tag: Moore’s Law

Playing Into China’s Hands
By Ed Sperling - 13 Jun, 2019 - Comments: 1

The fallout over blacklisting Huawei in particular, and China in general, has set the tone for a nasty global race. But it is almost certain to produce a different result than the proponents of a trade war are expecting. The idea behind tariffs and the blacklisting of Huawei is to starve China of vital technology. So far, the impact has been minimal. Reports from inside of China are equa... » read more

Why Chips Are Getting Noisier
By Brian Bailey - 13 Jun, 2019 - Comments: 4

In the past, designers only had to worry about noise for sensitive analog portions of a design. Digital circuitry was immune. But while noise gets worse at newer process nodes, staying at 28nm does not mean that it can be ignored anymore. With Moore's Law slowing, designs have to do more with less. Margins are being squeezed, additional concurrency is added, and attempts are made to opti... » read more

Moore Open Source Coming
By Brian Bailey - 30 May, 2019 - Comments: 0

The sunsetting of Moore's Law is creating some interesting ripples throughout the EDA and IP industries. No longer is the low-risk path defined by a migration to the next node. Most companies cannot afford it and don’t need it. Neither can their competitors. Suddenly, they have to do more with less, or at least the same amount. Consider just a few things that are changing today: Stick... » read more

The Case For Embedded FPGAs Strengthens And Widens
By Brian Bailey - 25 Apr, 2019 - Comments: 2

The embedded FPGA, an IP core integrated into an ASIC or SoC, is winning converts. System architects are starting to see the benefits of eFPGAs, which offer the flexibility of programmable logic without the cost of FPGAs. Programmable logic is especially appealing for accelerating machine learning applications that need frequent updates. An eFPGA can provide some architects the cover they ne... » read more

Heterogeneous Design Creating Havoc With Firmware Versions
By Ed Sperling - 01 Apr, 2019 - Comments: 0

Adding different kinds of processing elements into chips is creating system-level incompatibilities because of sometimes necessary, but usually uncoordinated, firmware updates from multiple vendors. In the past, firmware typically was synchronized with other firmware and the chip was verified and debugged. But this becomes much more difficult when multiple heterogeneous processing elements a... » read more

The Problem With Post-Silicon Debug
By Ann Mutschler - 28 Feb, 2019 - Comments: 0

Semiconductor engineers traditionally have focused on trying to create 'perfect' GDSII at tape-out, but factors such as hardware-software interactions, increasingly heterogeneous designs, and the introduction of AI are forcing companies to rethink that approach. In the past, chipmakers typically banked on longer product cycles and multiple iterations of silicon to identify problems. This no ... » read more

Gearing Up For 5G
By Brian Bailey - 14 Feb, 2019 - Comments: 0

5G has been touted as the new enabler for many market segments, including mobile phones, automotive, virtual reality, and IoT. But there are many questions and much speculation about when and how this new wireless standard will impact different market segments and what effect it will have on semiconductor design. With a promise of orders of magnitude improvement in communication speed an... » read more

Adapting Mobile To A Post-Moore’s Law Era
By Ann Mutschler - 14 Feb, 2019 - Comments: 0

The slowdown in Moore's Law is having a big impact on chips designed for the mobile market, where battery-powered devices need to still improve performance with lower power. This hasn't slowed down performance or power improvements, but it has forced chipmakers and systems companies to approach designs differently. And while feature shrinks will continue for the foreseeable future, they are ... » read more

Adaptation In A Volatile Era
By Thomas Caulfield - 24 Jan, 2019 - Comments: 0

2018 has been a volatile year by almost any measure, and the global electronics industry was at the center of the action. Soaring memory prices and tech stock valuations drove eye-popping growth in the first half, with Samsung solidifying its position as the world’s largest chipmaker and Apple briefly topping $1 trillion of market capitalization. Fast forward to the second half of the year an... » read more

Low Power At The Edge
By Ed Sperling - 17 Jan, 2019 - Comments: 0

The tech world has come to the realization in recent months that there is far too much data to process everything in the cloud. Now it is starting to come to grips with what that really means for edge and near-edge computing. There still are no rules for where or how that data will be parsed, but there is a growing recognition that some level of pre-processing will be necessary, and that in tur... » read more

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