tag: EDA

Week 9: Look Out The Window
By Anne Cirkel - 08 Aug, 2014 - Comments: 1

When I grew up I was considered a rather difficult child. I couldn’t focus on a single task for long and sitting in the classroom, especially in elementary school, was sheer agony. I vividly remember one morning in third grade when, in the middle of a math test, I looked out the window and noticed a helicopter flying by. This was a notably more interesting fact than the numbers and equations ... » read more

Improving 2.5D Components
By Ed Sperling - 07 Aug, 2014 - Comments: 1

A lot of attention is being focused on improving designs at established, well-tested nodes where processes are mature, yields are high, and costs are under control. So what does this mean to stacking die? For 2.5D architectures, plenty. For 3D, probably not much. Here’s why: The advantage of 2.5D is that it can utilize dies created at whatever node makes sense. While the initial discuss... » read more

Established Nodes Getting New Attention
By Ed Sperling - 07 Aug, 2014 - Comments: 0

As the price of shrinking features increases below 28nm, there has been a corresponding push to create new designs at established nodes using everything from near-threshold computing to back biasing and mostly accurate analog sensors. The goals of power, performance and cost haven’t changed, but there is a growing realization among many chipmakers that the formula can be improved upon with... » read more

Tech Talk: Near Threshold Computing
By Ed Sperling - 07 Aug, 2014 - Comments: 1

ARM fellow Rob Aitken talks about what is NTC, why it has taken so long to catch on, and the enormous energy savings possible using this technique at established process nodes. [youtube vid=Ersdl81yTnM] » read more

Who Owns DAC?
By Anne Cirkel - 01 Aug, 2014 - Comments: 4

In June I was chatting with an editor unfamiliar with DAC and he was wondering who owns the conference. It’s a fair question and I recall thinking I’d blog about it as part of my effort to boost understanding of DAC. After all, my goal is to let you glimpse behind the curtain and that means touching on the prosaic though very important issue of ownership. First, the basics. DAC is owne... » read more

Improving The PPA Equation
By Ed Sperling - 24 Jul, 2014 - Comments: 0

The next generation of semiconductors may look very much like the existing generation. But like the old Porsche ads that required arrows to point to the improvements, because from the outside things basically looked the same, there should be plenty of impressive stuff inside. As the cost per transistor continues to rise at advanced nodes, the focus for most companies is no longer about shrin... » read more

EDA’s Hedge Plays
By Ed Sperling - 24 Jul, 2014 - Comments: 0

While 14/16nm process technologies with finFETs and double patterning have pushed complexity to new heights, the move to 10nm fundamentally will change a number of very basic elements of the design through manufacturing flow—and EDA vendors will be caught in the middle of having to make hard choices between foundries, processes, packaging approaches, and potentially which markets to serve. ... » read more

High-Level Gaps Emerge
By Ann Mutschler - 24 Jul, 2014 - Comments: 0

Semiconductor Engineering sat down to discuss the attributes of a high-level, front-end design flow, and why it is needed at present with Leah Clark, associate technical director for digital video technology at Broadcom; Jon McDonald, technical marketing engineer at Mentor Graphics; Phil Bishop, vice president of the System Level Design System & Verification Group at Cadence; and Bernard Mu... » read more

Planning For The Unexpected
By Tom De Schutter - 24 Jul, 2014 - Comments: 0

Last month we undertook a big family trip. My parents, my brother and his family came from Belgium to California, and together we embarked on a trip across the Northwest United States. Starting in Silicon Valley we drove via Lake Tahoe and Salt Lake City to Yellowstone. Afterward, we crossed over to Seattle and Portland to finish off the trip with visits to Crater Lake and Lassen Volcanic Natio... » read more

Software Design Moves Virtual Prototyping Into The Mainstream
By Jeff Scott - 24 Jul, 2014 - Comments: 1

With the high level of integration of CPUs, GPUs, and DSPs in today’s System-on-Chip (SoC) and ASIC devices, software is becoming a primary driver of system innovation. This, along with the increasing pressure to reduce system development time, makes it critical to get a working hardware prototype into the hands of the various software teams as quickly as possible. Traditional prototyping met... » read more

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