Blog Review: Nov. 10


Cadence's Paul McLellan listens in as Malcolm Penn of Future Horizons explains key reasons behind the cyclical nature of the semiconductor industry and how the root of the current chip shortage problems goes back to before the pandemic. Siemens EDA's Ray Salemi continues investigating using Python for verification with a look at some UVM utilities and how they would be used in Python. Syn... » read more

Enablers And Barriers For Connecting Diverse Data


More data is being collected at every step of the manufacturing process, raising the possibility of combining data in new ways to solve engineering problems. But this is far from simple, and combining results is not always possible. The semiconductor industry’s thirst for data has created oceans of it from the manufacturing process. In addition, semiconductor designs large and small now ha... » read more

More Errors, More Correction in Memories


As memory bit cells of any type become smaller, bit error rates increase due to lower margins and process variation. This can be dealt with using error correction to account for and correct bit errors, but as more sophisticated error-correction codes (ECC) are used, it requires more silicon area, which in turn drives up the cost. Given this trend, the looming question is whether the cost of ... » read more

Expanding Silicon Lifecycle Management To Real-Time System Performance Optimization


Semiconductor development is currently in one of its periodic crises, with many factors combining to require dramatically new technologies and methodologies. Chips continue to grow ever larger and more complex, with 3D IC devices adding another layer of challenges. Huge data centers, autonomous vehicles, and algorithms using artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning (ML) drive a relentl... » read more

Week In Review: Design, Low Power


Business Synopsys acquired Concertio, a provider of AI-powered performance optimization software. The acquisition will bolster Synopsys' silicon lifecycle management platform SiliconMAX SLM with the addition of Concertio's autonomous software agent that, when installed on the target system, continuously monitors the interactions between operating applications and the underlying system enviro... » read more

Week In Review: Auto, Security, Pervasive Computing


Automotive The U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) is funding 25 cleaner car and truck projects with $199 million. Projects include long-haul trucks powered by batteries and fuel cells, and at improving the nation’s electric vehicle (EV) charging infrastructure. The Volvo Group North America (VGNA) will receive $18 million in federal funds under DOE’s  SuperTruck 3 Program. Daimler Trucks N... » read more

Complex Chips Make Security More Difficult


Semiconductor supply chain management is becoming more complex with many more moving parts as chips become increasingly disaggregated, making it difficult to ensure where parts originated and whether they have been compromised before they are added into advanced chips or packages. In the past, supply chain concerns largely focused primarily on counterfeit parts or gray-market substitutions u... » read more

Shifting Vehicle System Development Left With Virtual ECUs


Developing electrical and electronic content for vehicles has always been an engineering and manufacturing challenge. The road is an exceptionally rough environment for components: temperature and humidity change constantly while noise and vibration pummel all parts of the vehicle. The nature of high-speed travel requires safety and reliability, which must be achieved in the presence of the dif... » read more

Improving Medical Image Processing With AI


Machine learning is being integrated with medical image processing, one of the most useful technologies for medical diagnosis and surgery, greatly expanding the amount of useful information that can be gleaned from scan or MRI. For the most part, ML is being used to augment manual processes that medical personnel use today. While the goal is to automate many of these functions, it's not clea... » read more

Blog Review: Nov. 3


In a blog for Arm, Matthew Griffin of the 311 Institute warns that cybersecurity is an increasingly pressing problem, with large criminal organizations raking in large sums of money and attacks able to impact a wide range of physical systems. Cadence's Paul McLellan checks out Google's video encoder chip and how it helps lower the CPU recycles required by the vast number of videos uploaded t... » read more

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