Key Drivers In New Chip Industry Outlook


How well the semiconductor industry fares over the next 12 to 24 months depends upon the evolution of a virus. That alone will determine the correct model for an economic rebound — V, U, extended U, or maybe even a double U. But what's also becoming clear is those models don't apply uniformly to all sectors or sub-sectors of the semiconductor industry. Looked at as a whole, the entire indu... » read more

Last-Level Cache


Kurt Shuler, vice president of marketing at Arteris IP, explains how to reduce latency and improve performance with last-level cache in order to avoid sending large amounts of data to external memory, and how to ensure quality of service on a chip by taking into account contention for resources. » read more

Tracking Automotive’s Rapidly Shifting Ecosystem


The automotive ecosystem is becoming much harder to navigate as automakers, Tier 1s and IP vendors redefine their relationships based upon shifting value caused by an rapidly expanding amount of increasingly interdependent and complex electronic content. Predictions of massive change started almost a decade ago with a number of pilot programs around autonomous vehicles. But those shifts real... » read more

AI, Performance, Power, Safety Shine Spotlight On Last-Level Cache


Memory limitations to performance, always important in modern systems, have become an especially significant concern in automotive safety-critical applications making use of AI methods. On one hand, detecting and reporting a potential collision or other safety problem has to be very fast. Any corrective action is constrained by physics and has to be taken well in advance to avoid the problem. ... » read more

Week In Review: Design, Low Power


Tools & IP Synopsys debuted VIP and a UVM source code test suite for IP supporting Ethernet 800G. The VIP supports DesignWare 56G Ethernet, 112G Ethernet, and 112G USR/XSR PHYs for FinFET processes, which can be integrated for 800G implementations based on 8 lane x 100 Gb/s technology. The VIP can switch speed configurations dynamically at run time and includes a customizable set of frame ... » read more

New Architectural Issues Facing Auto Ecosystem


As chips bound for the automotive world move to small process nodes, including 5nm and below, the automotive ecosystem is wrestling with both scaling issues and challenges related to architecting safety-critical systems using fewer chips. This may sound counterintuitive, because one of the main reasons automotive chip providers are moving to smaller nodes is to reduce the number of chips in ... » read more

Changes In AI SoCs


Kurt Shuler, vice president of marketing at ArterisIP, talks about the tradeoffs in AI SoCs, which range from power and performance to flexibility, depending on whether processing elements are highly specific or more general, and the need for more modeling of both hardware and software together. » read more

Week In Review: Auto, Security, Pervasive Computing


Internet of Things SEMI-FlexTech launched six flexible hybrid electronics (FHE) projects, collaborating with U.S. Army Research Laboratory (ARL), to accelerate innovations in sensor and sensor systems. Participating in the projects are American Semiconductor, Inc., University of Texas El Paso, Tekscan, PARC, Alertgy, and Iowa State University, among others. Some of the projects include develop... » read more

Week In Review: Design, Low Power


Presto Engineering, an outsourced operations provider to semiconductor and IoT device manufacturers, acquired the DELTA Microelectronics business unit of FORCE Technology. The acquisition adds DELTA's ASIC design and manufacturing to its portfolio. The two companies will retain a strong relationship: FORCE Technology has become a shareholder of Presto Engineering and Juan Farré, FORCE’s CTO,... » read more

Uses, Limits And Questions For FPGAs In Autos


Programmable logic in automotive applications is essential, given the parade of almost constant updates and shifts in direction, but exactly where the technology will be used has become a moving target. This isn't entirely surprising in the automotive industry. Carmakers are moving into electrification and increasing levels of automation in fits and starts, sometimes with dramatic swings in ... » read more

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