Searching For Power Bugs


How much power is your design meant to consume while performing a particular function? For many designs, getting this right may separate success from failure, but knowing that right number is not as easy as it sounds. Significant gaps remain between what power analysis may predict and what silicon consumes. As fast as known gaps are closed, new challenges and demands are being placed on the ... » read more

Custom Designs, Custom Problems


Semiconductor Engineering sat down to discuss power optimization with Oliver King, CTO at Moortec; João Geada, chief technologist at Ansys; Dino Toffolon, senior vice president of engineering at Synopsys; Bryan Bowyer, director of engineering at Mentor, a Siemens Business; Kiran Burli, senior director of marketing for Arm's Physical Design Group; Kam Kittrell, senior product management group d... » read more

AI Inference Acceleration


Geoff Tate, CEO of Flex Logix, talks about considerations in choosing an AI inference accelerator, how that fits in with other processing elements on a chip, what tradeoffs are involved with reducing latency, and what considerations are the most important. » read more

Optimizing For Energy In Physical Design


Energy is a precious resource, which should not be wasted. Energy drives economies and sustains societies. Predictions show that the energy of electronics may soon consume 20% to 33% of the global energy supply, as it is highlighted in this blog post about "Design and Manufacturing in 2030" from Greg Yeric, fellow at Arm. Energy efficiency is such an important global issue that it is ... » read more

Managing Worst Case Power Conditions


With each new technology node, especially FinFET, the dynamic conditions within a chip are changing and becoming more complex in terms of process speeds, thermal activity and supply variation. Dennard scaling brought about the ability for power to be scaled down with each successive node so that power per unit area stayed roughly constant. However, as highlighted by John Hennessy at last y... » read more

Power And Performance Optimization At 7/5/3nm


Semiconductor Engineering sat down to discuss power optimization with Oliver King, CTO at Moortec; João Geada, chief technologist at Ansys; Dino Toffolon, senior vice president of engineering at Synopsys; Bryan Bowyer, director of engineering at Mentor, a Siemens Business; Kiran Burli, senior director of marketing for Arm's Physical Design Group; Kam Kittrell, senior product management group d... » read more

Gaps Emerging In System Integration


The system integration challenge is evolving, but existing tools and methods are not keeping up with the task. New tools and flows are needed to handle global concepts, such as power and thermal, that cannot be dealt with at the block level. As we potentially move into a new era where IP gets delivered as physical pieces of silicon, this lack of an accepted flow will become a stumbling block. ... » read more

Lower Resistance Protects Against Failure In IC Design


By Fady Fouad, Esraa Swillam, and Jeff Wilson When you’re fighting off a threat, you typically want all the resistance you can muster. In IC design, on the other hand, minimizing resistance is crucial to success in power structure design. As metals get narrower with technology node advances, resistance levels rise, and voltage drop (IR) and electromigration (EM) issues grow, both in number... » read more

The Other Storage Race


Tesla's push to extend the life of lithium ion batteries used in cars by repurposing them for less-intensive applications could have a major impact on the business model for a whole slew of other markets. As anyone with a smartphone knows, batteries degrade over time. A new phone holds a charge longer than one that has been in use for several years, but in the case of a smartphone that's gen... » read more

Meeting The Power Challenges of ADAS


Advanced driver assistance systems (ADAS) technologies have the potential to improve driver safety and comfort, and to reduce car accidents and casualties. The adoption of ADAS technologies creates challenges in electronic solutions size, safety, and reliability. This white paper reviews the challenges for ADAS electronic components of a smart car and presents a few examples of how power man... » read more

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