What Can Go Wrong In Automotive


Semiconductor Engineering sat down to discuss automotive engineering with Jinesh Jain, supervisor for advanced architectures in Ford’s Research and Innovation Center in Palo Alto; Raed Shatara, market development for automotive infotainment at [getentity id="22331" comment="STMicroelectronics"]; Joe Hupcey, verification product technologist at [getentity id="22017" e_name="Mentor Graphics"]; ... » read more

Choosing Power-Saving Techniques


Engineers have come up with a long list of ways to save power in chip and system designs, but there are few rules to determine which approaches work best for any given design. There is widespread confusion about what techniques should be used where, which IP or subsystem is best, and how everything should be packaged together. The choices include everything from the proper level of clock and... » read more

The Week In Review: Design


M&A Synopsys acquired another code analysis company, Forcheck. A privately held software company based in the Netherlands, it provided a static analysis tool for detecting coding defects and anomalies in Fortran applications. Forcheck technology will be integrated into the Coverity tool. Terms of the deal were not disclosed. IP & Specifications Cadence launched verification IP ... » read more

Finding Evasive System-Level Bugs Using Memory Consistency Algorithm


Over Easter weekend in 2015 there was a jewelry heist at the safe deposit building at Hatton Gardens in London. The safe deposit vault was in the basement of a building and is used by jewelers in the area for storing large amounts of diamonds, jewelry, precious metals, and cash. The thieves made off with over $300 million in loot, making it the biggest heist in British history. For a while it l... » read more

Power State Switching Gets Tougher


Power state switching delay is a key factor in minimizing power, and getting it right frequently means the difference between a successful design and a dead chip. But tradeoffs are intricate, complex and often involve judgment calls, making this a place where designs can go completely awry. For years, traditional, full-swing [gettech id="31093" comment="CMOS"] process technologies were used ... » read more

2017: Manufacturing And Markets


While the industry is busy chatting about the end of Moore's Law and a maturing of the semiconductor industry, the top minds of many companies are having none of it. A slowdown in one area is just an opportunity, in another and that is reflected in the predictions for this year. As in previous years, Semiconductor Engineering will look back on these predictions at the end of the year to see ... » read more

The Fundamental Power States For UPF Modeling And Power Aware Verification


The IEEE 1801-2015 specifies the new semantics of power states through the ‘add_power_state’ UPF command. This new construct primarily allows incremental refinement of power states for power domains and its associated supply sets. The refinement concepts are actually originated from the fundamental conceptual set of power states termed as indefinite, definite, and deferred power states. In ... » read more

The Power And Limits Of Money


[getperson id="11694" p_name="Wally Rhines"], CEO of [getentity id="22017" e_name="Mentor Graphics"], sat down with Semiconductor Engineering to discuss how semiconductor engineering teams make their dollars work even when budgets are limited. The issue is as important as ever, given the industry's unrelenting margin and cost pressure and the growing competition for top talent. What follows are... » read more

Blog Review: Jan. 11


Mentor's Ron Press examines why test hasn't become a bottleneck in creating ever more advanced semiconductors. Synopsys' Graham Etchells warns that while finFET technologies have been successful, challenges persist. Cadence's Paul McLellan shares a behind-the-scenes look at developing the Palladium Z1 emulator. The White House's Craig Mundie and Paul Otellini highlight a PCAST report o... » read more

Smart Manufacturing Gains Momentum


Smart manufacturing is gaining traction as a way of addressing increased market fragmentation while still leveraging economies of scale. The goal is to add a level of flexibility into manufacturing processes that until recently was considered impossible. Although the approach makes sense in theory, real-world implementation is proving far from consistent. Sometimes referred to as Industr... » read more

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