category: Special Reports

category: IoT, Security & Automotive

Will 7nm And 5nm Really Happen?
By Mark LaPedus - 14 Jul, 2014 - Comments: 2

Today’s silicon-based finFETs could run out of steam at 10nm. If or when chipmakers move beyond 10nm, IC vendors will require a new transistor architecture. III-V finFETs, gate-all-around FETs, quantum well finFETs, SOI finFETs and vertical nanowires are just a few of the future transistor candidates at 7nm and 5nm. Technically, it’s possible to manufacture the transistor portions of the... » read more

Locking Down The Chip
By Ernest Worthman - 09 Jul, 2014 - Comments: 0

The push toward securing chips is complicated by the amount of third-party IP that is being used inside of today’s complex SoCs. This has cast new light on the potential for on-chip networks to also function in securing signals that flow through those networks. This becomes particularly important with the Internet of Things, because the source of those signals isn’t always obvious to the... » read more

The Next Big Threat: AI Malware
By Ernest Worthman - 07 Jul, 2014 - Comments: 1

It’s an understatement to say that today’s cyber adversaries and cyber threats are reaching unparalleled levels of sophistication. Malevolent entries and their creators have, and will continue to, devise über-complex malware that will seem to take on an intelligence of its own. In fact, artificially intelligent malware is coming to a system near you. The ability of threats to morph, on ... » read more

Not All Qubits Are Small
By Katherine Derbyshire - 30 Jun, 2014 - Comments: 1

While diamond nitrogen-vacancy centers offer one attractive implementation of quantum qubits, many other systems have been proposed. In theory, at least, any system with clearly identifiable quantum states can serve the purpose. The challenge lies in finding a system in which those states can be manipulated and measured by external forces and can be fabricated in large enough numbers for practi... » read more

Locking Down The Chip
By Ernest Worthman - 05 Jun, 2014 - Comments: 1

The crypto processor is poised to break into the mainstream SoC world. Lower costs for manufacturing, coupled with rising security concerns from increased connectivity and growing complexity have cracked open the door on this approach to locking down a chip. Crypto processors aren’t a new concept, but they generally have been reserved for high-end applications. Until recently, they have ju... » read more

Easing The Path To Evolution
By Ann Mutschler - 29 May, 2014 - Comments: 1

On the surface, revolutionary changes in EDA seem unlikely due to the risk of replacing costly tools, flows and methodologies. But are they really? The answer depends on whom you ask. For Part One, click here. Risk is a big part of the equation here. “There are always pioneers in an organization and what you need to do is find someone who is willing to take some risk and typically it’s o... » read more

Big Memory Shift Ahead
By Brian Bailey - 22 May, 2014 - Comments: 1

System architecture has been driven by the performance of [getkc id="22" kc_name="memory"]. Processor designers would have liked all of the memory be fast [getkc id="92" kc_name="SRAM"], placed on-chip for maximum performance, but that was not an option. Memory had to be fabricated as separate chips and connected via a Printed Circuit Board (PCB). That limited the number of available I/O ports ... » read more

Engineering For Next-Gen Memory Performance
By Katherine Derbyshire - 20 May, 2014 - Comments: 0

When only a few electrons mean the difference between the ON and the OFF state, it’s difficult to manufacture [getkc id="22" kc_name="memory"] elements with consistent, reliable performance. This is the situation conventional capacitance-based memories face as critical dimensions drop to just a few nanometers. As a result, device designers are considering a wide range of alternative memory... » read more

What’s Wrong With Power Signoff
By Ed Sperling - 12 May, 2014 - Comments: 0

Power signoff used to be a checklist item before a design went to tapeout. But as power has become a critical factor in designs, particularly at advanced nodes, signing off on power now needs to be done at multiple points throughout the design flow. That alone adds even greater complexity to already complex design processes because it requires fixed reference points and scenarios for taking mea... » read more

Heartbleed And The Internet Of Things
By Ernest Worthman - 01 May, 2014 - Comments: 4

Heartbleed is not a country and western song, but many wish it were. It’s a programming glitch with the potential to cause disastrous and widespread compromises on seemingly secure data. By some estimates, the flaw in the heartbleed code has allowed hackers to collect personal data, including passwords, undetected, for as long as two years. Exactly how much data has been breached, and what... » read more

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