Blog Review: Sept. 30


In an increasingly networked world, NXP's Lars Reger advocates for a change of perspective: one which places data protection and the security of end customers and users at the heart. Differential power analysis has been on the mind of Rambus' Aharon Etengoff recently as increasing numbers of SIM cards are being cracked, plus some counter measures that can be used. Even wondered about the ... » read more

Can IP Integration Be Automated?


What exactly does it mean to automate [getkc id="43" comment="IP"] integration? Ask four people in the industry and you’ll get four different answers. “The key issue is how you can assemble the hardware as quickly as you can out of pre-made pieces of IP,” said Charlie Janac, chairman and CEO of [getentity id="22674" e_name="Arteris"]. To Simon Rance, senior product manager in the ... » read more

ROI Not There Yet For SysML


At some point down the road in the realm of system-level design, the Systems Modeling Language (SysML) dialect of the Unified Modeling Language (UML) standard may drive into semiconductor design. So far, however, a return on investment has not been established for its use. SysML is defined as a general-purpose visual modeling language for systems engineering applications, and it supports the... » read more

ISO 26262: Top 3 Reasons For Hardware Implementation Of Functional Safety


I’ve written articles before about ISO 26262 Certification because many SoC design teams are challenged by the barriers they have to overcome to achieve automotive functional safety, especially if they previously enjoyed success in mobility or computing but now want to shift attention to the growing array of electronics used in transportation such as automated driver assistance systems (ADAS)... » read more

The Next Level Of Abstraction For System Design


Recently there have been a lot of discussions again about the next level of design abstraction for chip design. Are we there yet? Will we ever get there? Is it SystemC? UML/SysML perhaps? I am taking the approach of simply claiming victory: Over the last 20 years we have moved up beyond RTL in various areas—just in a fragmented way. However, the human limitations on our capacity for processin... » read more

Blog Review: Sept. 23


From the International Motor Show (IAA) in Frankfurt, NXP's Birgit Ahlborn brings us a discussion with on the challenges to building trust in connected cars and intelligent transport systems, and what is needed to ensure security in a world of connected mobility. From the world's largest aircraft to terahertz wireless to the launch of a partially reusable orbital rocket, innovation is in the... » read more

Power Estimation: Early Warning System Or False Alarm?


Semiconductor Engineering sat down with a large panel of experts to discuss the state of power estimation and to find out if the current levels of accuracy are sufficient to being able to make informed decisions. Panelists included: Leah Schuth, director of technical marketing in the physical design group at [getentity id="22186" comment="ARM"]; Vic Kulkarni, senior vice president and general m... » read more

Blog Review: Sept. 16


Ansys' Justin Nescott presents five top engineering articles for the week. Being an amateur photography buff, I start salivating at a 250 megapixel camera. Plus, origami and the art of structural engineering and a football-playing robot. Synopsys' Michael Posner provides some shocking information about the buildup of static electricity and the impact it can have on 28nm designs. Increasin... » read more

A Strategy For Designing For Power With FinFETs


Recently Qualcomm announced their new SnapDragon processor 820, which was designed using finFET technology. They showed some amazing results, such as 2X improvement in performance and 2X improvement in power compared to 28nm designs. Previously, when ARM announced their A72 processors in finFET, they too had claimed 3.5X improvement in power compared to 28nm designs. But can designers expect... » read more

Appetite For Services Grows


Semiconductor service revenues have been growing for the past year, fueled by complex thermal and power issues at advanced nodes, the difficulty of integrating more and more IP blocks, and far more techniques, languages and methodologies that engineers need to learn to be productive in the finFET generation. The services business typically acts as a bridge between down and up cycles in the c... » read more

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