category: Top Stories

category: IoT, Security & Automotive

Partitioning For Power
By Pallab Chatterjee - 11 Feb, 2010 - Comments: 0

By Pallab Chatterjee Design partitioning for power in an IC is driven by which functions are on simultaneously. The new generation of “smart” power management chips introduces new constraints to the task. Case in point: The new LP8725 from National Semiconductor. These chips have multiple DC-DC converters and both analog and digital low-dropout regulators (LDOs), with a common I2C inter... » read more

The Growing Problem With Parasitic Extraction
By Ed Sperling - 11 Feb, 2010 - Comments: 0

By Ed Sperling Like everything else in semiconductor engineering at advanced process geometries, parasitic extraction is getting much more difficult at each node. There’s more circuit data to analyze, less distance between wires and much more to sort through. In addition, a 10% error in accuracy at 90nm might have been tolerable, while at 28nm it can completely change how a chip works. ... » read more

Rethinking Test
By Ann Mutschler - 11 Feb, 2010 - Comments: 0

By Ann Steffora Mutschler The responsibility of semiconductor test has long sat solely with the test engineer as the chip designer focused on the functionality of the device. However, particularly in low-power designs, when the device is being tested, much higher power levels are applied than normal functional operation – sometimes causing the device to fail. This ‘false failure’ c... » read more

Low-Power And RF Design Heighten Signal-Integrity Concerns
By Various Writers - 28 Jan, 2010 - Comments: 0

By Ellen Konieczny As active devices and interconnect wires shrink and are placed closer together with the march of Moore’s Law, signal integrity is becoming a huge concern. If it is not maintained, a design’s future may be marred by lower yields, unreliable performance, and failure to work efficiently—if at all. For low-power and radio-frequency (RF) designs, which are being prod... » read more

Listening In With Better Audio
By Pallab Chatterjee - 28 Jan, 2010 - Comments: 0

By Pallab Chatterjee The high profile discussion on new consumer products has been high definition-video and high-definition TV broadcast. The other end of the experience is starting to catch up with improved audio. Since the shift from LPs and CDs has taken place towards downloadable portable audio data, there have been complaints from the listeners about the quality of the sound. The f... » read more

Should Sign-Off And Implementation Be Separate Tools?
By Ann Mutschler - 28 Jan, 2010 - Comments: 0

By Ann Steffora Mutschler In the last stages of design, how data is readied for manufacturing used to be relatively straightforward. Point tools were used to implement the design via a place and route tool then the design was “signed off” with physical verification software. Sign-off is the gate the design goes through before it can go into manufacturing. The design must meet the qua... » read more

Remaking The Design Landscape
By Ed Sperling - 28 Jan, 2010 - Comments: 0

By Ed Sperling Every now and then a new trend comes along in the semiconductor design world, often because an old tool doesn’t work well anymore or because a new one is achieving critical mass. Lithography moved to immersion when the wavelength couldn’t be refracted far enough anymore. Designers at the advanced end of Moore’s Law began using tools like high-level synthesis and Transa... » read more

Verifying Low-Power Designs
By Ed Sperling - 14 Jan, 2010 - Comments: 0

By Ed Sperling Power islands and multiple voltages used to be reserved for cell phone and process companies, but as more companies move to 65nm and 45nm process nodes these approaches to saving power—particularly in chips with multiple cores—are becoming mainstream. The problem isn’t in the architecture of the chips, although that certainly brings its own set of challenges. More and m... » read more

The Power Of 3D
By Cheryl Ajluni - 14 Jan, 2010 - Comments: 0

By Cheryl Ajluni Much to the dismay of anyone who recently splurged on a new Blu-ray disk player or flat-panel HDTV, 3D stereoscopic content has become the talk of the town or, in this case, the 2010 Consumer Electronics Show. Sure, we’ve been down this road before. After all, 3D is nothing new. But it now appears ready to explode into the home in the form of 3D television (Figure 1). Bol... » read more

Low-Power Architectures Go Mainstream
By Pallab Chatterjee - 14 Jan, 2010 - Comments: 0

By Pallab Chatterjee Until recently, low power engineering has been defined by the automated use of EDA tools in the design flow to help cut back on peak dynamic power. The new generation of mobile and video products has forced a change in that methodology. There are two other fast rising architectural approaches. The first is multicore, which is prevalent in new product introductions fr... » read more

← Older posts Newer posts →

  • Sponsors

About

Navigation

Connect With Us

Copyright ©2013-2025 SMG   |  Terms of Service  |  Privacy Policy