Is An FPGA IP Business Model Finally Possible?


By Kurt Shuler The IP-SoC conference panel, “IPs on FPGA: Strategy and Vision,” was a learning experience for me. Coming from the software and silicon/ASIC/ASSP worlds, I thought I had a pretty comprehensive view of all the various IP licensing models and their technical implementations. But I learned something new that makes me feel positive about the FPGA’s abilities to finally offer a... » read more

Reducing Bottlenecks


By Ann Steffora Mutschler For the first time ever, China recently earned fastest supercomputer bragging rights with its Tianhe-1A supercomputer, which can perform 2.57 quadrillion computing operations per second. The machine has been successfully used to survey mines, forecast weather and design high-end machinery. While it has caused concern, it is important to note that the Tianhe-1A use... » read more

Behind The Standards


By Kurt Shuler As engineers, we view transaction protocols as simply a language to be able to communicate information from one block of system-on-chip (SoC) IP to another block. However, if you look at transaction protocols from an economics framework you see there's much more to it. With the past interconnect fabrics dominated by crossbars and hierarchal busses, the choice of the IP transacti... » read more

The Future Of 3D Stacking


By Ed Sperling Despite concerns about the lack of tools, an unstable process, questionable interconnects, thermal overloads and electrostatic discharge, 3D stacking appears to be making headway. At the very least, lots of companies of all sizes are betting heavily that it will succeed. The first wave, which is expected to start showing up late next year, will likely come from a handful of t... » read more

NoC Is Not A Noun


By Kurt Shuler Today in the IP and EDA business, I hear “knock” all the time, except people mean “NoC.” It seems everybody wants a NoC, or wants to offer you a NoC. I’m here to tell you that NoC is not a noun. A network-on-chip is a technology approach that can be used to transfer data and commands in many domains. When people in the IP and EDA businesses say NoC, they are usually... » read more

Connecting The Pieces


By Ann Steffora Mutschler With the amount of IP blocks being integrated in SoCs today – in some cases as many as 100 blocks in a single chip – SoC design methodologies are shifting to address the new challenges this complexity brings. The good news is that these integration challenges has put the spotlight on the issues—along with the skyrocketing development costs for the creation, qual... » read more

Balancing Quality, Cost And Locale


By Ann Steffora Mutschler As more features are packed into a single SoC there are simply more time-critical decisions to make. Instead of holding up one chip of a six-chip chipset, a delay or error on one chip can stop the whole parade. That explains why one of the most vibrant parts of the business at big EDA companies these days is standard IP, and why most of the other commercial IP make... » read more

Integrated IP Goes Vertical


By Ed Sperling The consolidation of intellectual property from small developers to large players with integrated IP blocks is accelerating. Large IP companies are now developing integrated suites that are pre-tested for specific vertical markets, and new companies are sprouting up to make it easier to put even broader collections of IP together in meaningful ways. It’s difficult to te... » read more

The Long And Painful Path To Power Optimization


By Ed Sperling Think about any mobile Internet device today. Batteries typically last all day, applications shut down with ease, and the number of things it can do has reached the point where many people typically carry one device on the road rather than multiple devices they used to lug around several years ago. Perhaps even more astounding is the price drop on these devices. A basic cell ... » read more

Remaking The Design Landscape


By Ed Sperling Every now and then a new trend comes along in the semiconductor design world, often because an old tool doesn’t work well anymore or because a new one is achieving critical mass. Lithography moved to immersion when the wavelength couldn’t be refracted far enough anymore. Designers at the advanced end of Moore’s Law began using tools like high-level synthesis and Transa... » read more

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