Tech Talk: Near Threshold Computing 2


ARM Fellow Rob Aitken walks through the details of near-threshold computing and why it's such an important consideration at established process nodes. [youtube vid=lvfu54_JwEg] » read more

Established Nodes Getting New Attention


As the price of shrinking features increases below 28nm, there has been a corresponding push to create new designs at established nodes using everything from near-threshold computing to back biasing and mostly accurate analog sensors. The goals of power, performance and cost haven’t changed, but there is a growing realization among many chipmakers that the formula can be improved upon with... » read more

Tech Talk: Near Threshold Computing


ARM fellow Rob Aitken talks about what is NTC, why it has taken so long to catch on, and the enormous energy savings possible using this technique at established process nodes. [youtube vid=Ersdl81yTnM] » read more

SoC Integration Mistakes


Semiconductor Engineering sat down to discuss integration challenges with Ruggero Castagnetti, distinguished engineer at LSI; Rob Aitken, an ARM fellow; Robert Lefferts, director of engineering in Synopsys’ Solutions Group; Bernard Murphy, chief technology officer at Atrenta; and Luigi Capodieci, R&D fellow at GlobalFoundries. What follows are excerpts of that roundtable discussion. S... » read more

Experts At The Table: Low-Power Verification


By Ed Sperling Low-Power/High-Performance Engineering sat down to discuss power format changes with Sushma Hoonavera-Prasad, design engineer in Broadcom’s mobile platform group; John Biggs, consultant engineer for R&D and co-founder of ARM; Erich Marschner, product marketing manager at Mentor Graphics; Qi Wang, technical marketing group director at Cadence; and Jeffrey Lee, corporate ap... » read more

Experts At The Table: Who Pays For Low Power?


By Ed Sperling Low-Power/High-Performance Engineering sat down to discuss the cost of low power with Fadi Gebara, research staff member for IBM’s Austin Research Lab; David Pan, associate professor in the department of electrical and computer engineering at the University of Texas; Aveek Sarkar, vice president of product engineering and support at Apache Design; and Tim Whitfield, director ... » 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

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

Making Things Better


For the better part of the past decade the focus in semiconductor design has been on improving energy efficiency—making batteries last longer and lowering the energy bills for data centers—and continuing to boost performance. The benefits of future engineering efforts may be less obvious. In fact, progress in the future may be measured more against improving what’s already there today ... » read more

Newer posts →