi-die architectures, which distribute functional blocks across multiple dice, demand expert planning to ensure connectivity and ... » read more

Optimizing Interconnect Topologies For Automotive ADAS Applications


Designing automotive Advanced Driver Assistance Systems (ADAS) applications can be incredibly complex. State-of-the-art ADAS and autonomous driving systems use ‘sensor fusion’ to combine inputs from multiple sources, typically cameras and optionally radar and lidar units to go beyond passive and active safety to automate driving. Vision processing systems combine specialized AI accelerators... » read more

Streamlining SoC Design With Advanced IP And Integration Solutions


As system-on-chip (SoC) complexity grows, so does the necessity for products that seamlessly connect IP and streamline integration processes, minimize manual errors, and enhance productivity. The emphasis on physical awareness across solutions significantly reduces the iterative cycles of NoC placement and routing. By ensuring low latency and high efficiency, these advanced integration solution... » read more

Turbocharging Cost-Conscious SoCs With Cache


Some design teams creating system-on-chip (SoC) devices are fortunate to work with the latest and greatest technology nodes coupled with a largely unconstrained budget for acquiring intellectual property (IP) blocks from trusted third-party vendors. However, many engineers are not so privileged. For every “spare no expense” project, there are a thousand “do the best you can with a limited... » read more

The Path Toward Future Automotive EE Architectures


From a semiconductor market perspective, all eyes are on the automotive domain. According to Gartner, as of 2023, the automotive market is now its second-largest segment, with about 14% of the demand. Only smartphones consume more. As I mused last month in "Automotive Semiconductor March Madness 2024," those who made a bet on automotive a decade or longer ago are pretty happy these days. Still,... » read more

Automotive Semiconductor March Madness 2024


As the US is amid "Basketball March Madness" – hard to ignore when you live in Silicon Valley – it also felt like the month of "Automotive Madness." We saw numerous announcements and events across the design chain, from semiconductor IP to software and IP providers to automotive OEMs. And in all of them, data-transport architectures, and with that networks-on-chips (NoCs), are critical. Ma... » read more

NoC Development – Make Or Buy?


In the selection and qualification process for semiconductor IP, design teams often consider the cost of in-house development. Network-on-Chip (NoC) IP is no different. In “When Does My SoC Design Need A NoC?” Michael Frank and I argued that most of today’s designs – even less complex ones – can benefit from NoCs. In the blog “Balancing Memory And Coherence: Navigating Modern Chip A... » read more

Will 2024 Be The Year Of Layered Realities?


January is always the month of predictions. Our team has already contributed to Semiconductor Engineering's 2023 Look Back and 2024 Outlook. My personal tradition has become to combine the outlook with a look back at what industry experts thought of a decade ago. While this involved a trip to my garage to pick up the respective January IEEE Spectrum issue a decade ago, the new reality is that a... » read more

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