High-Level Synthesis For RISC-V


High-quality RISC-V implementations are becoming more numerous, but it is the extensibility of the architecture that is driving a lot of design activity. The challenge is designing and implementing custom processors without having to re-implement them every time at the register transfer level (RTL). There are two types of high-level synthesis (HLS) that need to be considered. The first is ge... » read more

Blog Review: Oct. 27


Siemens EDA's Ray Salemi continues looking into using Python for verification by looking at how pyuvm simplifies and refactors the UVM TLM system to take advantage of the fact that Python has multiple inheritance and no typing. Cadence's Paul McLellan listens in as Larry Disenhof explains the impact that export regulations have on EDA tools and IP products and changes in a rapidly shifting l... » read more

3D-IC Design Challenges And Requirements


As demands accelerate for increasing density, higher bandwidths, and lower power, many IC design and packaging teams are taking a close look at vertical stacking multiple chips and chiplets. This technology, called 3D-IC, promises many advantages over traditional single-die planar designs. Some are using the term “More-than-Moore” to describe the potential of this new technology. Integratio... » read more

Week In Review: Auto, Security, Pervasive Computing


An investigation by the Automobile Association of America found that lane-keeping assist and automatic emergency braking, both high-profile ADAS features, are prone to failure in rain. According to the report, 69% of tests conducted with simulated rainfall resulted in test vehicles crossing lane markers, and 33% of simulations resulted in collisions at 35 mph. Surprisingly, risk of accidents di... » read more

Week In Review: Design, Low Power


Tools Cadence's digital and custom/analog flows were certified for TSMC's N3 and N4 process technologies. Updates for the digital flow includes efficient processing of large libraries, additional accuracy during library cell characterization and static timing analysis, and support for accurate leakage calculation required in N3 and static power calculation for new N3 cells. Synopsys' digita... » read more

What’s Next For Transistors And Chiplets


Sri Samavedam, senior vice president of CMOS Technologies at Imec, sat down with Semiconductor Engineering to talk about finFET scaling, gate-all-around transistors, interconnects, packaging, chiplets and 3D SoCs. What follows are excerpts of that discussion. SE: The semiconductor technology roadmap is moving in several different directions. We have traditional logic scaling, but packaging i... » read more

Blog Review: Oct. 20


Siemens EDA's Sumit Vishwakarma promotes ironing out preliminary bugs by using a real number model to describe an analog block as a discrete floating-point model and enable it to simulate in a digital solver at near-digital simulation speeds. Synopsys' Taylor Armerding explains how including security in the software development process from the beginning planning stages onward will help IoT ... » read more

Get Ready For The Next Generation Of Wearable Tech


Wearables have attracted a lot of attention recently, due to both their successes as well as failures. They bring together requirements for packaging, new substrates, power scavenging, low-power, novel connectivity, flexibility, durability, as well as fashion. While some of the challenges remain formidable, the long-term potential is driving the industry to look at what is possible. They are... » read more

HBM3: Big Impact On Chip Design


An insatiable demand for bandwidth in everything from high-performance computing to AI training, gaming, and automotive applications is fueling the development of the next generation of high-bandwidth memory. HBM3 will bring a 2X bump in bandwidth and capacity per stack, as well as some other benefits. What was once considered a "slow and wide" memory technology to reduce signal traffic dela... » read more

Architecting Interposers


An interposer performs a similar function as a printed circuit board (PCB), but when the interposer is moved inside a package the impact is significant. Neither legacy PCB nor IC design tools can fully perform the necessary design and analysis tasks. But perhaps even more important, adding an interposer to a design may require organizational changes. Today, leading-edge companies have shown ... » read more

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