Experts At The Table: The Internet Of Everything


By Ed Sperling System-Level Design sat down to discuss the Internet of Things with Jack Guedj, president and CEO of Tensilica; John Heinlein, vice president of marketing for the physical IP division of ARM; Kamran Izadi, director of sourcing and supplier management at Cisco; and Oleg Logvinov, director of market development for STMicroelectronics’ Industrial and Power Conversion Division. Wh... » read more

Solutions For Mixed-Signal SoC Verification


Performing full-chip verification of large mixed-signal systems on chip (SoCs) is an increasingly daunting task. As complexity grows and process nodes shrink, it’s no longer adequate to bolt together analog or digital “black boxes” that are presumed to be pre-verified. Complex analog/ digital interactions can create functional errors, which delay tapeouts and lead to costly silicon re-spi... » read more

Solutions For Mixed-Signal IP, IC, And SoC Implementation


Traditional mixed-signal design environments, in which analog and digital parts are implemented separately, are no longer sufficient and lead to excess iteration and prolonged design cycle time. Realizing modern mixed-signal designs requires new flows that maximize productivity and facilitate close collaboration among analog and digital designers. This paper outlines mixed-signal implem... » read more

Over 50% Of Smart Phones And Tablets Leverage SOI


Posted by Adele Hars, Editor-in-Chief, Advanced Substrate News ~  ~ In a recent press release, the SOI wafer leader Soitec said that chips built on its SOI wafers were found in over half of the smartphones and tablets in the market worldwide. 50%? That’s a lot! How do they figure that? The answer: RF. [caption id="attachment_809" align="alignleft" width="549" caption="As seen here... » read more

Smarter Things


By Ed Sperling SoC design has largely been a race to the next process node in accordance with Moore’s Law, but it’s about to take a sharp turn away from that as the Internet of Things becomes more ubiquitous. There has been much made about the Internet of Things over the past couple of years—home networks that involve smart refrigerators sending reminders to consumers that the milk is... » read more

Raising The Stakes For IP


By Ed Sperling As the amount of IP in an SoC increases, so do the number of players who want to strengthen their position in this market. The big acquisitions that began several years ago over time have proved to be just opening salvos—something that was impossible to predict when this shift began. Synopsys’ purchase of Virage Logic and Cadence’s purchase of Denali, both of which occu... » read more

Taming The Challenges Of 20nm Custom/Analog Design


Custom and analog designers will lay the foundation for 20nm IC design. However, they face many challenges that arise from manufacturing complexity. The solution lies not just in improving individual tools, but in a new design methodology that allows rapid layout prototyping, in-design signoff, and close collaboration between schematic and layout designers. To view this white paper, click here. » read more

Experts At The Table: Obstacles In Low-Power Design


By Ed Sperling Low-Power/High-Performance Engineering sat down to discuss low-power design with with Leah Clark, associate technical director at Broadcom; Richard Trihy, director of design enablement at GlobalFoundries; Venki Venkatesh, engineering director at Atrenta; and Qi Wang, technical marketing group director at Cadence. What follows are excerpts of that conversation. LPHP: What effe... » read more

Mixed-Signal IP Design Challenges In 28nm Process And Beyond


As process technologies continue to scale aggressively, it is becoming more challenging when developing high-quality, high-speed mixed-signal IP. Specifically, the 28-nm process poses some unique challenges not found in 65-nm and 40-nm technology processes. This paper discusses the low power requirements found in 28-nm processes and addresses issues associated with the aggressive scaling of ... » read more

Analog Hits The Power Wall


By Ed Sperling Analog design teams are starting to encounter the same physical issues that digital design engineers began wrestling with several nodes ago—only the problems are more complicated and even more difficult to solve. At advanced nodes digital circuitry is susceptible to an array of physical effects ranging from heat, electromigration, electromagnetic interference and electrosta... » read more

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