category: Editor’s Note

category: IoT, Security & Automotive

Performance Plus Lower Power
By Ed Sperling - 06 Oct, 2011 - Comments: 0

A new race is beginning in the SoC world. While performance has been supplanted by battery life as the top goal for the next process node, that prioritization isn’t going to last. The ultimate challenge will be to achieve both—higher performance with substantially lower power. This is the subject of research inside of dozens of companies and universities, and there are several different... » read more

Painting The World Brown
By Ed Sperling - 30 Sep, 2011 - Comments: 0

The wave of portable devices being sold these days are far more energy-efficient than in the past, and viewed in isolation they constitute a major step forward in the push toward a greener world. The problem is that while people are buying these new devices in record numbers, they’re actually consuming more energy than in the past. That may explain why the number of complaints about smart ... » read more

Patience And Power
By Ed Sperling - 23 Sep, 2011 - Comments: 0

Prior to the invention of the railroad, the fastest anyone or anything traveled on the planet was the fastest horse, which is what made horse racing particularly interesting for centuries. And most SoC designers are old enough to remember the days when overnight delivery was considered a good thing. Even the Millennials are old enough to remember hourglasses on the screen, and the X Gens can ea... » read more

Solar Meltdown
By Ed Sperling - 10 Sep, 2011 - Comments: 0

Solyndra’s implosion this week has invited widespread speculation about just what went so completely wrong at the solar panel company. The bigger issue, though, may be less about this company and more about the intersection of business and technology. It’s easy to get dazzled by technology in the solar market. What’s green is good and Solyndra has been a poster child in this sector. Ev... » read more

A Warmer Reception
By Ed Sperling - 08 Sep, 2011 - Comments: 0

For years data center operations managers have been complaining that they can no longer cool racks of servers enough to bring them down to the maximum temperature. The increasing density of chips, thinner servers packed more tightly together and the usual current leakage have become so bad that it’s impossible to blow enough cool air through the server cabinets. In fact, it’s gotten to the ... » read more

The 3D Power Factor
By Ed Sperling - 26 Aug, 2011 - Comments: 0

In the move to stacked die, one of the biggest issues is power. While chips using leading-edge processes already address this issue effectively through a variety of advanced techniques, the big question mark is what happens with the older technologies. The answer may not be quite so simple. While it’s still possible to use technology developed at older process nodes, it may not be exactly ... » read more

Intelligent Integration Intent
By Ed Sperling - 11 Aug, 2011 - Comments: 0

The focus in recent mobile designs has been heavily slanted toward energy efficiency and power reduction, but this is merely a swing of the pendulum. The loudest complaint right now is time between battery charges, and devices that can go longer between charges without having to turn down the screen brightness, turn off Bluetooth and limit the number of e-mail refreshes will win market share. ... » read more

The Other Green
By Ed Sperling - 05 Aug, 2011 - Comments: 0

The human memory is rather short when it comes to certain things. Energy efficiency is one of them. While they may cringe at paying $4 a gallon for gasoline to fill of their car, they were convinced that drastic measures were necessary when gas hit $1 a gallon. And while consumers collectively account for the vast percentage of energy consumed, individually they don’t consume enough to mak... » read more

Viewing Power Through A Funnel
By Ed Sperling - 21 Jul, 2011 - Comments: 0

If Moore’s Law had a corresponding geometric shape, it would be a funnel. At older nodes, the wider part of the funnel could accommodate a full SoC or ASIC. At advanced nodes, moving further into the funnel, only portions of an SoC will actually be designed and built—mostly the digital logic and memory. Everything from analog portions to standard IP and even non-standard IP will be construc... » read more

Going With The Flow
By Ed Sperling - 15 Jul, 2011 - Comments: 0

It’s hard to judge things in isolation, but a continuum of acquisitions in the low-power area is proving just how important power considerations have become to hardware and software design, verification and manufacturing flows. Over the past couple of years acquisitions by Synopsys in the virtual prototyping arena, and Mentor Graphics in the test and embedded software area, have included p... » read more

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