End Of Mixed Signal Engineering?


EDA companies are stepping back after years of trying to force engineers to combine analog and digital disciplines. Rather than emphasizing [getkc id="38" kc_name="mixed signal"] as a single expertise, they are building bridges and translation mechanisms between the two worlds. The moves cap more than a decade of trying to find optimal ways to pack [getkc id="37" kc_name="analog"] and digita... » read more

Power Integrity Optimization Cuts RF Substrate Noise


Our main focus is on dynamic voltage drop at 16-14-10nm and beyond, but the rise of the Internet of Things (IoT) prompted me to share some silicon measurement results that are relevant to the RF design community. Normally, power integrity (PI) is looked at in the time domain, but in this work we looked at it from a frequency spectrum perspective. Silicon measurements prove how shaping the dynam... » read more

Mixed-Signal Design Powers Ahead


Mixed-signal devices are at the heart of many advanced systems today because of the need to interact with the outside world, but designing and verifying these systems is getting harder. There are several reasons for this. First, almost all of these devices now have to be lower power than in the past, and in the analog space it's not as simple as just dialing down part of a block. Second, it ... » read more

IoT Design Challenges


Low-cost IoT designs that interface with the real world incorporate multiple design domains that individually are challenging for today’s engineers, so it’s no surprise that putting them all together creates extreme pressure on IoT design teams. The typical IoT device contains a sensor and an actuator that interface to the Internet. The sensor creates a signal based on some real-world ac... » read more

Transistor-Level Verification Returns


A few decades ago, all designers did transistor-level verification, but they were quite happy to say goodbye to it when standard cells provided isolation at the gate-level and libraries provided all of the detailed information required, such as timing. A few dedicated people continued to use the technology to provide those models and libraries and the most aggressive designs that wanted to stri... » read more

Do Circuits Whisper Or Shout?


Maximizing SoC performance and minimizing power is becoming a multi-layered and multi-company challenge that depends on everything from ecosystem feedback and interactions to micro-architectural decisions about whether analog circuits whisper or shout. What used to be a straightforward architectural tradeoff between performance and power has evolved into a much more diffuse and collaborativ... » read more

Abstraction: Necessary But Evil


Abstraction allows aspects of a design to be described in an executable form much earlier in the flow. But some abstractions are breaking down, and an increasing amount of lower-level information has to be brought upstream in order to provide estimates that are close enough to reality so informed decisions can be made. The value of abstractions in design cannot be overstated. High levels of ... » read more

Full AMS Design Flow For The IoT


By Nicolas Williams and Jeff Miller The pressure for a new generation of (analog/mixed-signal) AMS design capabilities has been accelerated by the sudden demand for Internet of Things (IoT). These inexpensive devices are used in an expanding array of scenarios on the edge of the network — thus the demand for an AMS design environment that is affordable and easy to use, but powerful enough ... » read more

Full-Flow Tool Suite For Both Custom Analog And Mixed-Signal Designs


The Tanner EDA AMS IC design flow offers a cohesive, integrated mixed-signal design suite that is ideally suited to IoT and project-based design with its extremely short cycle times and sensitivity to cost. Learn more about the Tanner AMS solution in this white paper. To read more, click here. » read more

Analog Evolves Into Mixed Signal


Predictions about the Internet of Things suggest this may be the new “Killer App,” something the semiconductor industry has long been looking for. Reinforcing the forecasts are television commercials from companies such as Cisco and GE touting the IoT’s impact on everything from jet engines to robots, capturing everyone’s imagination. New categories of products such as smartwatches will... » read more

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