Being Different Is Bad


By Ann Steffora Mutschler Today’s SoCs contain as much as 80% existing IP that either has been re-used from previous projects or obtained from a third party. Models are created of this hardware IP, as well as new portions of the design, in order to create a virtual prototype that allows the engineering team to see the complete system by running software and applications. While this a... » read more

From Hype To Reality


By Kurt Shuler My purpose in this article is to explain Gartner Research’s Hype Cycle and relate it to the Technology Adoption Lifecycle popularized by Geoffrey Moore’s book, “Crossing the Chasm.” These two models can be used together to provide a combined picture of market expectations and expected technology adoption rates, but people often get the timeframes and takeaways wrong. So ... » read more

Experts At The Table: Pain Points


By Ed Sperling Low-Power/High-Performance Engineering sat down with Vinod Kariat, a Cadence fellow; Premal Buch, vice president of software engineering at Altera; Vic Kulkarni, general manager of Apache Design; Bernard Murphy, CTO at Atrenta, and Laurent Moll, CTO at Arteris. What follows are excerpts of that conversation. LPHP: What comes next requires a lot of guesswork in the design, do... » read more

Routing Congestion Returns


By Ed Sperling Routing congestion has returned with a vengeance to SoC design, fueled by the advent of more third-party IP, more memory, a variety of new features, as well as the inability to scale wires at the same rate as transistors. This is certainly not a foreign concept for IC design. The markets for place and route tools were driven largely by the need to automate this kind of operat... » read more

SoC Platforms Gain Steam


By Ed Sperling Platforms are attracting far more attention from makers of SoCs because they are pre-verified and can speed time to market, but the shift isn’t so simple. It will spark major changes in the way companies design and build chips, causing significant disruption across the entire SoC ecosystem. Platforms are nothing new in the processor and software world. Intel, IBM AMD, and N... » read more

Who Calls The Shots?


By Kurt Shuler Who REALLY calls the shots in chip design today? That sounds like a stupid question. Who really calls the shots in chip design today? Well, chip designers of course. But you’re wrong if you mean to say that the traditional semiconductor manufacturers are the ones who always do all the hefty work of chip design, including determining requirements, performing technical tra... » read more

Experts At The Table: Pain Points


By Ed Sperling Low-Power/High-Performance Engineering sat down with Vinod Kariat, a Cadence fellow; Premal Buch, vice president of software engineering at Altera; Vic Kulkarni, general manager of Apache Design; Bernard Murphy, CTO at Atrenta, and Laurent Moll, CTO at Arteris. What follows are excerpts of that conversation. LPHP: With stacked die it’s no longer one company making an SoC. W... » read more

Experts At The Table: Pain Points


By Ed Sperling Low-Power/High-Performance Engineering sat down with Vinod Kariat, a Cadence fellow; Premal Buch, vice president of software engineering at Altera; Vic Kulkarni, general manager of Apache Design; Bernard Murphy, CTO at Atrenta, and Laurent Moll, CTO at Arteris. What follows are excerpts of that conversation. LPHP: Where will the pain points be going forward? Kariat: 20nm is... » read more

Roundtable: DAC Retrospective


Is DAC really a design automation conference, or has it shifted to a design enablement conference due to rising complexity breaking down traditional barriers and silos? Low Power High Performance Engineering talks with Atrenta CTO Bernard Murphy about the changes. [youtube vid=Z_xBaRsC_Hs] » read more

What’s On TV?


By Kurt Shuler Could Apple TV revive the digital TV (DTV) market? That was the underlying question behind a trio of presentations given at yesterday’s Gartner Semiconductor Briefing at in San Jose. Three Gartner analysts outlined a path forward for our industry to innovate its way out of the morass that has become the digital TV market. Alfonso Velosa was the first analyst to present a... » read more

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