Mixed-signal/Low-power Design


Semiconductor Engineering sat down to discuss mixed-signal/low-power IC design with Phil Matthews, director of engineering at Silicon Labs; Yanning Lu, director of analog IC design at Ambiq Micro; Krishna Balachandran, director of low power solutions marketing at [getentity id="22032" comment="Cadence"]; Geoffrey Ying, director of product marketing, AMS Group, [getentity id="22035" e_name="Syno... » read more

What’s Holding Back Analog?


The uneasy relationship between digital and analog, coupled with tools that are either ineffective or outright ignored by the analog community, may be limiting the growth potential and technological advances in that market. That certainly doesn’t mean analog isn’t growing. In fact, analog is an increasingly critical component of ICs and the electronic devices they inhabit. The global ele... » read more

New Drivers For Test


Mention Design for Test (DFT) and scan chains come to mind, but there is much more to it than that—and the rules of the game are changing. New application areas such as automotive may breathe new life into built-in self-test (BIST) solutions, which could also be used for manufacturing test. So could DFT as we know it be a thing of the past? Or will it continue to have a role to play? Te... » read more

Speeding Up The Design Process


A rush to plant a stake in new markets, coupled with uncertainty about how to generate a reasonable return on investment in those markets, is ratcheting up pressure on chipmakers. They now must come up with more customized solutions in less time, frequently in smaller volumes, and with the ability to modify them in shorter time spans if market opportunities shift in unexpected ways. This aff... » read more

Making Verification Easier


SoC design teams increasingly are confronting complexity in the quest to target application segments, but at the same time they are struggling to more quickly reduce risk in their designs while also speed up testing to make sure everything works. Those often-conflicting goals have transformed [getkc id="10" kc_name="verification"] IP from an interesting concept to a must-have tool for advanc... » read more

What’s Next For UVM?


The infrastructure for much of the chip verification being done today is looking dated and limited in scope. Design has migrated to new methodologies, standards and tools that are being introduced to deal with heterogeneous integration, more customization, and increased complexity. Verification methodologies started appearing soon after the release of SystemVerilog. Initially they were inten... » read more

Stacked Die Changes


Semiconductor Engineering sat down to discuss advanced packaging with David Pan, associate professor in the department of electrical and computer engineering at the University of Texas; Max Min, senior technical manager at Samsung; John Hunt, senior director of engineering at ASE; and Sitaram Arkalgud, vice president of 3D portfolio and technologies at Invensas. What follows are excerpts of tha... » read more

How Cache Coherency Impacts Power, Performance


As discussed in part one, one of the reasons cache coherency is becoming more important is the shared common memory resource in designs today. Various agents in the design want to access the data the fastest they can, putting pressure on the CPU complex to manage all of the requests. Until a generation ago, it was okay for the CPU to control that memory and have access to it, as well as be t... » read more

Mixed-signal/Low-power Design


Semiconductor Engineering sat down to discuss mixed-signal/low-power IC design with Phil Matthews, director of engineering at Silicon Labs; Yanning Lu, director of analog IC design at Ambiq Micro; Krishna Balachandran, director of low power solutions marketing at [getentity id="22032" comment="Cadence"]; Geoffrey Ying, director of product marketing, AMS Group, [getentity id="22035" e_name="Syno... » read more

RF GaN Gains Steam


The RF [getkc id="217" kc_name="gallium nitride"] (GaN) device market is heating up amid the need for more performance with better power densities in a range of systems, such as infrastructure equipment, missile defense and radar. On one front, for example, RF GaN is beginning to displace a silicon-based technology for the power amplifier sockets in today’s wireless base stations. GaN is m... » read more

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