The Higher Cost Of Automotive


A revolution is occurring under the hoods of vehicles today, as the automotive industry continues to add sophistication via electronics to vehicles at a pace never seen before. But because of the automotive ecosystem’s tiered structure, system companies, IP and embedded software developers and tools vendors must invest more just to participate. Robert Bates, chief safety officer in [getent... » read more

The Growing Need For OTP


Historically, when someone from our industry uses the acronym OTP, or one-time programmable, they think of eFuse, invented by IBM in 2004.  Using electromigration, IBM was able to program a fuse without damaging other parts of the chip. In this way, fuses could dynamically alter the configuration of a chip after it was manufactured. Applications range from analog trimming and calibration to re... » read more

OTP Memory For Mobile Payment Applications


The trend toward mobile banking and payments as a way to replace debit or credit cards, or integrate a part of their functions into a mobile device, is moving faster than most industry analysts predicted. In China, for example, mobile payment systems Alipay and WeChat pay are popular and well used, and a great way for easy account monitoring and ditching the wallet. It is a fundamental change t... » read more

Rethinking The Sensor


Sensor technology is beginning to change on a fundamental level as companies begin looking beyond a human’s five senses, on which early sensors were modeled, to what can be done with those sensors for specific applications. In some cases, [getkc id="187" kc_name="sensors"] don’t have to be as accurate as the sight, smell, touch, taste and hearing of a person. In others, they can be a... » read more

“eNVM Inside” Could Be The Next Catchphrase


Let's do a bit of a refresh on embedded non-volatile memory (eNVM) IP and the markets it has ably served: analog/mixed signal, automotive, consumer, industrial and mobile applications. Rather mainstream segments, albeit high value, in need of reliable storage. An estimated 10-billion units shipped in more than 400 chip designs makes eNVM IP a popular choice. See for yourself as we take a ret... » read more

Grappling With IoT Security


By Ed Sperling & Ernest Worthman As the IoT begins to take shape, the security implications of connecting devices and systems to the Internet and what needs to be done to secure them are coming into focus, as well. There is growing consensus across the semiconductor industry that many potential security holes remain, with new ones surfacing all the time. But there also is widespread r... » read more

Rethinking Processor Architectures


The semiconductor industry's obsession with clock speeds, cores and how many transistors fit on a piece of silicon may be nearing an end for real this time. The [getentity id="22048" comment="IEEE"] said it will develop the International Roadmap for Devices and Systems (IRDS), effectively setting the industry agenda for future silicon benchmarking and adding metrics that are relevant to specifi... » read more

Embedded Non-Volatile Memory: A Newsworthy Topic


Hacking and security concerns for consumer electronics must be among the most newsworthy topics in the Top 10 tech stories these days. A hacking headline seems to regularly make it as the lead piece on every tech blog or news online. No doubt, then, hacking is a Top 10 concern that consumers have when purchasing their electronics devices. While no one would recommend using embedded non-vo... » read more

The Week In Review: Design/IoT


Mergers & Acquisitions Cadence acquired [getentity id="22444" comment="Rocketick"], an Israel-based company focused on multicore parallel simulation. Founded in 2008, their original rise and claim to fame was acceleration on GPUs, having received significant funding from Nvidia. The deal is expected to close in the second quarter of fiscal 2016, and terms were not disclosed. Tools &am... » read more

Unexpected Security Holes


Security is emerging as one of the top challenges in semiconductor design across a variety of markets, with the number of security holes growing by orders of magnitude in sectors that have never dealt with these kinds of design constraints before. While security has been a topic of conversation for years in mobile phones and data centers, commercial and industrial equipment is being connecte... » read more

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