Blog Review: March 19

By Ed Sperling - 19 Mar, 2014 - Comments: 0

ARM’s Diya Soubra has discovered an interesting term in relation to the Internet of Things: Compound Applications. Will that make the IoT more compelling? Mentor’s Colin Walls points to some less obvious reasons for choosing a processor. No. 4 on his list is particularly noteworthy. Synopsys’ Mick Posner has some thoughts about wearable computing prototypes. Check out the top pho... » read more

The Good Kind Of Regulation

By Barry Pangrle - 13 Mar, 2014 - Comments: 0

This month I’m taking a page from the Editor’s book, (actually the title for the article here came from Ed Sperling) and I decided that the above title would be fitting for this article. Last September we took a look at IBM’s presentations on their POWER8 processor from HotChips. One of the multiple new interesting aspects of this design was the use of many on-chip integrated voltage regu... » read more

Blog Review: Feb. 19

By Ed Sperling - 19 Feb, 2014 - Comments: 0

Adding a GUI to an RTOS? It may sound counterintuitive, but Mentor’s Colin Walls looks at why and where they’re being used. Cadence’s Richard Goering infuses some humor into signal integrity, which could definitely use it, courtesy of Eric Bogatin and Henny Youngman. When was the last time you saw a signal integrity engineer rolling on the floor in hysterical laughter? Well, there’s ... » read more

28nm Powers TSMC Forward (Part Deux)

By Barry Pangrle - 14 Feb, 2014 - Comments: 0

TSMC’s financial results for the 4th Quarter of 2013 and for the full year were announced just a few weeks ago, with TSMC stating it had again achieved record sales and profits. TSMC continues to own the 28nm foundry market. TSMC a year ago stated plans to have 20nm as its next technology node in production in 2014 and it looks to be delivering on this projected claim with the announcement th... » read more

The Other Side Of Formal

By Joseph Hupcey III - 13 Feb, 2014 - Comments: 1

It’s natural to think of formal analysis as a ruthlessly effective bug hunter and verification tool. But as the following case study from Homayoon Akhiani, presented at the Jasper Users Group (JUG) meeting shows, customers are using this approach to increase their SoC’s performance in ways that are very visible to the end-user of the part. Such visible improvements — in this case, minimiz... » read more

Executive Viewpoint: Qualcomm On Process Technology

By Mark LaPedus - 23 Jan, 2014 - Comments: 3

Semiconductor Engineering sat down to discuss current and future process technology challenges with Geoffrey Yeap, vice president of technology at Qualcomm. SE: You have pointed out there is a fundamental shift taking place at the 28nm logic node. This is the first node in which mobile chips have been ramped up first within the foundries, ahead of computing-based ICs. Many believe that 28nm ... » read more

Blog Review: Jan. 22

By Ed Sperling - 22 Jan, 2014 - Comments: 0

Mentor’s Anil Khanna believes Nest’s approach should be incorporated into the entire power grid. The ramifications of that are interesting to ponder. Speaking of Nest, Cadence’s Brian Fuller looks at the implications of the $3.2 billion acquisition of the company by Google. Will Google get it right? Maybe. Synopsys’ Richard Solomon has come up with a new definition for New Year’... » read more

Making Waves In Low-Power Design

By Barry Pangrle - 16 Jan, 2014 - Comments: 0

Barry Pangrle In a blog last April we looked at a potential candidate technology that just might be able to produce an economically feasible method for implementing delay insensitive circuits in CMOS. The basic idea behind this technology has been around since at least the 1990s and is better known as Null Convention Logic™ (NCL). Much of the work in this area was pioneered by Karl Fant and ... » read more

Chip Startup Shuts Its Doors

By Mark LaPedus - 19 Dec, 2013 - Comments: 0

Calxeda, a high-profile developer of ARM-based chips for servers and other products, has shut its doors and effectively ceased operations. As part of the move, the startup has laid off nearly all of its 130 employees amid what it calls a restructuring period. Founded in 2008, Calxeda has raised around $103 million in funding, and has been selling ARM-based server chips in an emerging but inc... » read more

Top 5 Trends For 2014

By Frank Schirrmeister - 19 Dec, 2013 - Comments: 0

My daughter’s and my traditional yearly cookie baking party last weekend reminded me of two things: There is still no easy recipe for system design and verification and – of course – the year is almost over again. Ouch. Let’s look back at 2013 first. Earlier this year we held a System to Silicon Verification Summit in San Jose, with an interesting technical keynote by Brian Bailey an... » read more

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Knowledge Centers
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