Week In Review: Design, Low Power


Tools Cadence teamed up with Tower Semiconductor to release a silicon-validated SP4T RF SOI switch reference design flow using the Cadence Virtuoso Design Platform and RF Solution. The reference design flow targets advanced 5G wireless, wireline infrastructure, and automotive IC product development and include a set of mixed-signal and RF design, simulation, system analysis and signoff tools t... » read more

Always On, Always At Risk


Always-on devices are everywhere, and each of them is a potential target for hackers. While many people associate always-on devices with smart speakers such as an Amazon Alexa or Google Home, or a connected security camera, that's only one component in a system. There's a broader infrastructure behind those devices. So even if you power down a digital assistant/smart speaker, everything it's... » read more

Blog Review: Aug. 18


Arm's Charlotte Christopherson explores the possibilities of flexible, non-silicon electronics with the creation of PlasticArm, an ultra-minimalist Cortex-M0-based SoC that, even with just 128 bytes of RAM and 456 bytes of ROM, is twelve times more complex than previous flexible electronics. Cadence's Claire Ying highlights the importance of integrity and data encryption (IDE) technology for... » read more

Impact Of GAA Transistors At 3/2nm


The chip industry is poised for another change in transistor structure as gate-all-around (GAA) FETs replace finFETs at 3nm and below, creating a new set of challenges for design teams that will need to be fully understood and addressed. GAA FETs are considered an evolutionary step from finFETs, but the impact on design flows and tools is still expected to be significant. GAA FETs will offer... » read more

Week In Review: Auto, Security, Pervasive Computing


Automotive Infineon announced a new MEMS scanner chipset for automotive heads-up displays (HUD) and AR (augmented reality) eyeglasses. The design has MEMS mirror — which tilts and can work with laser beam scanner (LBS) projectors — and MEMS driver. The size and energy use is small and yet it projects content over a wider area of the windshield. A partnership between Ansys and IPG Automo... » read more

Now You Can Automate Latch-Up Verification For 2.5/3D Technologies


Latch-up is modeled as a short circuit (low-impedance path) that can occur in an integrated circuit (IC). It may lead to destruction due to over-current resulting from interactions between parasitic devices (PNP and NPN). To protect against latch-up conditions, there are two key types of latch-up design rules—fundamental and advanced [1,2]. Fundamental rules are the local latch-up design r... » read more

Lowering Energy Per Bit


Energy is emerging as a focal point in chip and system design, but solving energy-related issues needs to be dealt with on a much broader scale than design teams typically see. Energy is the amount of power consumed over a period of time to perform a given task, but reducing energy is a lot different than reducing power. It affects everything from operational costs and system performance to ... » read more

Adding Circuit Aging To Variability


Moving to a smaller node usually means another factor becomes important. The industry has become accustomed to doing process, temperature, voltage (PVT) corner analysis, but now it has to add aging into that mix. The problem is that planning for circuit aging is no longer a purely statistical process. Aging is dependent on activity over the lifetime of the device. Tools need to be modified a... » read more

2.5D And 3D-IC Latch-Up Prevention


2.5D/3D ICs have evolved into an innovative solution for many design and integration situations, but they present unique verification obstacles that challenge electronic design automation (EDA) tools originally designed for 2D ICs. Automated solutions are needed not only to reduce verification cycles but also to improve the quality and reliability of package designs. Automated verification o... » read more

Blog Review: Aug. 11


Arm's Rahul Mathur finds that traditional interconnects have become a bottleneck for improving IC performance and suggests buried interconnects as a way to lower signal routing delay. Cadence's Paul McLellan checks out forksheet FETs, a new transistor type that could allow scaling past 3nm, and the interconnect advances that will need to accompany it. A Synopsys writer explains the new LP... » read more

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