Usage Models Driving Data Center Architecture Changes


Data center architectures are undergoing a significant change, fueled by more data and much greater usage from remote locations. Part of this shift involves the need to move some processing closer to the various memory hierarchies, from SRAM to DRAM to storage. There is more data to process, and it takes less energy and time to process that data in place. But workloads also are being distrib... » read more

The Impact Of 5G On Silicon Design


5G, the next-generation of mobile broadband, is driving tremendous increases in data throughput for mobile applications by introducing carrier aggregation, massive MIMO, advanced modulation, and high bandwidth channels in the mmWave spectrum. However, 5G and its governing body, 3GPP, has very high expectations to expand its capabilities well beyond the mobile market, and move into many new area... » read more

PCIe 5.0: A Key Interface Solution For The Evolving Data Center


A great many developments are shaping the evolution of the data center. Enterprise workloads are increasingly shifting to the cloud, whether these be hosted or colocation implementations. The nature of workload traffic is changing such that data centers are architected to manage greater east-west (within the data center) communication. New workloads, with AI/ML (artificial intelligence/machine ... » read more

Huawei: 5G Is About Capacity, Not Speed


Paul Scanlan, CTO of the Huawei Carrier Business Group in Huawei Technologies, sat down with Semiconductor Engineering to talk about 5G, which use cases are attractive and why, and how that compares with previous wireless technologies. SE: Where are you seeing 5G, and how do you see this rolling out both for sub-6GHz and millimeter wave? Scanlan: 5G is a platform for transformation. The f... » read more

From Cloud To Cloudlets


Cloudlets, or mini-clouds, are starting to roll out closer to the sources of data in an effort to reduce latency and improve overall processing performance. But as this approach gains steam, it also is creating some new challenges involving data distribution, storage and security. The growing popularity of distributed clouds is a recognition that the cloud model has limitations. Sending the ... » read more

High-Speed Signaling Drill-Down


Chip interconnect standards have received a lot of attention lately, with parallel versions proliferating for chiplets and serial versions moving to higher speeds. The lowliest characteristic of these interconnect schemes is the physical signaling format. Having been static at NRZ (non-return-to-zero) for decades, change is underway. “Multiple approaches are likely to emerge,” said Brig ... » read more

Design For Narrowband IoT


Most low-power chips are designed with the assumption that batteries can be recharged or replaced, but there is a whole set of IoT devices under development that are expected to be always-on, communicate over a cellular infrastructure, and remain functional on a coin-sized lithium-ion battery for a decade or more. Welcome to the world of Narrowband IoT (NB-IoT), a 3GPP standard (also known a... » read more

Rising Packaging Complexity


Synopsys’ Rita Horner looks at the design side of advanced packaging, including how tools are chosen today, what considerations are needed for integrating IP while maintaining low latency and low power, why this is more complex in some ways than even the most advanced planar chip designs, and what’s still missing from the tool flow. » read more

Choosing Between CCIX And CXL


Semiconductor Engineering sat down to the discuss the pros and cons of the Compute Express Link (CXL) and the Cache Coherent Interconnect for Accelerators (CCIX) with Kurt Shuler, vice president of marketing at Arteris IP; Richard Solomon, technical marketing manager for PCI Express controller IP at Synopsys; and Jitendra Mohan, CEO of Astera Labs. What follows are excerpts of that conversati... » 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

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