The Week In Review: Design/IoT


Predictions Wally Rhines, Mentor Graphics' chairman and CEO, was presented with the Kaufman Award last night for outstanding achievement in electronic design. In his acceptance speech, he plotted the growth of the EDA industry at a consistent 2% of the semiconductor industry for the past couple decades. But he noted that with a shift to system design automation, that number would rise from t... » read more

Ecosystem Vs. Ecosystem


The massive consolidation that has been underway over the past couple years is about to slow down. Interest rates are expected to increase in the very near future—the Fed has been dropping hints about this for months—ending the era of cheap capital. The cost of borrowing already is creeping up in anticipation of this, and it's happening globally because money lending is a global industry. ... » read more

Scalability From Granularity


You might have seen that ARM TechCon is happening this week in Silicon Valley, with a number of product announcements from the IP giant accompanying the conference. One of those is the A-35, which stuck out for me in terms of the range of scalability possible, among other things. Here is a graphic that shows the range of scalability: [caption id="attachment_23671" align="alignright" wid... » read more

Smaller, Faster, Cheaper


Sometimes the most intriguing market growth comes in “unsexy” applications. Take the mobile market for example. Overall growth rates are cooling, as you’d expect with a maturing market. But in 2020, 1 billion smart phones are expected to ship in the entry-level category. This implies an 8% compounded annual growth rate, making entry mobile the most rapidly expanding mobile market segme... » read more

Blog Review: Nov. 11


In this week's top five picks, Ansys' Justin Nescott explores the importance of energy efficiency in lighting, buildings, and… jellyfish? Plus, getting more sky into apartments, and flying through the sky on a jetpack. Terahertz waves are difficult to create and detect, but it may be easier thanks to a Swiss research team. Rambus' Aharon Etengoff digs into how they used a common megapixel ... » read more

Security Improvements Ahead


After nearly two years of talking about how security is one of the biggest problems facing the IoE, progress is being made on a number of fronts. The changes involve many companies, both individually and collaboratively through standards groups. And while none of this will stop the kind of high-profile breaches that affected Target or Home Depot or JPMorgan Chase or a long list of other gian... » read more

The Great IoE Race Begins


Nobody knows how many tens of billions of semiconductors will be used in the IoE, but it's a sure bet it won't be a few chips replicated billions of times. Most IoE devices will need to be customized for specific applications. Many will need to be highly reliable for many years. And all of them will need to be secure and power-efficient. Yet they also will need to connect to heterogeneous ne... » read more

Making Cars Smarter


The fuel injection control unit has come a long way since 1983 when Ford Motor Co. first included a 16-bit Intel microcontroller-based fuel injection system in its 4-cylinder Escort. Today, some high end vehicles contain more than 100 microprocessors, which is mind boggling in comparison to that Escort that contained just one. To be sure, the automotive industry is a unique animal. Compared ... » read more

Emerging IoT Applications Require Careful Consideration


The Internet of Things (IoT) is creating opportunities in the existing space held by traditional semiconductor applications, typically falling into categories that include industrial, fitness, health and lifestyle to apparel, safety and productivity. But there also are new, inventive devices. In the last several months, we’ve seen the launch of a canine Fitbit, a hybrid dog collar, and dyn... » read more

Blog Review: Nov. 4


Can agile methodologies typically used in software development bring more efficiency to chip design? For UC Berkeley Professor Borivoje Nikolic, the answer is, why not? Christine Young reports on the keynote at Cadence's Mixed-Signal Technology Summit. For his latest embedded video, Mentor's Colin Walls focuses the camera on language standardization and use of language extensions. Ansys' ... » read more

← Older posts Newer posts →