Understanding Voltage Drop Mechanics


As a fundamental concept of electronic design, voltage drop ranks highly as one to understand well. I particularly appreciate when industry folks come up with creative ways to get the point across. Jerry Zhao, a product management director at Cadence and I were discussing how to best manage dynamic and static voltage drop, but I first asked him to explain the difference between the two. I p... » read more

The Efficiency Problem


The field of automotive automation has been the driver – so to speak – of the next leap of innovation in the field of transportation. Car architectures are being re-engineered to take advantage of incredible leaps in automation, using more powerful processors that process more data than ever before. The recent focus on autonomous automobile technology could be due to the ongoing drop in ... » read more

The Problem With Clocks


The synchronous digital design paradigm has enabled us to design circuits that are well controlled, but that is only true if the clocks themselves are well controlled. While overdesign techniques ensured that to be the case in early ASIC development, designs today cannot afford such luxuries. As we strive for lower power and higher operating frequencies, the clock has become a critical desig... » read more

Managing Voltage Drop At 10/7nm


Power integrity is becoming a bigger problem at 10/7nm because existing tools such as static analysis no longer are sufficient. Power integrity is a function of static and dynamic voltage drop in the power delivery network. And until recently, static analysis did an effective job in measuring the overall robustness of PDN connectivity. As such, it is a proxy for PDN strength. The problem is ... » read more

Electric Vehicles Set The Pace


Electric vehicles are leading the charge for innovation in automotive electronics. Companies that invested and embraced the challenge of EVs are besting their less-nimble, less-open-minded engineering cohorts. Semiconductors and embedded computers have been controlling the dashboard, mirrors, seats, heating and cooling for years. But with EVs, engineering teams are starting to tackle tas... » read more

A Program Manager’s Guide to Successful Integrated Circuit Verification


Accurately monitoring progress on complex integrated circuit (IC) designs has become more difficult as the designs have increased in complexity, leading to surprises from backwards-looking reporting and management processes that do not forewarn coming crises. The Cadence Metric-Driven Verification Methodology provides a more uniform and standardized method of reporting progress towards closure ... » read more

Blog Review: April 12


Cadence's Paul McLellan discusses the legal concerns around autonomous vehicles, emotion-based driver monitoring, and the role of LiDAR, from the CASPA Symposium on Autonomous Driving. The IEEE Design & Test's Magdy Abadir interviews Mentor's Wally Rhines in a discussion ranging from EDA growth and its economics to the increasing complexity of verification. Synopsys' Robert Vamosi exa... » read more

Supporting CPUs Plus FPGAs


While it has been possible to pair a CPU and FPGA for quite some time, two things have changed recently. First, the industry has reduced the latency of the connection between them and second, we now appear to have the killer app for this combination. Semiconductor Engineering sat down to discuss these changes and the state of the tool chain to support this combination, with Kent Orthner, system... » read more

Time For New Rules


Is Moore's Law dead? Brigadier General Paul Fredenburgh, commandant of the Dwight D. Eisenhower School for National Security and Resource Strategy, asked that question to four industry CEOs last week while visiting Silicon Valley with some of his students. He received four highly nuanced, if not different, answers. Left to right: Lip-Bu Tan, Cadence; Wally Rhines, Mentor Graphics; Simon Se... » read more

Getting Ready For 5G


Evolving communication systems are driving developments in the RF/microwave industry. The big umbrella of 5G focuses on supporting three main technologies: 1. Enhanced mobile broadband, which is the natural development of LTE; 2. Massive machine-type communications, also known as the Industrial Internet of Things (IIoT), and 3. Ultra-reliable, low-latency communications providing mission-cri... » read more

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