Optimizing Energy At The System Level


Power is a ubiquitous concern, and it is impossible to optimize a system's energy consumption without considering the system as a whole. Tremendous strides have been made in the optimization of a hardware implementation, but that is no longer enough. The complete system must be optimized. There are far reaching implications to this, some of which are driving the path toward domain-specific c... » read more

The Rising Price Of Power In Chips


Power is everything when it comes to processing and storing data, and much of it isn't good. Power-related issues, particularly heat, dominate chip and system designs today, and those issues are widening and multiplying. Transistor density has reached a point where these tiny digital switches are generating more heat than can be removed through traditional means. That may sound manageable e... » read more

Design Tool Think Tank Required


When I was in the EDA industry as a technologist, there were three main parts to my role. The first was to tell customers about new technologies being developed and tool extensions that would be appearing in the next release. These were features they might find beneficial both in the projects they were undertaking today, and even more so, would apply to future projects. Second, I would try and ... » read more

Re-architecting Hardware For Energy


A lot of effort has gone into the power optimization of a system based on the RTL created, but that represents a small fraction of the possible power and energy that could be saved. The industry's desire to move to denser systems is being constrained by heat, so there is an increasing focus on re-architecting systems to reduce the energy consumed per useful function performed. Making signifi... » read more

Glitch Power Issues Grow At Advanced Nodes


An estimated 20% to 40% of total power is being wasted due to glitch in some of the most advanced and complex chip designs, and at this point there is no single best approach for how and when to address it, and mixed information about how effective those solutions can be. Glitch power is not a new phenomenon. DSP architects and design engineers are well-versed in the power wasted by long, sl... » read more

Application-Optimized Processors


Executing a neural network on top of an NPU requires an understanding of application requirements, such as latency and throughput, as well as the potential partitioning challenges. Sharad Chole, chief scientist and co-founder of Expedera, talks about fine-grained dependencies, why processing packets out of order can help optimize performance and power, and when to use voltage and frequency scal... » read more

Patterns And Issues In AI Chip Design


AI is becoming more than a talking point for chip and system design, taking on increasingly complex tasks that are now competitive requirements in many markets. But the inclusion of AI, along with its machine learning and deep learning subcategories, also has injected widespread confusion and uncertainty into every aspect of electronics. This is partly due to the fact that it touches so many... » read more

Tradeoffs In DSP Design


More intelligence is now required in the front-, mid-, and back-haul for 5G/6G communication, requiring a mix of high performance, low power, and enough flexibility to accommodate constantly changing protocols and algorithms. One solution to these conflicting goals involves reconfigurable DSPs, in which the processing element is hardwired like an ASIC but still configurable for a variety of app... » read more

Getting Rid Of Heat In Chips


Power consumed by semiconductors creates heat, which must be removed from the device, but how to do this efficiently is a growing challenge. Heat is the waste product of semiconductors. It is produced when power is dissipated in devices and along wires. Power is consumed when devices switch, meaning that it is dependent upon activity, and that power is constantly being wasted by imperfect de... » read more

Improving Image Resolution At The Edge


How much cameras see depends on how accurately the images are rendered and classified. The higher the resolution, the greater the accuracy. But higher resolution also requires significantly more computation, and it requires flexibility in the design to be able to adapt to new algorithms and network models. Jeremy Roberson, technical director and software architect for AI/ML at Flex Logix, talks... » read more

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