Status Report: Power-Aware Design Flow


By Ann Steffora Mutschler While the term “design flow” can be a moving target, there are some specific requirements for a low-power/power-aware tool flow. Looking at this from a high level, where is the industry today, and where is it headed? There are really two sides to power, which are almost like two sides of the same coin: power consumption and power integrity. And both of those ar... » read more

Rethinking Good Enough


By Ed Sperling Power has been elevated from an afterthought to one of the top considerations and tradeoffs in SoC design, edging out performance and area in many cases and in some cases even cost and features. Tradeoffs in design always change, depending upon what the most pressing concern is among consumers at any time. For decades, performance was always the top of anyone’s list, follow... » read more

How Long Will 28nm Last?


By Ann Steffora Mutschler As soon as a next generation semiconductor manufacturing process node is out, bets are taken on just how long the current advanced process node will last. The 28/20nm transition is no exception. There is certainly a benefit to moving from 40nm to 28nm. The  availability of high-k/metal gate technology offers quite a few advantages in terms of power reduction... » read more

Thinking Differently About Power


By Ed Sperling Battery life and lower electricity bills are now marketing tools for makers of SoCs, the mobile devices they go into, and servers that power data centers. A smart phone battery that lasts through the day without a charge, even when the user is playing high-action games, is a lot more attractive than one lasting only a few hours. And a data center electricity bill that shows a sh... » read more

Peace Overture


One look at the headline and you may think I’m going to suggest that virtual prototyping can solve the myriad issues between hardware and software teams but rest assured, I’m not. I will tell you that I’ve heard some promising anecdotes lately, and that is a little bit encouraging. When you finish reading, please chime in with your comments! In the course of interviewing Achim Nohl, te... » read more

Increase The Battery Mileage With Virtual Prototypes


By Achim Nohl With this post, I would like to continue the topic of my earlier post “Can we stop power-hungry bugs from clawing their way through application software stacks?” In my previous post, I wrote about the difficulties software developers face with writing battery-friendly software. I indicated that virtual prototypes (VPs) can address many of those challenges by providing visibil... » read more

Too Many Standards, But Still Not Enough


By Ed Sperling The semiconductor industry has been one of the most prolific sectors in history when it comes to generating standards. Talk to any design engineer facing time-to-market pressures, new packaging approaches, and a mindboggling number of merchant IP, subsystems and interface requirements, and you’ll hear a compelling pitch for new standards. Talk to his or her boss and you’ll p... » read more

Model-Driven Design: Making Progress


By Ann Steffora Mutschler Model-driven design is coming into its own, in part because the old way of using models at advanced nodes doesn’t always produce usable chips and in part because of the need for making tradeoffs at the earliest stages of the design process. The concept of developing models for IC design is hardly a new one, and it is being done today on a number of levels rangin... » read more

Tech Talk: Comparing Smart Phones


What makes one smart phone last longer on a charge than another? The answer may surprise you. Low-Power Engineering talks with Cary Chin, director of technical marketing for low-power solutions at Synopsys, about what his months of research have shown. [youtube vid=BUefmd_oFp8] » read more

After The Ball Drops


Growing up in New York City leaves lasting memories. The coming holiday season evokes some strong ones. The Christmas tree in Rockefeller Center is an example. Christmas always seemed to radiate in all directions from that huge tree perched above the ice skating rink behind Radio City Music Hall. And then there was the ball dropping on New Year’s Eve in Times Square. For the most part, New Yo... » read more

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