System Bits: May 23


Next-era transistors engage diamonds To advance the development of more robust and energy-efficient electronics, materials scientists from Japan’s National Institute for Materials Sciences have developed a new diamond transistor fabrication process. To address the challenges of silicon, Jiangwei Liu and the team have recently described new work developing diamond-based transistors. “Sil... » read more

The Week In Review: Design


M&A Consultancy Sondrel acquired IMGworks, formerly the design services unit of Imagination. Sondrel says it plans to focus on design services for ADAS systems, AI, and machine vision and learning devices. Terms of the deal were not disclosed. Tools Cadence expanded its formal verification platform, JasperGold, adding linting and clock domain crossing apps that address RTL signoff ... » read more

Blog Review: May 17


Synopsys' Robert Vamosi digs into last Friday's massive ransomware infection that impacted the UK health system, a Spanish telecom, and many other organizations running unpatched Windows – and whether there's a second version out there. Cadence's Paul McLellan reports on the latest developments and future of FD-SOI from the SOI Silicon Valley Symposium. Mentor's Joe Hupcey III chats wit... » read more

System Bits: May 16


Refrigerator for quantum computers Quantum physicist Mikko Möttönen at Aalto University in Finland and his team have invented a quantum-circuit refrigerator, meant to reduce errors in quantum computing. The research results suggest how harmful errors in quantum computing can be removed — a new twist towards a functioning quantum computer. The team reminded that quantum computers use... » read more

Whatever Happened to High-Level Synthesis?


A few years ago, [getkc id="105" comment="high-level synthesis"] (HLS) was probably the most talked about emerging technology that was to be the heart of a new [getkc id="48" kc_name="Electronic System Level"] (ESL) flow. Today, we hear much less about the progress being made in this area. Semiconductor Engineering sat down to discuss this with Bryan Bowyer, director of engineering for high lev... » read more

Awesome Keynotes Show How Our Community Has Grown


In case you missed it, we’ve announced our 2017 keynoters, a group that (including the luminaries giving SKY talks) gives you six more very good reasons be Austin the fourth week in June. All the information you need on the lineup is here. I know you are perhaps too busy to dig through this, so LMGTFY and share with you some highlights: ● Monday, Joe Costello, Chairman & CEO, Enlighted... » read more

Moore’s Law: Toward SW-Defined Hardware


Pushing to the next process node will continue to be a primary driver for some chips—CPUs, FPGAs and some ASICS—but for many applications that approach is becoming less relevant as a metric for progress. Behind this change is a transition from using customized software with generic hardware, to a mix of specialized, heterogeneous hardware that can achieve better performance with less ene... » read more

The Week In Review: Design


Tools Synopsys debuted a tool to replay RTL simulation data on a gate-level netlist for power analysis the company says is accurate within 5% of signoff. The tool, PowerReplay, is design to be used in combination with PrimeTime PX gate-level power analysis for earlier and faster generation of gate-level switching data. IP ClioSoft launched a design reuse ecosystem for searching and com... » read more

Blog Review: May 10


Mentor's Scott Salzwedel checks out what's next for the New Horizons space probe when it comes out of hibernation later this year. Cadence's Paul McLellan provides a look at how NASA took on changing the organization's culture towards safety after the space shuttle Columbia accident. Synopsys' Robert Vamosi points to recent malware that may be affecting between 100K and 200K Windows boxes... » read more

System Bits: May 9


Graphene adopts exotic electronic states In a platform that may be used to explore avenues for quantum computing, MIT researchers have found that a flake of graphene, when brought in close proximity with two superconducting materials, can inherit some of those materials’ superconducting qualities. They reminded that in normal conductive materials such as silver and copper, electric curren... » read more

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