Speeding Up Neural Networks


Neural networking is gaining traction as the best way of collecting and moving critical data from the physical world and processing it in the digital world. Now the question is how to speed up this whole process. But it isn't a straightforward engineering challenge. Neural networking itself is in a state of almost constant flux and development, which makes it something of a moving target. Th... » read more

Whatever Happened To High-Level Synthesis?


A few years ago, [getkc id="105" comment="high-level synthesis"] (HLS) was probably the most talked about emerging technology. It was to be the heart of a new Electronic System Level (ESL) flow. Today, we hear much less about the progress being made in this area. Semiconductor Engineering sat down to discuss this with Bryan Bowyer, director of engineering for high level design and verificati... » read more

Blog Review: April 26


Cadence's Paul McLellan provides an introduction to single-event effects and the challenges created when high-energy neutrons bombard chips. Synopsys' Robert Vamosi looks at the strange turf war between two worms battling for control of IoT security cameras. Mentor's Ayan Pahwa contends that it's the duty of IoT device developers to take security as paramount factor and provide good secur... » read more

The Week In Review: Design


Tools Mentor unveiled new formal-based technologies in the Questa Verification Solution. It offers formal-based RTL-to-RTL equivalence checking flows optimized for verification of manual low-power clock gating, bug fix and ECO validation, and ISO 26262 safety mechanism verification, which the company says which can reduce verification turnaround time by 10X. The app also offers expanded cloc... » read more

Moore’s Law: A Status Report


Moore's Law has been synonymous with "smaller, faster, cheaper" for the past 52 years, but increasingly it is viewed as just one of a number of options—some competing, some complementary—as the chip industry begins zeroing in on specific market needs. This does not make [getkc id="74" comment="Moore's Law"] any less relevant. The number of companies racing from 16/14nm to 7nm is higher t... » read more

Cloud Computing Chips Changing


An explosion in cloud services is making chip design for the server market more challenging, more diverse, and much more competitive. Unlike datacenter number crunching of the past, the cloud addresses a broad range of applications and data types. So while a server chip architecture may work well for one application, it may not be the optimal choice for another. And the more those tasks beco... » read more

Supporting CPUs Plus FPGAs (Part 3)


While it has been possible to pair a CPU and FPGA for quite some time, two things have changed recently. First, the industry has reduced the latency of the connection between them and second, we now appear to have the killer app for this combination. Semiconductor Engineering sat down to discuss these changes and the state of the tool chain to support this combination, with Kent Orthner, system... » read more

Blog Review: April 19


Mentor's Tom Fitzpatrick explains what the Portable Stimulus standard will do, what it won't, and why the choice of input language defined by the standard matters. Cadence's Paul McLellan listens in as IRDS chairman Paolo Gargini explains how long it takes technology breakthroughs to make out of the lab and into high-volume manufacturing. Synopsys' Robert Vamosi points to the recent sound... » read more

The Week In Review: Design


M&A Synapse Design acquired Asilicon, a design services firm based in Ranchi Jharkhand, India. Through the acquisition, Synapse Design adds a second design center in India and gains an additional 80 engineers. "The focus of the Ranchi office will be to provide lower-cost offshore design center services for our customer's designs targeting 7- and 10-nm process technology," said Satish Bag... » read more

The Hidden Costs Of Security


There is no argument these days among chipmakers that security needs to be implemented at every level. So why isn't it happening? The answer is more complex than companies pinching pennies, although that is certainly a factor for some chips. The reality, though, is security carries a price for every facet of semiconductor design—power, performance and area. And the impact reaches much furt... » read more

← Older posts Newer posts →