Where ML Works Best


Anirudh Devgan, president of Cadence, sat down with Semiconductor Engineering to discuss machine learning inside and outside of EDA tools and how that will affect the future of chip and system design. What follows are excerpts of that discussion. SE: How do you see the market and use of machine learning shaping up? Devgan: There are three main areas—machine learning inside, machine lear... » read more

Safety, Security And PPA Tradeoffs


Safety and security are emerging as key design tradeoffs as chips are added into safety-critical markets, adding even more complexity into an already complicated optimization process. In the early days of semiconductor design, performance and area were traded off against each other. Then power became important, and the main tradeoffs became power, performance and area (PPA). But as chips inc... » read more

5nm Design Progress


Activity surrounding the 5nm manufacturing process node is quickly ramping, creating a better picture of the myriad and increasingly complex design issues that must be overcome. Progress at each new node after 28nm has required an increasingly tight partnership between the foundries, which are developing new processes and rule decks, along with EDA and IP vendors, which are adding tools, met... » read more

Regain Your Power With Machine Learning


It wasn’t too long ago that machine learning (ML) seemed like a fascinating research topic. However, in no time at all, it has made a swift transition from a world far-off to common presence in news, billboards, workplaces, and homes. The concept itself is not new but evidently what has caused it to take off is the rapid growth of data in many applications and more computational power. Closer... » read more

Full-Chip Power Integrity And Reliability Signoff


As designs increase in complexity to cater to the insatiable need for more compute power — which is being driven by different AI applications ranging from data centers to self-driving cars—designers are constantly faced with the challenge of meeting the elusive power, performance and area (PPA) targets. PPA over-design has repercussions resulting in increased product cost as well as pote... » read more

Tech Talk: TCAM


Dennis Dudeck, IP solutions FAE at eSilicon, talks about how to save power and area with ternary content addressable memory. https://youtu.be/y1FhdoNdzOw » read more

I Say ‘High’ [Performance], You Say ‘Low’ [Power]


“…You say ‘why’, and I say ‘I don’t know…’” Actually, I do know. Everybody loves a high-performance product. Even just hearing that a product is high-performance sets higher expectations than if the product is simply described as “fast” or “powerful.” When it comes to SoC design, “high-performance” refers to a set of designs that run at very high clock freque... » read more

Architect Specs Harder To Follow


Interpreting and implementing architects' specifications is getting harder at each new process node, which is creating problems throughout the design flow, into manufacturing, and sometimes even post-production. Rising complexity and difficulties in scaling have pushed much more of the burden onto architects to deal with everything from complex power schemes, new packaging approaches, and to... » read more

Executive Insight: Jack Harding


[getperson id="11145" comment="Jack Harding"], president and CEO of [getentity id="22242" e_name="eSilicon"], sat down with Semiconductor Engineering to talk about consolidation, business relationships, what it will take to survive in the IoT age, and how to better optimize chips. What follows are excerpts of that conversation. SE: We’ve been looking at consolidation for a while and all th... » read more

Industry Road Map Under Construction


While most engineers think in terms of PPA—the classic power, performance and area tradeoffs—their bosses tend to see the world in terms of risk vs. opportunity. Until 22nm, these two objectives moved forward at roughly the same pace, despite the growing technical challenges of fitting more functionality into an SoC. Much has changed since then, and even more will change over the next f... » read more

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