category: Power Awareness

category: IoT, Security & Automotive

Datacenter Power Is Different
By Ann Mutschler - 11 Sep, 2014 - Comments: 1

With much focus on super low power devices for handhelds and IoT applications, I’m also interested in what’s happening at the seeming other end of the spectrum, in the datacenter. Atrenta CTO Bernard Murphy rightly pointed out that when it comes to power reduction techniques, datacenter power is a different story. He reminded that at a unit-level, a lot has already been done or is underw... » read more

Partitioning The Problem
By Ann Mutschler - 07 Aug, 2014 - Comments: 0

Whether it is solving a very tricky equation, cleaning out your hard drive or creating a power-aware test plan for your SoC, it helps to break the problem down into smaller pieces. There is so much involved with writing a test plan these days, let alone one that is power aware that I wasn’t all that surprised to hear from Erich Marschner, verification architect at Mentor Graphics that in t... » read more

Solar State Of Mind
By Ann Mutschler - 10 Jul, 2014 - Comments: 1

The dog days of summer seem an appropriate time to ponder all things solar while trying to stay cool. To this end, it’s rather encouraging to note more states are embracing solar as part of their energy mix and even the White House takes advantage of it. I was curious to know if there was a map of solar installations in the U.S., and sure enough, I found an interactive one on the website for ... » read more

Power IS Top Priority, Isn’t It?
By Ann Mutschler - 12 Jun, 2014 - Comments: 0

While I don’t mean to start a battle – or maybe I do! – I heard something last week during DAC that gave me pause. The person I was speaking with – who told me they ‘got in a little bit of trouble’ for saying this – reminded me of an interesting subject we had talked about previously, namely, that they did not believe power is the number one concern of engineering teams today. Ye... » read more

Is My iPhone Hurting The Earth?
By Ann Mutschler - 08 May, 2014 - Comments: 1

Of course we all know that power is the number one consideration in SoC design today but despite the fact that it is so well accepted and felt acutely by design and verification teams, we are still missing the boat as far as the bigger picture. From the perspective of a wanna-be treehugger, I think we fall short in realizing the grand impact of all this focus on power savings. The very a... » read more

Inspired By The IoT Yet?
By Ann Mutschler - 10 Apr, 2014 - Comments: 1

You can't go too far in the world of technology today without running into the topic of the Internet of Things (IoT). And I don't know about you but the momentum is fascinating – not just the technology side, because innovation is always interesting, but also on the business development side of things due to the seemingly limitless potential for connectivity of devices that previously weren�... » read more

Automation Can’t Replace Human Intervention
By Ann Mutschler - 13 Mar, 2014 - Comments: 0

We work in a dynamic industry where the focus is on making it easier to design and verify semiconductor chips by automating tasks for the design engineer. There is so much emphasis on this that I wonder if it is easy to forget the value of that designer’s experience. No matter how automated a process gets, there is always the fundamental assumption that the engineer knows what is happening be... » read more

Schedule Versus Specifications
By Ann Mutschler - 14 Feb, 2014 - Comments: 0

With power being paramount in SoCs today, I was surprised to hear the amount of time spent on power reduction exercises can be only a few days. According to William Ruby at Ansys/Apache, how much time engineers spend on power reduction activities depends on how sensitive the design is to power and whether they are still trying to meet the power spec or -- based on the early power estimates �... » read more

Simple Does Not Mean Easy
By Ann Mutschler - 16 Jan, 2014 - Comments: 0

When it comes to chip design we speak constantly about managing complexity - how best to architect for it, how to manage it, what design techniques to use, what the impact on the system will be etc. - but we don't speak too much about making the design more simple. Instead, we heap on more complexity to manage the complexity. As with everything else in life it seems just because something is... » read more

Don’t Stop Listening
By Ann Mutschler - 10 Oct, 2013 - Comments: 0

While it has been some years now, I admit I used to be a dedicated Blackberry user and could not understand the fascination with the iPhone initially. I knew exactly how my Blackberry worked, I loved the keyboard (or so I thought) and while a Macophile as well, I was reluctant to switch to a new smartphone, even though it was from my favorite PC maker. And then I had a chance to play with an... » read more

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