Electric Vehicles Set The Pace


Electric vehicles are leading the charge for innovation in automotive electronics. Companies that invested and embraced the challenge of EVs are besting their less-nimble, less-open-minded engineering cohorts. Semiconductors and embedded computers have been controlling the dashboard, mirrors, seats, heating and cooling for years. But with EVs, engineering teams are starting to tackle tas... » read more

Supporting CPUs Plus FPGAs


While it has been possible to pair a CPU and FPGA for quite some time, two things have changed recently. First, the industry has reduced the latency of the connection between them and second, we now appear to have the killer app for this combination. Semiconductor Engineering sat down to discuss these changes and the state of the tool chain to support this combination, with Kent Orthner, system... » read more

The Week In Review: Manufacturing


Mask and fab equipment Seeking to speed up the semiconductor design and manufacturing process, D2S has rolled out its fifth-generation computational design platform (CDP). D2S, a supplier of GPU-accelerated computational systems or platforms, said the latest CDP is designed to enable faster simulations for a range of applications. Using Nvidia’s Pascal-based Tesla P40 GPUs, D2S’ fifth-... » read more

Conflicting Goals In Data Centers


Two conflicting goals are emerging inside of data centers—speed at any cost, and the ability to extend hardware well beyond its expected lifetime to amortize that cost. Layered across both of those are concerns about how to move data back and forth more efficiently, how to secure it, and how to best integrate different generations of technology. But these widely different goals have create... » read more

The Great Machine Learning Race


Processor makers, tools vendors, and packaging houses are racing to position themselves for a role in machine learning, despite the fact that no one is quite sure which architecture is best for this technology or what ultimately will be successful. Rather than dampen investments, the uncertainty is fueling a frenzy. Money is pouring in from all sides. According to a new Moor Insights report,... » read more

Learn From The Experts


I visited SNUG Silicon Valley last week. This annual Synopsys User Group event at the Santa Clara Convention Center is always a good way to get in touch with the end users of various EDA products. I attended the technical track with experts from ARM, NVIDIA, Intel and Synopsys, who talked about their experience in accelerating software development, hardware verification and system validation... » read more

Users Talk Back On Standards Process


One of the major themes of DVCon this year was the standard that currently goes by the name of Portable Stimulus (see related story, Portable Stimulus – The Name Must Change). It is not ready for prime time yet, but there was plenty to hear and learn about the emerging standard, including what users think about it and the standardization process. The panel gave the users the opportunity to vo... » read more

Intel To Buy Mobileye


Intel today said it would acquire embedded vision leader Mobileye for roughly $15.3 billion in equity—$14.7 billion in "enterprise value"—setting the stage for a huge push by the chipmaker into the autonomous driving market. Intel has been dabbling in the automotive market for some time, starting with an unsuccessful bid to replace 8-bit microcontrollers with low-end processors. With the... » read more

The Week In Review: IoT


Products NASA this week deployed its latest Technology Educational Satellite, TechEdSat-5, from the International Space Station. The satellite, said to be about the size of a fire extinguisher, will provide wireless data communications for ISS payloads and other satellites. TechEdSat-5 has Digi XBee 802.15.4 modules from Digi International to use in the test program. Flexpoint Sensor System... » read more

Big Data On Wheels


By Jeff Dorsch & Ed Sperling All kinds of chips are going into driver-assisted and autonomous cars. On one side are arrays of sensors, which are generating huge amounts of data about everything from lane position and proximity to other cars to unexpected objects in the road. On the other side are the chips required to process that data at blazing speed. As the market for PCs and mobil... » read more

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