Making Smart Grids Safe


There is little doubt that an intelligent power grid is not only desirable, but necessary in today’s power hungry world. As the global power grid veins its electric tentacles into the farthest reaches of the ecosystem, being able to allocate and monitor what power is needed, where and when will be the model going forward. There are a lot of issues that face the deployment of a smart grid �... » read more

Blog Review: Sept. 24


Cadence’s Brian Fuller captures Chris Rowen’s phylum classifications for data-efficient design—lots of insects and much bigger but fewer mammals. There are cognitive layers in between, as well. Check out the chart. Mentor’s Robin Bornoff digs into thermal runaway and how to determine when it will occur—and burn up a chip. There’s a video to illustrate just what can go wrong. ... » read more

The Week In Review: Design


Tools Mentor Graphics unveiled a hypervisor with configuration, debugging and hardware support. The solution is aimed at a variety of vertical markets, ranging from industrial and medical to consumer electronics. NXP uncorked a passive Inter-Integrated Circuit (I²C) solution for near-field communications tagging, allowing appliances, wearables and consumer electronics to use existing NFC-... » read more

Blog Review: Aug. 27


In the spirit of making a positive social contribution, and to recognize employees for their contributions to the local community, Applied Materials’ chairman Mike Splinter accepted the ALS Ice Bucket Challenge. Nice job, Mike! With development work underway on the 10nm process node, and questions about getting there with conventional lithography, Cadence’s Richard Goering invites us to ... » read more

Blog Review: Aug. 20


Ansys’ Bill Vandermark highlights the top five engineering articles of the week. Check out the “Sprouting Baby Monitor.” This may be a sign of what the IoT is really good for. You can also use your cat (or dog or even your kids) to hack your neighbor’s Wi-Fi. Cadence’s Richard Goering says gaps may be narrowing between available tools and what’s needed for 3D-IC design. Now all w... » read more

Blog Review: Aug. 13


Cadence’s Richard Goering interviews Kathryn Kranen about the acquisition of her company, along with the business of formal verification. Interesting tidbit: The combined company has more than 50% market share in formal. Mentor’s John Day looks at Volkswagen’s upcoming all-electric Golf that will go on sale later this year in the United States. The new twist: VW has struck a deal with ... » read more

Making Software Better


Gauging the energy efficiency of software is a difficult task. There are many types of software, from embedded code all the way up to software that controls various modes of operation to downloaded applications. Some software interacts with other software, while other software works independently. And some works better on one SoC configuration than another, or on one iteration of an operating s... » read more

Defending Against Reverse Engineering


Most of us are familiar with the term “reverse engineering.” We generally know that it is used to extract data or designs from chips, but exactly how is pretty much a mystery. Today, chip security has very broad implications. The landscape of tomorrow will be cluttered with devices that are microprocessor-controlled, including some that are autonomous. Numbers vary, but the current esti... » read more

The Week In Review: Design


Deals Cadence won a deal with Airoha Technology, which will use Cadence’s RTL compiler and test tools to reduce power and test patterns in Bluetooth radio chips. Airoha is a fabless design house based in Taiwan. IP Cadence’s PHY and controller IP for PCI Express 3.0 have passed PCI-SIG certification tests. Numbers NXP reported its Q2 results. Revenue was $1.349 billion, up 14% comp... » read more

The Week In Review: Design


Tools Sonics upgraded its on-chip network, improving support for memory subsystems as well as performance with guaranteed bandwidth allocation across multiple SOC flows. The company said these upgrades add support for the latest DDR4 and LPDDR4 memories, for the multi-threading capabilities of the Open Core Protocol interface, and while adding non-blocking concurrency technologies. Mentor G... » read more

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