New Business Model: Flexible Silos


Operational silos within organizations have a long history of streamlining processes and maximize efficiency. In fact, that approach has made enterprise resource planning applications a must-have for most companies, and cemented the fortunes of giants such as SAP and Oracle, as well as the giant consulting companies that recommend them. But those kinds of delineations don’t work so well fo... » read more

Efficiency Metrics Get Fuzzy


Not too long ago chipmakers used to measure transistors per hour and software developers would measure lines of code written per day or per week. Those metrics have fallen by the wayside—and chipmakers are still lamenting that loss. The problem is that nothing has come along to replace the old metrics, and complexity has left many chipmakers scratching their heads about how to build effici... » read more

SoC Assembly And IP Reuse


I had the honor and opportunity to present at the 2014 Electronic Design Process Symposium in Monterey last Friday. This annual workshop is run by the IEEE Computer Society of Silicon Valley and the IEEE Council on Electronic Design Automation. There were more than 30 participants each day. Most of them very experienced people with lots of technical and business responsibilities. It was ... » read more

The Week In Review: Design


Tools Mentor Graphics announced its Enterprise Verification Platform (EVP) that pulls together the company’s Questa verification technologies with Veloce OS3 global emulation resourcing technology, and the Visualizer debug technology into what it says is a globally accessible, high-performance datacenter resource. The system is aimed at global resource management and supports project teams a... » read more

Blog Review: April 2


Mentor’s Nazita Saye compares roadway roundabouts to networked systems. One roundabout works fine, but add in a bunch of them and you have a massive traffic jam. How many roundabouts are in your design? Cadence’s Richard Goering interviews Stan Kroliskoski, chair of the IEEE Design Automation Standards Committee, about four working groups on EDA standards and what’s ahead. Speaking ... » read more

Malaysia Airlines Flight MH370 And The Progress of Technology


Cable news has been continuously deluging us with lots of speculation regarding the fate of Malaysia Airlines flight 370. Most of us are drowning in a sea of jargon as TV talking heads express incredulity that, “with all our modern technology, a plane disappeared…” Although the disappearance of flight MH370 is a terrible tragedy, I see the larger context of our progress in commercial a... » read more

New Approaches For Reliability


The definition of reliability hasn’t budged since the invention of the IC, but how to achieve it is starting to change. In safety-critical systems, as well as in markets such as aerospace, demands for reliability are so rigorous that they often require redundant circuitry—and for good reason. A PanAmSat malfunction in 1998 caused by tin whisker growth wiped out pagers for 45 million use... » read more

How Much Will That Chip Cost?


From the most advanced process nodes to the trailing edge of design there is talk about the skyrocketing cost of developing increasingly complex SoCs. At 16/14nm it’s a combination of multi-patterning, multiple power domains and factoring in physical and proximity effects. At older nodes, it’s the shift to more sophisticated versions of the processes and new tools to work within those proce... » read more

Blog Review: March 12


Arteris’ Kurt Shuler is sounding the alarm bell for the semiconductor industry. He observes that system OEMs are hiring their own chip engineers. Well, that should wake up someone. Danger Will Robinson. Mentor’s Colin Walls points to a festering debate in the embedded software world about priorities and openness to learning new tools and approaches. Embedded software developers are a rat... » read more

The Week In Review: Design


Tools Synopsys rolled out a new version of its software technologies for static and formal verification, which it says increases performance by up to five times. Also new are improved debug and low-power verification with native power simulation, and an integrated IP portfolio. Cadence uncorked a new version of its PCB and packaging environment, which it says speeds up timing closure by as ... » read more

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