Security Concerns Weigh Down Open-Source EDA


Open-source EDA tools are free, readily available, and growing in numbers, but many chipmakers are wary of using them due to security concerns. On the plus side, proponents say these tools can help attract fresh new talent to chip design. Yet despite their spread online — GitHub alone has more than 140 EDA-specific repositories — using visible source code can provide new avenues of attac... » read more

RISC-V Heralds New Era Of Cooperation


RISC-V is paving the way for open source to become accepted within the hardware community, creating a level of industry collaboration never seen in the past, while revitalizing the connection between academia and industry. The big question is whether this arrangement is just a placeholder while the industry re-learns how to develop processors, or whether this processor architecture is someth... » read more

Competitive Open-Source EDA Tools


A technical paper titled “Basilisk: Achieving Competitive Performance with Open EDA Tools on an Open-Source Linux-Capable RISC-V SoC” was published by researchers at ETH Zurich and University of Bologna. Abstract: "We introduce Basilisk, an optimized application-specific integrated circuit (ASIC) implementation and design flow building on the end-to-end open-source Iguana system-on-chip (... » read more

FPGA-Proven RISC-V System With Hardware Accelerated Task Scheduling


A technical paper titled “Enabling HW-based Task Scheduling in Large Multicore Architectures” was published by researchers at Barcelona Supercomputing Center, University of Campinas, University of Sao Paulo, and Arteris Inc. Abstract: "Dynamic Task Scheduling is an enticing programming model aiming to ease the development of parallel programs with intrinsically irregular or data-dependent... » read more

An Energy Efficient, Linux-Capable RISC-V Host Platform Designed For The Seamless Plug-In And Control Of Domain-Specific Accelerators


A technical paper titled “Cheshire: A Lightweight, Linux-Capable RISC-V Host Platform for Domain-Specific Accelerator Plug-In” was published by researchers at ETH Zurich and University of Bologna. Abstract: "Power and cost constraints in the internet-of-things (IoT) extreme-edge and TinyML domains, coupled with increasing performance requirements, motivate a trend toward heterogeneous arc... » read more

Shifting Toward Software-Defined Vehicles


Apple reportedly is developing a software-defined vehicle. But so are Renault, Hyundai, General Motors, and just about everyone else. Some of the benefits of SDVs include increased comfort, convenience, safety, reliability, and remote software and firmware updates. Preventive and predictive maintenance, and remote diagnostics, can be done more conveniently over the air, while vehicle behavio... » read more

RISC-V Pushes Into The Mainstream


RISC-V cores are beginning to show up in heterogeneous SoCs and packages, shifting from one-off standalone designs toward mainstream applications where they are used for everything from accelerators and extra processing cores to security applications. These changes are subtle but significant. They point to a growing acceptance that chips or chiplets based on an open-source instruction set ar... » read more

Heterogeneous Ultra-Low-Power RISC-V SoC Running Linux


A technical paper titled "HULK-V: a Heterogeneous Ultra-low-power Linux capable RISC-V SoC" was published by researchers at University of Bologna, University of Modena and Reggio Emilia, and ETH Zurich. "We present HULK-V: an open-source Heterogeneous Linux-capable RISC-V-based SoC coupling a 64-bit RISC-V processor with an 8-core Programmable Multi-Core Accelerator (PMCA), delivering up to... » read more

Challenges Mount In New Autos


Electronics are becoming the primary differentiator for carmakers, adding an array of options that can alter everything from how a vehicle's occupants interact with their surroundings to how the vehicle drives. But the infrastructure needed to support these features also raises a slew of technology and business questions for which there are no simple answers today. For example, how will new ... » read more

Making Everything Linux-Capable


It's not clear how the edge will play out or what will be the winning formula from a hardware standpoint. But for everything beyond the end device, and possibly even including the end device, a key prerequisite will be the ability to run Linux. That means at least one processor or core within the hardware will need to run 64-bit software. In addition, systems will need to have enough storage... » read more

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