Can EDA Keep Growing?


Slower progress at the leading edge of process technology, coupled with rising costs and fewer design starts, are changing the economics of the EDA world. Not surprisingly, there is almost a direct correlation between the shrinking number of startups in the field and the number of customers working on the most advanced nodes. So what exactly does this mean for the EDA world? Big changes, for... » read more

What’s Wrong With Power Signoff


Reducing power has emerged as the most pressing issue in the history of technology. On one hand, it’s the biggest opportunity the electronics industry has ever seen. On the other, the abuse of cheap power has been linked to global warming, human catastrophe, and geopolitical strife. In all cases, the semiconductor increasingly finds itself at the vortex of all of this, and making chips more e... » read more

CEVA Targets Wearables


Coinciding with the announcement of an integrated platform based on a single TeakLite-4 DSP, handling Audio/Voice, Sensor Fusion, always-on UI and Connectivity- Linley Group Mobile Chip Report, By Linley Gwennap (May 5, 2014) describes how CEVA’s new and ground breaking platform is a starter kit of hardware and software blocks that a company can use to build a processor for its wearable produ... » read more

Pointing Fingers, Often In The Wrong Direction


Every design these days, regardless of whether it’s a processor, an SoC, an ASIC, FPGA or stacked die, relies on a combination of re-used and third-party intellectual property. No company—not even Intel, Apple or Samsung—has the capability of building everything itself within a highly compressed market window. There is a spectrum of IP use and re-use, of course. In some cases, it may i... » read more

Ultra Low Power Integrated Platform For Connectivity And Audio/Voice/Sensing


A look at an integrated approach on a single DSP and why it's needed. To download this white paper, click here. » read more

The Week In Review: Design


Tools CEVA integrated Bluetooth processing into its DSP cores. In addition to audio and video and always-on capabilities, the company is pitching the combination as an all-in-one, ultra-low-power solution for the wearable electronics market. So how big is this market opportunity? IDC predicts the wearable computing market will grow from 19.2 million units this year to 112 million units in 2... » read more

Pain Management


In part one of this series, the focus was on overlapping and new pain points in the semiconductor flow, from initial conception of what needs to be in a chip all the way through to manufacturing. Part two looks at how companies are attempting to manage that pain. It’s no secret that [getkc id="81" kc_name="SoC"]s are getting more complicated to design, debug and build, but the complexity i... » read more

MIMO Maximum Likelihood Detector


MIMO (Multiple Input and Multiple Output) is one of the leading approaches for improving data rates and/or SNR (Signal to Noise Ratio). By using multiple receive and transmit antennas, MIMO can exploit the diversity of the wireless channel. This is then used to increase the spectral efficiency of the channel and improve the data rates for any given channel bandwidth. This white paper reviews... » read more

The Week In Review: Design


Tools Mentor Graphics unveiled a new version of its PCB design platform, even going so far as to rename it slightly (Expedition to Xpedition). Mentor claims it’s the most significant product in that space in years, bridging the environments between designers and engineers. Included are placement planning in densely packed boards, which simplifies re-use and improves time to market, and elect... » read more

The Next Bigger Things


When the Internet of Things really started making headlines several years ago—the concept had been around since at least the early 1990s—the assumption was that most of the semiconductors involved in sensing and communicating would be simple, highly limited, and developed using older technology. As the concept evolves and grows, however, it’s beginning to take on a whole new texture. R... » read more

← Older posts Newer posts →