Foundry Talk


GlobalFoundries CEO Ajit Manocha sounds off on Foundry 2.0, 450mm wafers, lithography challenges, stacked die, the Internet of Things and the rush to the next process node. [youtube vid=WfjtlZkCi0w] » read more

New Reliability Issues Emerge


By Ed Sperling Most consumers define reliability by whether a device turns on and works as planned, but the term is becoming harder to define as complexity increases and systems are interconnected. Adding more functionality in less space has made it more difficult to build complex chips, and it has made it more difficult to prevent problems in those chips. Verification coverage is a persist... » read more

Manufacturing Ecosystem Challenges


What are the challenges facing semiconductor manufacturers and designers at the leading edge of Moore's Law? Semiconductor Manufacturing & Design asked Kevin Kranen of Synopsys, Seow Yin Lim of Cadence, Michael Buehler-Garcia of Mentor Graphics and Tom Quan of TSMC. [youtube vid=d6-zMJSxnpg] » read more

Tech Talk: FinFETs, FD-SOI And The Future Of SoC Design


Mary Ann White, marketing manager for Synopsys' Galaxy Implementation Platform, talks with Low-Power/High-Performance Engineering about new opportunities to reduce power and improve performance, and where the pain points will be. [youtube vid=kuJdcHIRxfU] » read more

Moving Targets


There is a very close correlation between power and complexity in an SoC. The more functionality that is required to meet market demands, the greater the need to push to the next process node in order to fit it all onto a single die. The result is more power density, and more attempts to limit the effects of that density with power islands, different voltages, gating, and a variety of other tec... » read more

Bringing Electrical Info To Design’s Forefront


By Ann Steffora Mutschler To reflect the impact on transistors of smaller process nodes and the electrical effects that occur as a result, a shift is underway where the electrical analysis and verification that used to be done when the layout was complete is moving earlier in the design process. The analysis includes parasitic extraction of interconnect and device parasitics, electromigrati... » read more

Executive Briefing: Andrew Yang


By Ed Sperling Andrew Yang, president of ANSYS subsidiary Apache Design, sat down with Low-Power/High-Performance Engineering to talk about why power is becoming so important and where the future challenges lie. What follows are excerpts of that conversation. LPHP: What’s the most important issue these days for chipmakers? Yang: According to the feedback we’ve gotten from our customer... » read more

Shades Of Green


By Ann Steffora Mutschler Ask five people in the electronics industry what ‘green’ means and you are sure to get five different answers. In the datacenter, the definition is a little clearer because big iron draws so many amps. But at the SoC level where does the industry stand? The answer is as multifaceted as an SoC itself, with some answers based more on one-upmanship than real met... » read more

Experts At The Table: The Internet Of Everything


By Ed Sperling System-Level Design sat down to discuss the Internet of Things with Jack Guedj, president and CEO of Tensilica; John Heinlein, vice president of marketing for the physical IP division of ARM; Kamran Izadi, director of sourcing and supplier management at Cisco; and Oleg Logvinov, director of market development for STMicroelectronics’ Industrial and Power Conversion Division. Wh... » read more

Throw In The Kitchen Sink


By Ed Sperling The number of options available for reducing power and improving performance are increasing for the first time in a decade. This is good news for chipmakers. It’s far less clear who stands to benefit on the tools, IP, capital equipment and manufacturing side. Choice is always a good thing in design. It allows teams to trade off one IP block for another, based upon the needs... » read more

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