Which Process, Material, IP?


For years chipmakers have been demanding more choices. They've finally gotten what they wished for—so many possibilities, in fact, that engineering teams of all types are having trouble wading through them. And to make matters worse, some choices now come with unexpected and often unwanted caveats. At the most advanced nodes it's a given that being able to shrink features and double patter... » read more

Tech Talk: USB Type-C


NXP's Ravi Shah explains how to design in the new USB standard, what to watch out for and why it's going to be so important for mobile and connected devices. [youtube vid=iPCwpaPy1pw] » read more

Technology Tsunami Approaches


How many times have we heard the saying that technology advancements are accelerating and that inevitably the older generation will have increasing problems keeping up with the new advancements? This happened to me with software development methodologies over fifteen years ago. I still program, when people actually let me, using basically the same techniques I learned when I was in my teens.... » read more

A Broad, Effective Approach to Optimizing for Power


As an industry we talk a lot about the challenges of power-aware design and accompanying issues at leading-edge nodes. There’s no denying some tough challenges, but if we’re honest, there are plenty of opportunities we can exploit right now to improve power in our designs. You’ve heard the saying, “death by a thousand cuts?” Well, when it comes to grappling with power in today’s ... » read more

Cloud 2.0


Corporate data centers are reluctant adopters of new technology. There is too much at stake to make quick changes, which accounts for a number of failed semiconductor startups over the past decade with better ideas for more efficient processors, not to mention rapid consolidation in other areas. But as the amount of data increases, and the cost of processing that data decreases at a slower rate... » read more

Thermal Interface Materials: The Unknown Entity?


Thermal interface materials (TIMs) are becoming more important in all application areas and between different component parts. Any semiconductor, ranging from LEDs to high-power electronics, is becoming smaller, yet producing more power. In many ways the physical design limits have been reached for packaging, allowing entire components to have a total thermal resistance of less than 0.1 K/W. Ho... » read more

The Old Two-Step Just Doesn’t Have That Swing


Power analysis has quickly become equally as important as functional verification for today's power-hungry SoCs. Yet, until now, it was not possible to fully analyze dynamic power in very large SoCs running embedded software. That day has finally arrived with new emulation platform software that overcomes the intrinsic shortcomings of the current two-step power estimation tools. The current ... » read more

How Hard Is FD-SOI Design?


Fully-depleted silicon-on-insulator ([getkc id="220" kc_name="FD-SOI"]) manufacturing technology reached of point of readiness for mass production at the end of March. Along with that, it’s now clear that while there are some impacts on the design flow, those impacts are not game changers. For one thing, the tools required are the same ones currently used for 28nm planar bulk CMOS. The onl... » read more

Rethinking Power


Power typically has been the last factor to be considered in the PPA equation, and it usually was somebody else's problem. Increasingly it's everyone's problem, and EDA companies are beginning to look at power differently than in the past. While the driving forces vary by market and by process node, the need to save energy at every node and in almost all designs is pervasive. In the server m... » read more

Is The IoT Safe To Use?


By Ernest Worthman & Ed Sperling Data security has been a problem since well before the invention the computer, and it has been getting progressively more difficult to contain every year for the past eight decades. It was made much worse when computing was decentralized with the introduction of the IBM PC in 1981, made worse again when networking was introduced into corporations by Novell'... » read more

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