Powerful Software Optimization


It is commonly accepted that the higher you go in the design chain, the bigger the impact that design and implementation decision can have. While power optimization may have started deep in the silicon, the success of a product, such a smart phone, often is based on the time between charges. Batteries provide a finite energy resource, and while low-level optimization may focus on power reductio... » read more

Experts At The Table: How To Improve IP Quality


Semiconductor Engineering sat down to discuss the best ways to improve the quality of design IP with Piyush Sancheti, vice president of product marketing at Atrenta; Chris Rowen, Cadence Fellow and former CTO at Tensilica; Gene Matter, senior applications manager at Docea Power; Warren Savage, president and CEO of IPextreme; and Dan Kochpatcharin, deputy director of IP portfolio marketing at TS... » read more

Experts At The Table: How To Improve IP Quality


By Ann Steffora Mutschler Semiconductor Engineering sat down to discuss the best ways to improve the quality of design IP with Piyush Sancheti, vice president of product marketing at Atrenta; Chris Rowen, Cadence Fellow and former CTO at Tensilica; Gene Matter, senior applications manager at Docea Power; Warren Savage, president and CEO of IPextreme; and Dan Kochpatcharin, deputy director of ... » read more

Power Becomes Bigger Issue In Stacked Die


By Ed Sperling Concern over getting the heat out of stacked die is well defined, even if the current raft of existing and proposed solutions ranges from ineffective to exotic and expensive. What is less well understood is how to plan for and manage power inside of stacked die. While power and heat frequently go hand in hand—where there is heat there is almost always power dissipation—t... » read more

A Balancing Act


By Ann Steffora Mutschler If you stay current on data center trends, you are well-versed on the fact that Intel reported last June energy proportionality has effectively doubled server efficiency and workload scaling beyond what Moore’s Law predicted. What does this have to do with power management of SoCs? Cary Chin, director of marketing for low-power solutions at Synopsys, said tha... » read more

Hot Stuff


By Ann Steffora Mutschler When it comes to thermal modeling, which has been practiced for many years, the challenges are daunting. The good news is that approaches are emerging as challenges increased with smaller process nodes and design complexity. Viewed from a number of viewpoints—transistor, chip, package, board and system—thermal models traditionally have been created from m... » read more

Too Hot To Handle


By Ann Steffora Mutschler It used to be that a device could be designed to a thermal design power. The worst case power scenario would be imagined, and the device would be designed with that in mind. But those good old days are gone. Especially for consumer devices, how a device is going to behave with respect to time, or how people are going to use it, must be understood as completely a... » read more

Chip Architect Challenges


By Ann Steffora Mutschler Product lifecycles can be shorter than the design cycle and even the process development cycle, particularly in the consumer handheld device market. It’s up to the chip architect to decide how the functions should be implemented. The good news is there are a number of options available, ranging from mapping the design to 2.5D technology, moving to finFET tr... » read more

Experts At The Table: The Sky Isn’t Falling


By Ann Steffora Mutschler Semiconductor Manufacturing and Design sat down recently to discuss how the industry is making 3D ICs a reality today with Sylvan Kaiser, chief technology officer at Docea Power; Steve Smith, senior director for 3D-IC strategy at Synopsys; and Ahmed Jerraya, director of strategic design programs at CEA-LETI. SMD: How far are we from having the models we need to ena... » read more

Spoiled By Moore’s Law


By Ann Steffora Mutschler Over the past 20 years, lithium ion has emerged as the predominant battery technology. While there are a few variants, it seems that for everything from smartphones to automobiles, the same basic technology is being used. Many other technologies that have come and gone over the years—nickel cadmium, nickel metal hydride come to mind in the recent past, but they ar... » read more

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