CCIX – What And Why?


There are two significant issues with today’s I/O interconnects: high speed storage and networking applications need more bandwidth than currently available technologies provide, and co-processing/acceleration functions need cache coherency for faster access to memory in heterogeneous multi-processor systems. These requirements are driving the development of a new specification called Cache C... » read more

Frenzy At 10/7nm


The number of chipmakers rushing to 10/7nm is rising, despite a slowdown in Moore's Law scaling and the increased difficulty and cost of developing chips at the most advanced nodes. How long this trend continues remains to be seen. It's likely that 7/5nm will require new manufacturing equipment, tools, materials and transistor structures. Beyond that, there is no industry-accepted roadmap, m... » read more

Functional Safety For FPGA-Based Hardware Designs


Advances in design and manufacturing technology allow increased factory automation, where tasks are automatically performed by sophisticated equipment such as industrial robots. Manufacturing processes require fail-safe mechanisms to prevent human injury or costly downtime. With increasing sophistication and automation of the manufacturing processes, there is increasing need for error detection... » read more

Blog Review: Sept. 13


Mentor's Andrew Macleod points to some important things to consider when beginning an automotive IC project and why differentiation, not commoditization, should be the goal. Synopsys' Amit Paunikar examines the architecture changes that make LPDDR4 faster while consuming less power. Cadence's Paul McLellan shares highlights from CDNLive Boston, from the latest in silicon photonics to how ... » read more

The Week In Review: IoT


Deals Deere & Co. has agreed to acquire Blue River Technology of Sunnyvale, Calif., for $305 million. The transaction is expected to close this month. Blue River develops computer vision and machine learning technology for use in precision agriculture. Monsanto Growth Ventures, Data Collective Venture Capital, Innovation Endeavors, Khosla Ventures, and Pontifax AgTech were among the investors... » read more

The Week In Review: Design


Tools Cadence unveiled an integrated memory design and verification tool, with environments for bitcell design, array and complier verification, and memory characterization. It utilizes existing simulation databases for multi-corner and Monte Carlo analysis, which the company says can lead to a 2X runtime improvement. Solido Design Automation uncorked PVTMC Verifier, which uses machine lear... » read more

The Limits Of IP Reuse


The basic business proposition for third-party IP is that it's cheaper, faster, and less problematic to buy rather than build. But things haven't exactly worked out according to plan, either for companies that license IP or those that develop it. For [getkc id="43" kc_name="IP"] licensees, just keeping track of an endless series of updates is becoming unwieldy. Complex designs often include ... » read more

Blog Review: Sept. 6


Mentor's Jeff Miller explains why hardware security is important for IoT edge devices, where vulnerabilities lie today, and how researchers created an undetectable backdoor attack circuit. Cadence's Meera Collier argues that while AI is getting good at many things, composing music is not yet one of them. Synopsys' Robert Vamosi considers the state of voting machine security as security re... » read more

The Week In Review: Design


M&A Silvaco finalized its acquisition of SoC Solutions. The Georgia-based company was founded in 2000. Its team and portfolio of pre-configured IP subsystems and IoT/M2M IP will join Silvaco's IP group. Terms were not disclosed. Siemens PLM will acquire TASS International, a provider of simulation software, engineering and test services aimed primarily at the automotive industry. Based ... » read more

Executive Insight: Wally Rhines


Wally Rhines, president and CEO of [getentity id="22017" e_name="Mentor, a Siemens Business"], sat down with Semiconductor Engineering to talk about industry consolidation, a shift in emphasis from chips to systems, and what the recent acquisition by Siemens will mean for Mentor. What follows are excerpts of that conversation. SE: A year ago it looked as if the entire industry was going to b... » read more

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