Embedded Memory Impact On Power Grids


Introduction Due to the overwhelming technical advantages of having on-chip memories, embedded memories are ubiquitous in most chip designs, and can comprise significant portions of a chip (upwards of 50%, according to some authors). Accordingly, a chip’s power grid design and analysis must account for the impact of these embedded memories, but design teams often struggle to resolve power... » read more

Power Grid Analysis Heats Up At 20nm


By Ann Steffora Mutschler Do a simple Internet search for the term ‘power grid analysis’ and most of the results are academic sources. However, given the physics of either planar or finFET at 20nm and below, the power grid will see significant impacts. Overall, there are a number of technical implications of migrating from 28nm down to 20, 16 or 14 nm, with further impacts of moving fro... » read more

Under One Roof


By Ed Sperling Microsoft’s decision to buy Nokia’s phone business, Apple’s move to build its own chips to more effectively run its software, and Google’s effort to develop its own hardware for next-generation platforms such as Google Glass mark an interesting reversal in the electronics industry. Disaggregation was the answer to slow-moving giants such as big-iron companies. Startin... » read more

Blog Review: Sept. 11


By Ed Sperling Synopsys’ Eric Huang has unearthed the weirdest USB video ever produced—a dancing USB lighter. The messaging is pretty bizarre, too. Cadence’s Brian Fuller takes a whirlwind tour of the engineering accomplishments for the week. Check out the T-shirt message. Clearly they’re not talking about semiconductor engineers. Mentor’s Colin Walls looks at the Lua scripting... » read more

The Week In Review: Sept. 9


By Mark LaPedus SK Hynix’ DRAM fab in China caught on fire. The fire caused one minor injury, but it did not impact the equipment, according to reports. SK Hynix will re-open the fab soon, according to reports. Bob Halliday, Applied Materials’ CFO, gave a presentation at an analyst event, saying: “I think there’s probably more technology inflections going on right now than in years.... » read more

The Week In Review: Sept. 6


By Ed Sperling ARM acquired Cadence’s high-resolution display processor cores, which it helped to co-develop. Coupled with ARM’s own graphics, the move sets up ARM to sell complete subsystems. Cadence also won a deal with SMIC, which is using Cadence’s low-power flow and signoff technology for its 40nm process. Mentor Graphics won a deal with Advanced Wireless Semiconductor Co., whic... » read more

Blog Review: Sept. 4


By Ed Sperling Cadence’s Brian Fuller looks at the opportunity for EDA in the cloud and where it’s most likely to gain traction. How about the PCB? Synopsys’ Mick Posner has moved beyond broad-based design ecosystems. He’s now reaching out to local neighborhoods with FPGA prototypes. Sounds like quality family time. Mentor’s Colin Walls concedes that all non-trivial software ... » read more

The Week In Review: Aug. 30


By Ann Steffora Mutschler Continuing its drive towards enabling the Internet of Things (IoT), Renesas recently licensed a third Tensilica core from Cadence, this time the ConnX D2 DSP, which has acceleration packages optimized for IoT wired and wireless modem standards. Renesas previously licensed the Tensilica HiFi Audio DSP and ConnX BBE16 cores. In another deal for Cadence, Mellanox Tech... » read more

The Week In Review: Aug. 26


By Mark LaPedus The evolving relationship between humans and machines is the key theme of Gartner’s most "hyped” technologies in 2013. Gartner has chosen to feature the relationship between humans and machines due to the increased hype around smart machines, cognitive computing and the Internet of Things. Gartner also released its updated chart of hyped technologies. SunEdison, formerly... » read more

Experts At The Table: Low-Power Verification


By Ed Sperling Low-Power/High-Performance Engineering sat down to discuss power format changes with Sushma Hoonavera-Prasad, design engineer in Broadcom’s mobile platform group; John Biggs, consultant engineer for R&D and co-founder of ARM; Erich Marschner, product marketing manager at Mentor Graphics; Qi Wang, technical marketing group director at Cadence; and Jeffrey Lee, corporate ap... » read more

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