The Week In Review: Aug. 23


By Ed Sperling Cadence won a deal with Realtek, which licensed the Tensilica HiFi audio DSP core for voice recognition technology. Fast voice triggers have been possible for some time, but being able to combine that with low power for mobile devices isn’t easy because the devices are always on—or at least enough “on” to pick up voice commands. Mentor Graphics turned in a record-bre... » read more

The Case For Extensible Processors


By Neil Hand In a previous post I talked about how intelligent subsystems are going to impact overall system design. Because many more design teams are going to be required to implement complex processing power into there subsystems, I thought it time to expand on that topic and talk a little about options available to add that intelligence. One size does not fit all The traditional approa... » read more

Start The Revolution


By Jon McDonald “Know thyself.” That advice is promoted in so many different forms it's hard to know where it started. I have been involved in a number of projects recently in which these words would have greatly simplified the project flow. “Simplified” is probably not quite the right word. The issue in this case is not to simplify the project, but to properly understand, characterize... » read more

Stacking The Deck


By Javier DeLaCruz The pinnacle of system-on-chip has passed. There are several dynamics that are moving the industry away from the SoC philosophy that was so popular just a few short years ago. One of the significant factors is that the cost per gate for CMOS nodes below 28nm is rising for the first time in the history of our industry. Another critical factor is the emergence of through-silic... » read more

The Single Platform Strategy


By Kurt Shuler For semiconductor companies in high-volume or emerging growth markets, the days of using multiple platforms to address different segments are over. The new era of using a single platform to address several different segments is rapidly taking hold. Adding fuel to this transition is the greater flexibility that design teams have to spin derivatives of those single platforms. T... » read more

DRAM Remains The Status Quo


By Frank Ferro No one will argue that the “post-PC” era is here. Tablet shipments are expected to pass laptops by the end of this year, and desktops by the end of 2015. Add-in the nearly 1 billion smartphones shipment projected for 2013, and you would think that the DRAM industry would take notice of this volume. DRAM manufacturers do care about this segment of the market, but this fact... » read more

Making Time to Do It Right


By Jon McDonald Change can be a very difficult thing. Most organizations I talk to about adopting system-level design know it’s a worthwhile investment. They believe it will have a positive return. They genuinely want to improve their processes, but believe they don’t have time to invest in making the change. In a recent conversation I heard an excellent encapsulation of this thinking. It ... » read more

Software Impact Grows


By Ed Sperling As the number of processors and processor cores increase in SoC, so does the amount of software. But unlike hardware, which grows linearly, software frequently grows exponentially. The great advantage of software is configurability—both before and after tapeout—yet it adds many more possible permutations and interactions that need to be worked out. And unlike the old PC m... » read more

Simple Concepts Can Lead To Big Improvements


By Tom De Schutter As I am just back from vacation, it is an ideal time to reflect on where we are with virtual prototyping and VDKs (Virtualizer Development Kits). For more than a year now we have been developing reference VDKs based on ARM’s Versatile Express board, and it has really made a difference in how we engage with customers. Although we always had demos, which were similar to t... » read more

Buying And Selling EDA Companies


By Ed Sperling The rule of thumb for mergers and acquisitions is that the majority will fail. So why, despite concerns about big companies buying up the tools of startups, does EDA’s track record look so good? There are a number of answers that are unique to the EDA industry: There is no manufacturing that needs to be absorbed by the acquirer, which greatly simplifies any deal. Sale... » read more

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