Power Changes Everything


By Ann Steffora Mutschler Optimizing design methodologies for effective power utilization sometimes meaning throwing out old ideas and approaches and starting fresh. This is exactly what wireless chip giant Broadcom did in its quest to manage power in its chips. Low-Power Engineering spoke with Michael Hurlston, vice president of the mobile wireless group at Broadcom, to discuss current and f... » read more

High Performance And Low Power


By Pallab Chatterjee As mobile platforms become a larger part of the component spectrum, their need for optimization beyond low power has moved to the forefront. Traditionally, standard "line-cord" based products in both the consumer and commercial sectors have used the "G" label processes from semiconductor foundries. These processes had the highest-yielding combination of design rules, d... » read more

Power Issues In 3D


By Ann Steffora Mutschler The challenges associated with implementing IP subsystems range from maintaining a consistent I/O voltage, achieving consistency in metal stacks to managing a clock distribution network and creating adequate isolation between subsystems on a chip. It’s enough to make your brain hurt. Add to that 3D or 2.5D stacking and the engineering considerations grow substantial... » read more

Rationalization For Power


By Ed Sperling Power budgets are becoming almost universally problematic. What used to be a unique headache for the cell-phone market has evolved into an ugly migraine that now includes everything with a battery—and increasingly even those devices that rely on a plug. The result is a cascade of effects that are widespread and growing. And while the drivers of this effort vary widely from ... » read more

The Quest For A Better IP Integration Methodology


By Ed Sperling With the amount of IP in SoC designs now hitting an estimated 70% to 90%, companies are scrambling to figure out a way to more consistently integrate that IP and to test that it will work as expected. This is easier said than done, however, for a number of reasons: There are numerous types of IP, ranging from I/O to logic and memory. Not all IP is of equal quality. ... » read more

Fishing For Ideas In A Bigger Pond


By Ann Steffora Mutschler From networking to optical modeling to open source software platforms, EDA engineers are drawing from a variety of disciplines to develop tools for chip design, stretching the technology beyond its original intent. To this end, Synopsys acquired Optical Research Associates (ORA) last fall to add optical design and analysis to its portfolio. The acquisition allowed ... » read more

Keeping Up With Complexity


By Ed Sperling There are two schools of thought in designing complex SoCs. One says that increasing complexity requires a higher level of abstraction. The other says providing enough detail to get the design right is the only effective way to do it. There are staunch proponents of both approaches, but what has been missing are bridges to tie the higher level of abstraction to the more labo... » read more

3D ICs: No Simple Answers


By Pallab Chatterjee Just how ready is the semiconductor industry for stacked die? That was the subject of a recent panel discussion involving ARM, Atrenta, Xilinx, Samsung and Mentor Graphics. The reasoning behind 3D stacking is becoming clearer at each node. I/O count and delay times are forcing different configurations, but the time frames for these changes and the gating constraints are... » read more

Moore’s Law Revisited


By Ed Sperling The push to 20nm and beyond is creating some interesting gyrations in the EDA industry. While tools vendors continue to work on tools for the latest process nodes, they’re also taking some significant sidesteps. The first to publicly recognize a shift is under way was Cadence, which last year issued its EDA 360 manifesto. The strategy is to continue investing in existing to... » read more

Widening The Channels


By Ed Sperling Wide I/O—both as a specific memory standard and as a generic approach for on-chip networking—has been looked at for the past couple of chip generations as a way of improving SoC performance. Increasingly, it also is being used as a key strategy for reducing energy consumption. Wide I/O refers to a number of different approaches in on-chip networking, ranging from through-... » read more

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