Tuning Heterogeneous SoCs


It's one thing to pack multiple processor cores into a design, but it is much more difficult to ensure the hardware matches the software's requirements, or that the software optimally uses the hardware. Both the hardware and software teams are now facing these issues, and there are few tools to help them fully understand the problems or to provide solutions. Design teams continue to add more... » read more

Executive Insight: Sundari Mitra


Sundari Mitra, co-founder and CEO of [getentity id="22535" e_name="NetSpeed Systems"], sat down with Semiconductor Engineering to discuss machine learning, shifting from a processor-centric to a memory-centric design, and what needs to change to make that all happen. What follows are excerpts of that conversation. SE: What is the biggest change you’re seeing? Mitra: We go through a cycl... » read more

The Real Value Of Digital Horsepower


Chipmakers and systems vendors are beginning to experiment with a slew of new ways to beef up performance and reduce power and area, now that shrinking features no longer guarantees those improvements. The number of new ideas introduced at industry conferences in the past few months is almost mind-boggling. Just on the CPU side there are new architectures that improve the amount of work that... » read more

Embedded Evolution


The design of embedded systems has changed drastically from the days when I was directly involved with them. My first job after leaving college was to design aircraft control systems. I had the dubious honor to be working on the first civilian fly-by-wire aircraft – the Airbus A310. The reason I say dubious is that we had so many eyes trained on us, and that system contained so much redundanc... » read more

All You Need Is Cache (Coherency) To Scale Next-Gen SoC Performance


Life on the SoC performance front remains a withering battle sometimes, because things can seem fairly bleak. As transistor scaling becomes more expensive below 10-nanometer feature sizes, every day it becomes harder to double performance every 18-months or so and stay competitive. Nowhere is the pain of this battle more acute than in consumer and automotive systems, where low cost is the key t... » read more

Easing Heterogeneous Cache Coherent SoC Design Using Arteris’ Ncore Interconnect IP


Heterogeneous processing has become a hallmark of mobile SoCs, but designing cache coherency across these diverse processing elements can be difficult. Standard on-chip interfaces and network-on-a-chip (NoC) technology are the first step, giving architects IP to efficiently connect compute processing elements as different as CPUs, GPUs, and DSPs. Hardware IP to enable coherent communication bet... » read more

How Cache Coherency Impacts Power, Performance


As discussed in part one, one of the reasons cache coherency is becoming more important is the shared common memory resource in designs today. Various agents in the design want to access the data the fastest they can, putting pressure on the CPU complex to manage all of the requests. Until a generation ago, it was okay for the CPU to control that memory and have access to it, as well as be t... » read more

How Cache Coherency Impacts Power, Performance


Managing how the processors in an SoC talk to one another is no small feat, because these chips often contain multiple processing units and caches. Bringing order to these communications is critical for improving performance and [getkc id="106" kc_name="reducing power"]. But it also requires a detailed understanding of how data moves, the interaction between hardware and software, and what c... » read more

From Game Theory To The Unified Theory of Coherency


Adam Smith said that the best result comes from everyone in the group doing what is best for himself. But he’s only half right because the best result would come from everyone in the group doing what is best for himself and the group. If you are wondering where you might have heard this before, it was Russell Crowe playing John Nash in the movie “A Beautiful Mind.” John Nash was an Ame... » read more

Executive Insight: K. Charles Janac


K. Charles Janac, chairman and CEO of Arteris, sat down with Semiconductor Engineering to talk about what's changing in the automotive market, the impact of big data, and heterogeneous cache coherency. What follows are excerpts of that discussion. SE: What are the big changes you're seeing in semiconductor design? Janac: There are a lot of changes right now. Mobility is slowing down and b... » read more

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