Gartner Recommends Network-on-Chip (NoC) Technology For SoC Design


In their latest Hype Cycle for Semiconductors and Electronics Technologies report, Gartner Research has taken the bold step of recommending that all enterprises involved in advanced SoC design should seriously evaluate network-on-chip (NoC) technology based interconnect fabric IP: “The technology has continued to receive a good amount of publicity along with continued adoption by leading S... » read more

Arteris Sells Some Of Its IP Assets To Qualcomm


Qualcomm agreed to buy Arteris’ NoC technology IP and hire some of the engineers who built it, but Arteris will continue to service that IP to new and existing customers. Under terms of the agreement, the two companies also have agreed upon a roadmap for future deliverables of the IP as well as an engineering support contract. Arteris retains the source code for the FlexNoC interconnect IP pr... » read more

What Can Go Wrong?


It’s no surprise that most corporate system-on-chip (SoC) design teams are dispersed throughout the world, with different functional teams often located in different countries and continents. For example, we have many customers whose SoC architecture is defined in the United States, but subsystems such as graphics and signal processing are designed elsewhere. Companies choose this approach in... » read more

NoC Straight Talk


Increased interest in on-chip network IP is without a doubt directly correlated to the increase in SoC complexity and performance over the past few years. Some SoC design managers even have gone so far as to say that the success of their SoC program is directly related to their ability to implement an on-chip communications network. Underestimating the importance of the on-chip network has caus... » read more

The Single Platform Strategy


By Kurt Shuler For semiconductor companies in high-volume or emerging growth markets, the days of using multiple platforms to address different segments are over. The new era of using a single platform to address several different segments is rapidly taking hold. Adding fuel to this transition is the greater flexibility that design teams have to spin derivatives of those single platforms. T... » read more

Managing Memory With Embedded Software


By Ann Steffora Mutschler Memory is shaping up to be a key leverage point for embedded software going forward as it represents such a large fraction of the silicon real estate in today’s SoCs. Managing memory effectively and memory bandwidth also represents a significant fraction of the potential bottlenecks and the power dissipation. As such, everything embedded software can do to enhance h... » read more

The Week In Review: Aug. 16


By Ed Sperling Manufacturing Equipment giant Applied Materials added three extra letters company president Gary Dickerson’s title—CEO. Mike Splinter, who has served as the company’s CEO since 2003, will become executive chairman of the board of directors. Dickerson was the CEO of Varian, which Applied Materials acquired in 2011. Synopsys introduced a Dolby decoder for its ARC process... » read more

A Brief History Of The Interconnect


By Kurt Shuler The high functional integration of system-on-chip designs today is driving the need for new technological approaches in semiconductor design. Anyone who owns a Samsung Galaxy S4, HTC One or comparable smartphone can see the benefits of integrating onto one chip all the computing functions that were traditionally separate, discrete chips on a PC computer motherboard. For next-gen... » read more

Faster IP Integration


By Ed Sperling System-Level Design sat down with Laurent Moll, chief technology officer at Arteris, to talk about interoperability, complexity and integration issues. What follows are excerpts of that conversation. SLD: What’s the big challenge with IP? Moll: Interoperability is always a concern. Because of ARM’s dominance, a lot of people are moving to AMBA protocols, whether that’... » read more

Life After Smartphones


By Frank Ferro Don’t let the title confuse you. Smartphones are not going away anytime soon. In fact this year’s smartphone shipments have exceeded feature phones for the first time, with a total of 216 million units in Q1, according to IDC, and the overall mobile phone market is expected to grow 4.3% in 2013. This volume represents an increase in smartphone sales of 42% from Q1 2012. ... » read more

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