Week In Review: Design, Low Power


Synopsys rolled out an AI-driven design suite called Synopsys.ai at the Synopsys User Group conference this week, which it says reduces time to better results at multiple points in the design flow. The company noted the new technology uses reinforcement learning, which compensates for relatively small data sets by allowing engineers to interact with that data more easily at any point, and to ch... » read more

Week In Review: Auto, Security, Pervasive Computing


Rambus will begin selling Arm's CryptoCell embedded security platform and CryptoIsland root-of-trust cores, setting the stage for a much broader push by Rambus into security for a wide range of connected devices, and ultimately into security as a service. Under the terms of the deal, Rambus' customers will be able to license Arm IP directly from Rambus. For Arm's existing customers, there will ... » read more

Blog Review: Oct. 29


Ansys' Bill Vandermark uncovers the top engineering articles for the week. Check out the tractor beam in Australia that can push and pull objects and Naim's soundbar that may act like a gateway drug to bankruptcy. It may sound counterintuitive, but ARM's Jakub Lamik draws a direct link between bandwidth consumption and power consumption and explains that's the case. Samsung's Farhad Tab... » read more

The Week In Review: Design


IP Synopsys rolled out verification IP for mobile PCIe, including built-in M-PHY, for UVM environments. Cadence introduced MIPI SoundWire controller IP, which allows bi-directional digital communication using low gate count and minimal complexity. Deals ARM and TSMC rolled out a road map for 64-bit ARM-based processors at 10nm. The companies said the early pathfinding work is expected t... » read more

DRAM Remains The Status Quo


By Frank Ferro No one will argue that the “post-PC” era is here. Tablet shipments are expected to pass laptops by the end of this year, and desktops by the end of 2015. Add-in the nearly 1 billion smartphones shipment projected for 2013, and you would think that the DRAM industry would take notice of this volume. DRAM manufacturers do care about this segment of the market, but this fact... » read more

Memory Architectures Undergo Changes


By Ed Sperling Memory architectures are taking some new twists. Fueled by multi-core and multiple processors, as well as some speed bumps using existing technology, SoC makers are beginning to rethink how to architect, model and assemble memory to improve speed, lower power and reduce cost. What’s unusual about all of this is that it doesn’t rely on new technology, although there certai... » read more

Semiconductor Memory Aids


By Brian Fuller It's not hard to forget that semiconductor memory remains one of the most relentless challenges in system design. It sometimes doesn’t get the ink that sexier semiconductor design topics do, but it’s there. Always. Twenty years ago this year, University of Virginia computer scientists William Wulf and Sally McKee published a paper that popularized the term semiconductor ... » read more