Using HLS To Improve Algorithms


Can an HLS optimization tool outperform expert-level hand-optimizations? A recently published white paper examines how SLX FPGA is used to optimize a secure hash algorithm. T the results are compared to a competition-winning hand-optimized HLS implementation of the same algorithm. This approach provides a nearly 400x speed-up over the unoptimized implementation and even outperforms the hand ... » read more

Rare Earth Battle Begins


Rare earths are back in the news. The United States is increasing its efforts to develop and source rare earths elements (REE) to reduce its dependence on China in the arena. But this might be too little and too late for the U.S. Found in the Earth’s crust, rare earths are critical elements used in cars, consumer electronics, computers, communications, clean energy and defense systems.... » read more

Scaling Up And Down


You don’t have to look very far in the semiconductor world before you see the word “scaling.” Perhaps you read an industry news article headline about transistor scaling – how those nearly nanoscale components are shrinking even smaller in size down to the atomic scale. Or maybe you heard a reference to memory capacity scaling – how our favorite mobile devices can store more high-reso... » read more

A Quantum Future Approaches


By Kenichi Ohno, Robert Visser, and Nir Yahav We often think quantum technology is a far-off future. Thanks to decades-long research on the elemental technologies and recent breakthroughs, the emergence of quantum may happen sooner than later. Large enterprises, start-ups, government agencies and research organizations around the world are investing billions of dollars to scale quantum techn... » read more

A Different Foundry Model


As the pursuit to produce advanced semiconductors that keep up with the Moore’s Law treadmill becomes more and more challenging, many companies are seeking other ways to provide the next ‘must-have’ electronic products. In fact, many companies have realized that the need for doubling performance is no longer the main attribute necessary to deliver successful solutions for IoT, automotive,... » read more

The Industrial Internet Of Things Relies On ADCs


We have all heard the news stories and read the market reports—the Industrial Internet of Things is changing industry as we know it. The move towards industrial systems becoming connected intelligent devices is happening all around us. In connected factories, there are three critical requirements: Large bandwidth communication channels Fast data processing Accurate decision inte... » read more

The Unexpected Impact Of Lots On Hold


One of the biggest bottlenecks in any Subcon is Lots on Hold. The problem occurs many times a week on most factory floors. It’s something you’ve grown to loathe or endure. But, is there something you can do to reduce the amount of time lots spend on hold? In this article, we will explain what Lots on Hold are and how you can make the process less painful for your team and help improve on-ti... » read more

Spreadsheets In Virtuoso


The looming tape-out deadline is the nightmare that keeps most design managers up at night. Managing schedules and tracking progress is always a black art that few, if any, can master. Various project management tools and methodologies have been developed that can help, if followed diligently. However, the learning curve of the tools, or the training and overhead of the process, often result in... » read more

Advantages Of BFloat16 For AI Inference


Essentially all AI training is done with 32-bit floating point. But doing AI inference with 32-bit floating point is expensive, power-hungry and slow. And quantizing models for 8-bit-integer, which is very fast and lowest power, is a major investment of money, scarce resources and time. Now BFloat16 (BF16) offers an attractive balance for many users. BFloat16 offers essentially t... » read more

High-Level Design And High-Level Verification


Not so long ago, some EDA vendors were painting a very attractive picture of chip design in the then-near future. The idea was that an architectural team would write a single description of the complete system in some high-level language, usually C/C++/SystemC, and that a new class of EDA tool would automatically partition the design into hardware and software, choosing the functionality of eac... » read more

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