Will There Be A DDR5?


DDR4 rollouts have begun. And in the DRAM world that begs the question, 'What comes next?' The answer isn't so obvious. While there have been suggestions inside of JEDEC — the Joint Electron Device Engineering Council, which has overseen the standards for double-data-rate synchronous DRAM — to develop a DDR5 standard, it's not the only solution being considered. And in the minds of some... » read more

Architecture Versus Silicon


For many, if not most designs today, power is everything. Determining where power is being lost is critical to making sure the design is optimized. So where to begin? To this end, it is useful to go back to the fundamentals of what power is and what power consumption is, noted Paul Traynar, software architect at [getentity id="22021" comment="ANSYS/Apache"]. “Power is proportional to capac... » read more

Software Before Hardware?


The emphasis on battery life in wearable electronics, including always-on sensors, and the cost of powering and cooling racks of servers inside of data centers, are beginning to impact the formula for designing systems. Power is now a critical design element, but it's also one of the most stubborn to tackle. While ASICs, SoCs and FPGAs all have focused on being able to efficiently run softwa... » read more

Optimizing Analog For Power At Advanced Nodes


As any engineering manager will tell you, analog and digital engineers seem like they could be from different planets. While this has changed somewhat over time, [getkc id="52" comment="analog"] is still something of a mystery to many in [getkc id="81" kc_name="SoC"] design teams. Throw power management into the mix and things really get interesting. Improvements in analog/mixed-signal tools... » read more

Memory Directions Uncertain


Semiconductor Engineering sat down with a panel of experts to find out what is happening in world of memories. Taking part in the discussion are [getperson id="11073" comment="Charlie Cheng"], chief executive officer at [getentity id="22135" e_name="Kilopass Technology"]; Navraj Nandra, senior director of marketing for Analog/Mixed signal IP, embedded memories and logic libraries at [getentity ... » read more

Energy Boost For Power Standards


If the amount of standards work and industry effort that is being expended on a given topic is any indicator of the growing importance of a design concern, then power has most certainly become the hottest topic in the industry. Thankfully, it seems as if everyone has learned their lessons from the CPF/[gettech id="31044" t_name="UPF"] struggles and is attempting to coordinate activities, while ... » read more

One-On-One: Mike Muller


Semiconductor Engineering sat down with [getentity id="22186" comment="ARM"] CTO Mike Muller, who first coined the term 'dark silicon,' to talk about what's changing, why the company is focusing so heavily on software and security in addition to power, and how the [getkc id="76" comment="Internet of Things"] will change design and vice versa. What follows are excerpts of that conversation. S... » read more

High-Level Gaps Emerge


Semiconductor Engineering sat down to discuss the attributes of a high-level, front-end design flow, and why it is needed at present with Leah Clark, associate technical director for digital video technology at [getentity id="22649" e_name="Broadcom"]; Jon McDonald, technical marketing engineer at [getentity id="22017" e_name="Mentor Graphics"]; Phil Bishop, vice president of the System Level D... » read more

Fueling the IoT


As the [getkc id="76" comment="Internet of Things"] evolves, it brings along new paradigms. Some are simply reworked, relabeled, or re-branded ideas, concepts, or technologies. But some are new and novel, and will benefit from this ubiquitous, multi-billion device intelligent, uber-interconnected platform. Some of the things the IoT will drive include semiconductors, big data and crowd sourc... » read more

Securing The IoT


Semiconductor Engineering sat down to discuss whether the [getkc id="76" comment="Internet of Things"] will be secure enough, or whether it will create new security issues, with Sami Nassar, general manager of [getentity id="22499" comment="NXP Semiconductor"]; Oleg Logvinov, director for special assignments at [getentity id="22331" comment="STMicroelectronics"]; and Lawrence Loh, application e... » read more

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