Micro-Architectural Exploration For Low Power Design


By Abhishek Ranjan, Saurabh Shrimal and Sanjiv Narayan In the first part of this series, we discussed the need to perform power optimizations and exploration at higher levels of abstractions, where the potential to reduce the power consumption was highest. While fine-grained local changes (like clock-gating, operand isolation, etc.) for power reduction are well understood and widely adopted,... » read more

Power Aware CDC Verification Of Dynamic Frequency And Voltage Scaling (DVFS) Artifacts


Traditional low power verification only validates the functional correctness of power control logic, but it does not validate the impact of power logic on multi-clock logic. We will discuss the effects of advanced low power design on CDC design and verification. This paper describes the new CDC issues caused by the addition of power control logic including isolation cells, retention cells, lev... » read more

Blog Review: Dec. 9


From spring-loaded knees to modular planes to a two-seater drone, there's a new world of transportation in this week's top engineering and technology picks from Ansys' Justin Nescott. As for disappearing worlds, check out the sun-like star getting eaten by a black hole. Cadence's Paul McLellan takes a look back at archaic terminology and even older standards, with a brief history of Calma to... » read more

Defining Sufficient Coverage


Semiconductor engineering sat down to discuss the definition of sufficiency of coverage as a part of verification closure with Harry Foster, chief scientist at [getentity id="22017" e_name="Mentor Graphics"]; Willard Tu, director of embedded segment marketing for [getentity id="22186" comment="ARM"]; Larry Vivolo was, at the time of this roundtable, senior director of product marketing for [get... » read more

The Week In Review: Design/IoT


Tools Cadence uncorked the next generation of its custom design platform optimized for advanced 10nm FinFET designs. Features include multi-patterning and color-aware layout, electrically aware design, and module generator (ModGen)-based device array flow. Deals San'an IC will provide Mentor Graphics' design rule decks to its customers to help verify that their mobile and wireless gall... » read more

How To Model Cars


The most technologically advanced and comprehensive consumer product in the world today is not the smartphone. It's the automobile. This is easier to see once the hood is up and you can take a peek around. Today’s cars contain sophisticated motion systems, crash safety systems, climate control systems, driver assistance, and infotainment, to name a few. In semiconductor design, one of the ... » read more

Intelligent Autonomous IoT


Last month I discussed what new markets and winners IoT would produce. Sensors and devices, the edge, server chips and the cloud, are obvious winners. However, it’s not so clear who the winner is in the middle, the realm of gateways and embedded software. These technologies are critical to connecting existing infrastructure to the world of IoT and enabling a whole new category of IoT solution... » read more

Addressing The Challenges Of IoT Design


Internet of Things (IoT) designs mesh together several design domains in order to successfully develop a product. Individually, these design domains are challenging. Bringing them all together to create an IoT product can place extreme pressure on design teams. The Tanner design flow is architected to seamlessly work in any of these design domains by employing an integrated design flow for desi... » read more

Driving The Road Less Traveled


To a large extent, the automotive industry does not follow traditional design approaches that are seen in the semiconductor industry, mostly because of the way the automotive ecosystem is structured, combined with a level of complexity not seen even in products like smartphones and other highly sophisticated consumer electronic devices. Thomas Heurung, manager of technical sales teams in Eur... » read more

Consolidation’s Aftermath


The recent spate of industry consolidation continues to have repercussions across the semiconductor industry. Some of those effects will subside once the deals are either approved or nixed by regulatory agencies. Others will raise questions for months or years to come. Consolidation is not a new trend in the semiconductor industry, but the pace and size of the acquisitions in the past year a... » read more

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