Blog Review: July 26


Siemens' Chris Spear shows how to make a group of specialized classes in SystemVerilog. Synopsys' Guy Cortez and Randy Fish consider what a silicon lifecycle management strategy looks like for SoCs deployed in HPC and data center environments. Cadence's Veena Parthan provides a primer on writing Python scripts for Fidelity, including API descriptions and different sets of packages to acce... » read more

Week In Review: Design, Low Power


Cadence will acquire Rambus' SerDes and memory interface PHY IP business. Rambus will retain its digital IP business, including memory and interface controllers and security IP. “With this transaction, we will increase our focus on market-leading digital IP and chips and expand our roadmap of novel memory solutions to support the continued evolution of the data center and AI,” said Sean Fan... » read more

Improving Performance And Lowering Power In Automotive


Automotive OEMs are boosting their investments across the semiconductor ecosystem as stepping stones toward electrification and autonomy, and they are starting to encounter some of the same issues chipmakers have been wrestling with at advanced nodes — massive compute performance, thermal and power issues, reliability over extended lifetimes, and a highly diverse and geographically distribute... » read more

Getting Rid Of Heat In Chips


Power consumed by semiconductors creates heat, which must be removed from the device, but how to do this efficiently is a growing challenge. Heat is the waste product of semiconductors. It is produced when power is dissipated in devices and along wires. Power is consumed when devices switch, meaning that it is dependent upon activity, and that power is constantly being wasted by imperfect de... » read more

Mitigating Electromigration In Chip Design


From smartphones to laptops, we use a variety of devices every day that rely on integrated circuits (ICs), or chips, to function. These chips are made up of thousands of transistors and interconnects, which transmit electrical signals from one part of the chip to another. But as demand for speed and complexity forces more energy through ever-smaller devices, this concentrated current flow can t... » read more

HBM’s Future: Necessary But Expensive


High-bandwidth memory (HBM) is becoming the memory of choice for hyperscalers, but there are still questions about its ultimate fate in the mainstream marketplace. While it’s well-established in data centers, with usage growing due to the demands of AI/ML, wider adoption is inhibited by drawbacks inherent in its basic design. On the one hand, HBM offers a compact 2.5D form factor that enables... » read more

Blog Review: July 19


Siemens' Keith Felton argues that co-design-driven semiconductor package planning and prototyping is critical for design success and points to how interchange formats enable designers to make trade-off decisions for both the package and the board and communicate those recommendations back to the other design team in formats that are native to their tools. Cadence's Xin Mu explains precoding ... » read more

Study On HPC And Cloud Computing For Engineering Simulation


In engineering applications, cloud computing can provide the on-demand compute power needed to run increasingly more complex simulations on a more frequent basis throughout the design cycle. Simulation plays an increasingly important role in the development of disruptive new technologies and systems such as autonomous vehicles, digital manufacturing, next-generation aircraft, and more. Rapid, h... » read more

Wi-Fi 7 Moves Forward, Adding Yet Another Protocol


The latest generation Wi-Fi protocol brings better speeds and data handling, but it does little to bridge various communications technologies. That, in turn, makes it more difficult and more expensive to design chips because they must integrate and support multiple wireless technologies, including different versions of the same technology. Wireless communications technologies are often victi... » read more

Week In Review: Semiconductor Manufacturing, Test


SEMICON West returned in force this week, with a focus on AI and deep learning  in semiconductor manufacturing, security, heterogenous ICs, and the march toward a $1 trillion chip market. Lam Research President and CEO, Tim Archer, opened with the keynote presentation. Fig. 1: SEMICON West panel: AI’s influence on growth, China-U.S. trade war, and the importance of climate policy were... » read more

← Older posts Newer posts →