Challenges Of Using The Cloud For IC Design


The ‘cloud’ is so ubiquitous that perhaps even your grandmother has heard about it. There are advertisements on TV with various vendors touting their cloud offerings. The cloud is ideal for eCommerce and SaaS (Software as a Service) offerings, as the elasticity on demand provides a convenient way to scale up when demand is high and scale down when it is low. Yet the design community has ... » read more

Security Provisioning Moves Out Of The Factory


Security credentials traditionally have been provisioned during chip manufacturing, often as a final part of the testing process. That's starting to change. Logistics management can be improved by pushing that process out — even as far as the on-boarding process. And simpler on-boarding can hide most of the details from the user. “The IT approach to provisioning IoT devices has primar... » read more

Usage Models Driving Data Center Architecture Changes


Data center architectures are undergoing a significant change, fueled by more data and much greater usage from remote locations. Part of this shift involves the need to move some processing closer to the various memory hierarchies, from SRAM to DRAM to storage. There is more data to process, and it takes less energy and time to process that data in place. But workloads also are being distrib... » read more

Using AWS Cloud Services For IC Library Characterization That Is Scalable, Secure, And Fast


Siemens’ AMS Verification team and Amazon Web Services (AWS) have collaborated to provide users with a scalable, secure and cost-effective cloud characterization flow that enables users to leverage cloud computing resources to accelerate library characterization, reduce compute resource bottlenecks, as well as improve characterization runtime predictability. To read more, click here. » read more

Data Overload In The Data Center


Dealing with increasing volumes of data inside of data centers requires an understanding of architectures, the flow of data between memory and processors, bandwidth, cache coherency and new memory types and interfaces. Gary Ruggles, senior product marketing manager at Synopsys, talks about how these systems are being revamped to improve performance and reduce power. » read more

CEO Outlook: 2021


The new year will be one of significant transition and innovation for the chip industry, but there are so many new applications and market segments that broad generalizations are becoming less meaningful. Unlike in years past, where sales of computers or smart phones were a good indication of how the chip industry would fare, end markets have both multiplied and splintered, greatly increasin... » read more

Infrastructure Impacts Data Analytics


Semiconductor data analytics relies upon timely, error-free data from the manufacturing processes, but the IT infrastructure investment and engineering effort needed to deliver that data is, expensive, enormous, and still growing. The volume of data has ballooned at all points of data generation as equipment makers add more sensors into their tools, and as monitors are embedded into the chip... » read more

The Cyber-Industrial Revolution


Semiconductors won't save the world, but they certainly will help. In fact, it's arguable whether any significant progress will be made on such issues as global warming or future medical breakthroughs without the aid of ICs. After decades of struggling just to get chips to work at each new process node, the semiconductor industry is moving into a new phase. Processing is now almost ubiquitou... » read more

Elasticity Without Compromise


At the dawn of the twenty-first century, the available RAM on a physical machine dictated, and ultimately limited, the size of designs that Ansys HFSS could simulate. This prompted engineers to buy incredibly expensive pieces of hardware — well into the six figures — to solve their most challenging problems. By necessity, engineers learned to “divide and conquer” their largest, most ... » read more

Is Hardware-Assisted Verification Avoidable?


Emulation is emerging as the tool of choice for complex and large designs, but companies that swap from simulation to emulation increasingly recognize this is not an easy transition. It requires money, time, and effort, and even then not everyone gets it right. Still, there are significant benefits to moving from simulation to emulation, providing these systems can be utilized efficiently en... » read more

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