Advanced Materials: Mapping A Path To Low-Power Devices


By Cheryl Ajluni For many electronics devices, especially those utilized in mobile applications, achieving low power is the Holy Grail. Unfortunately this goal is one that is not easily attained. In accordance with Moore’s Law, transistor density is continuing to increase. With each scaling, transistors are being designed smaller and faster to realize increased chip performance. But the risi... » read more

Writing Application Software Directly To The Metal


By Ed Sperling How necessary is an operating system? That question would have been considered superfluous a decade ago, possibly even blasphemous and career-limiting. But it now is beginning to surface in low-power discussions, particularly in compute-intensive applications where performance and power are both critical. General-purpose operating systems constantly call on the processor fo... » read more

Another Brick In The Wall


The wall is in sight.   Moore’s Law has propelled the semiconductor industry at an amazing velocity since it was first introduced in 1965, and despite some minor changes from 18 months to two years, we have pretty much stayed on course. In the past, most people thought we would hit the wall at 1 micron, and they thought it would happen again at 32nm. The road map appears pretty solid dow... » read more

NoC Your SoCs Off


By Ed Sperling The network on a chip (NoC) approach is gaining ground as an essential part of a system on a chip (SoC), providing the same kind of time-to-market advantage that well-tested intellectual property blocks provide. This follows almost eight years of hype about NoCs potential with little to show for it. Times have changed and there appear to be two main drivers, one technological a... » read more

The Quest For Faster Data Throughput On A Chip


By Ed Sperling As with all network topologies, the general rule is the faster the better. Jack Browne, VP of sales and marketing at Sonics, said his customers are asking for higher-speed interconnects. “Right now we’re at 300MHz,” he said. “They want to more than double that in the very near future and eventually get to 1GHz.” Getting to that speed is no simple ... » read more

The Trouble With On-Chip Interfaces


By Ed Sperling The trouble with standards is that many of them arise out of need rather than through careful planning, and often unilaterally. The typical scenario in chip design is that a company has an issue to solve, so it comes up with a solution. When it gets what it believes is critical mass behind the standard, the company that developed the solution opens it up to the rest of the ind... » read more

Vectors of Change


Downturns have a way of changing things forever—sort of like the earthquake of 1812, which permanently re-routed the Mississippi River in three places. And while the common thinking is that things will go back to where they were before, they never do.   For one thing, the trend isn’t just smaller, faster, cheaper. It’s also shorter development cycles. Incredibly complex chips now tak... » read more

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