Causes Of Memory Unsafety


Memory unsafety is a characteristic of many of today’s systems. The root cause of buffer bounds vulnerabilities such as buffer overflows and over-reads is unsafe programming. Major software vendors consistently report memory unsafety problems. For example, the Chromium open-source browser project has stated that 69% of CVEs (Common Vulnerabilities and Exposures) reported relate to memory... » read more

Texas: Cybersecurity Workforce Resilience And eCTF Success


Workforce resilience, the ability to adapt and recover from challenges, is a MITRE Engenuity priority. To ensure a resilient cybersecurity workforce that can defend organizations and the entire nation, we know that future professionals need to be interested in the field. As such, each year we proudly present Embedded Capture the Flag (eCTF), a two-phase competition for students to both test an... » read more

Formal Verification Best Practices: Investigating A Deadlock


To ensure a design is deadlock free with formal verification, one approach consists in verifying that it is “always eventually” able to respond to a request. The wording is important. Regardless of the current state and the number of cycles we must wait, in the future the design must respond. This translates very nicely using a type of SystemVerilog Assertion called “liveness propertie... » read more

RISC-V Customization Gets A Standing Ovation


Processor vendors have always tried to create a large software ecosystem around their products, because it creates stickiness and it naturally “locks-in” large numbers of customers who have invested in the creation of dedicated software. This effect is growing over time as the quantity of software is ever increasing per product: we could talk about more than 100 million lines of code in a c... » read more

Flash Memory Market Ushered In Fierce Competition With The Digitalization Of Electric Vehicles


By Craig Huang and Yulia Lee Governments worldwide have been paying close attention to alternative energy vehicles recently. Many have launched related electric vehicle subsidy policies, accelerating global sales over recent years. In 2021 at IAA Mobility in Munich, Germany, many major car manufacturers, including Porsche, showcased their all-electric or related concept cars. In addition ... » read more

Re-Targetable LLVM C/C++ Compiler For RISC-V


RISC-V is a modular instruction set architecture (ISA) with great customization capabilities that enable innovation and differentiation without fragmentation. On top of the baseline modules from ratified/standard ISA extensions, such as integer instructions or floating-point instructions, designers can add custom instructions: pure design freedom! And the reasons for adding instructions are man... » read more

Why IC Industry Is Great Place To Work


In honor of International Women in Engineering Day (June 23), here are some thoughts from Samantha Tan, Lam Research Fellow, about her path to the semiconductor industry and why it is a great place to work. SE: How did you get interested in science and engineering? I became interested during middle school when I started learning about science in depth for the first time. I was fascinated ... » read more

Developing A Customized RISC-V Core For MEMS Sensors


We recently described how Codasip Labs is working with the NimbleAI project to push the boundaries of neuromorphic vision. Let’s talk about another cool project. This project is focused on another sense, hearing. We will use our unique Codasip Studio design toolset to develop a customized RISC-V core for MEMS (micro-electro-mechanical system) sensors. Again, technology is inspired by bio... » read more

Verifying Low-Temperature Soldering Compliance For CO2 Savings And Enhanced Product Performance


In a conventional lead-free soldering process reflow ovens operate continuously at about 260°C. An effective alternative capable of operating at a lower temperature could significantly reduce the running costs and CO2 emissions associated with electronic manufacturing. There are also advantages to be gained from the reduction in the thermal stresses imposed on circuit boards and components by ... » read more

No One-Size-Fits-All Approach To RISC-V Processor Optimization


As the demand for high-performance processors continues to grow and semiconductor scaling laws continue to show their limits, the need for processor optimization is inevitable. As I explained in a previous blog, RISC-V is designed to enable this. However, there is no one-size-fits-all approach to processor optimization. As each workload and each application will have their own requirements, th... » read more

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