Security Risks Grow With 5G


5G mobile phones can download a movie in seconds rather than minutes, but whether that can be done securely remains to be seen. What is clear from technology providers, though, is they are taking security very seriously with this new wireless technology. More data is in motion, and the value of that data is growing as users rely on mobile devices for everything from banking to automotive saf... » read more

Implementing An AES Cipher On Application-Specific Processors


In the previous blog post, “Embedded Security Using Cryptography”, we looked at how cryptography can be used for securing assets in embedded systems and ensure confidentiality, integrity and authenticity, or in short “CIA”. In this blog, we will explore the Advanced Encryption Standard (AES) and how to implement an AES engine on Cadence Tensilica Xtensa application-specific processors. ... » read more

Fast And Simple Rigid-Flex PCB Bending EM Analysis Using Clarity 3D Solver


3D PCB Electromagnetic (EM) Bending Analysis Rigid-Flex PCBs have been used in many modern electronic devices (such as mobile phones, laptops, and wearables, among others), due to their form factor, light weight, and cost-effectiveness. Electromagnetic (EM) analysis of Rigid-Flex PCBs has always been a challenging task for many commercially available 3D numerical solver technologies (FEM and F... » read more

Blog Review: Oct. 6


Arizona State University's Jae-sun Seo and Arm's Paul Whatmough introduce a fully-parallel and fully-pipelined FPGA accelerator for sparse CNNs that can eliminate off-chip memory access and also efficiently support elementwise pruning of CNN weights. Cadence's Paul McLellan highlights trends seen at the recent Hot Chips, from machine learning and advanced packaging driving higher performance... » read more

Overview Of Medical Chip Challenges


Medical devices are adopting, and increasingly adapting, a variety of semiconductor technologies to provide new functions and capabilities in smaller form factors. In doing so, they are leveraging increasing processing capabilities, lower power, and new types of sensors to propel health care forward. Many different chip types have been used in medical devices for years, many of them develope... » read more

Blog Review: Sept. 29


Cadence's Paul McLellan checks out two of the biggest chips presented at the recent Hot Chips: a graphics chip from Intel for an upcoming supercomputer and Cerebras' wafer-scale AI chip. Synopsys' Datsen Davies Tharakan lists the top five design challenges for electric vehicles and power semiconductors and why a robust design flow can accelerate the growth of hybrid and electric vehicles goi... » read more

EDA Vendors Widen Use Of AI


EDA vendors are widening the use of AI and machine learning to incorporate multiple tools, providing continuity and access to consistent data at multiple points in the semiconductor design flow. While gaps remain, early results from a number of EDA tools providers point to significant improvements in performance, power, and time to market. AI/ML has been deployed for some time in EDA. Still,... » read more

Low-Power Always-On Circuits


Some circuits are always on. A smart phone wakes up when it senses a user, and a smart speaker responds to keywords. The challenge is to make sure these devices don’t consume a lot of power while the rest of a device is powered down, that it remains secure, and that it can quickly wake up whatever other functions are needed. All of this requires a significant amount of engineering work. Amol ... » read more

Software-Hardware Co-Design Becomes Real


For the past 20 years, the industry has sought to deploy hardware/software co-design concepts. While it is making progress, software/hardware co-design appears to have a much brighter future. In order to understand the distinction between the two approaches, it is important to define some of the basics. Hardware/software co-design is essentially a bottom-up process, where hardware is deve... » read more

Week In Review: Design, Low Power


U.S. government officials met with semiconductor industry companies and automakers to request supply chain information it hopes could address the current semiconductor shortage, Reuters reports. Secretary of Commerce Gina Raimondo hopes the information will enable them and industry to "get more granular into the bottlenecks and then ultimately predict challenges before they happen," but also wa... » read more

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