Mitigating Voltage Droop


Voltage droop, also known as IR drop, is a phenomenon that occurs when the current in the power delivery network abruptly changes due to workload fluctuations. This can lead to supply voltage drops across system-on-chips (SoCs) which can cause severe performance degradation, limit their energy efficiency, and in extreme cases can cause catastrophic timing failures. To avoid these issues, conven... » read more

Design Technology Co-Optimization


Rising complexity is making it increasingly difficult to optimize chips for yield and reliability. David Fried, vice president of computational products at Lam Research, examines the benefits of automated rules to manage the relationship between layout and design requirements on one side, and process flows and rules/checks on the other. Benefits include reduced margin, shortened time to market,... » read more