Debug Tops Verification Tasks


Verification engineers are spending an increased percentage of their time in debug — 44%, according to a recent survey by the Wilson Research Group. There are a variety or reasons for this, including the fact that some SoCs are composed of hundreds of internally developed and externally purchased IP blocks and subsystems. New system architectures contribute to the mix, some of which are be... » read more

Foundries See Growth, New Issues In 2019


The silicon foundry business is poised for growth in 2019, although the industry faces several challenges across a number of market segments next year. Generally, foundry vendors saw steady growth in 2018, but many are ending the year on a sour note. Weak demand for Apple’s new iPhone XR and a downturn in the cryptocurrency market have impacted several IC suppliers and foundries, causing t... » read more

Week in Review: IoT, Security, Auto


Internet of Things Arm made five 2019 predictions for the Internet of Things. They are: The intelligent home goes mainstream; personalized delivery options; improved health-care service; smart cities seek to improve revenue streams and citizen engagement; and smart buildings use more technology for efficiencies. The company also commissioned a worldwide survey of 2,000 consumers, conducted by ... » read more

What Makes A Chip Design Successful Today?


"Transistors are free" was the rallying cry of the semiconductor industry during the 1990s and early 2000s. That is no longer true. The end of Dennard scaling made the simultaneous use of all the transistors troublesome, but transistors remained effectively unlimited. This led to an era where large amounts of flexibility could be built into a chip. It didn't matter if all of it was being use... » read more

4 Issues In Test


When most design engineers think about test, they envision a large piece of equipment in the fab they probably will never actually see or interact with. But as chips become more complex—driven by an explosion in both quantity and different types of data—test is emerging as one of the big challenges in design and manufacturing. There are four primary segments for test, each with its own s... » read more

The Growing Promise Of Printed Electronics


Printing electronics using conductive ink rather than lithography is starting to move out of the research phase, with chipmakers now looking at how to commercialize this technology across a broad range of sensor applications. Unlike traditional semiconductors, which use tiny wires as circuits, printed electronics rely on conductive inks and often flexible films, although they can be printed ... » read more

Dawn Of The Data-Driven Age


Autonomous vehicles, 5G, a security breach at Marriott hotels, and AI. These may seem unrelated, but they're all linked by one common thread—data. Data creation, management and processing always have been a winning business formula. In 2004, IBM sold off its PC business on the assumption that it could still achieve significant growth by managing its customers' data. The rapid buildup by co... » read more

Week in Review: IoT, Security, Auto


Internet of Things Lowe’s, the home improvement retailer, is giving up on the smart home market. The company is putting its Iris Smart Home business up for sale as part of a reorganization. The retailer made a big splash at CES 2015 with its Innovation Lab offerings, which included retail service robots and the Holoroom “home improvement simulator.” The Iris product line includes multipl... » read more

Why 56Gb/s And 112Gb/s SerDes Matter In Our Daily Social-Media-Driven Lives


Hyper-scalers and service providers are moving from 100GbE to 400GbE Ethernet rates and beyond. Wireline and wireless networks are driving new architectures to support the move from 4G LTE to 5G infrastructure. These transitions are driven by the increasing global IP traffic as the world becomes more connected and digital. At the same time, the decentralization of the cloud and data centers are... » read more

Heterogeneous Computing Verification


Raik Brinkmann, CEO of OneSpin Solutions, looks at new architectures involving AI and machine learning, what changes in these multi-accelerator, multi-memories designs, and where problems can crop up both in design and verification. https://youtu.be/0Trtfq8_hKg       See other tech talk videos here. » read more

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