Game Of Eco Systems


My first ever blog post on May 28, 2008, was called “May you live in interesting times …”, starting with “the view from the top” at Synopsys. At the time, my focus was abstraction levels and how the industry has been moving upwards for decades. While it is not a Chinese proverb after all (read my blog above), we still do live in interesting times, perhaps more so that ever. One of the... » read more

The Power Of eDRAM


In last month’s article we looked at different aspects of technology nodes and the multiple techniques that are used to keep scaling on its path of increasing density. From an energy standpoint, it’s expensive to move data around and with the high bandwidth that’s needed to keep processors “fed,” engineers are looking at ways to keep data closer to the processing logic and minimize th... » read more

Beyond The DAC Keynote


The Design Automation Conference is split into a number of tracks, such as IP, automotive, embedded software and security, and these overlay the main EDA track. One of these themes overlays the first day of DAC, and this year that honor goes to IP. That means that the first keynote of the conference comes from the IP industry, and this is rather fitting given the importance IP is having for ... » read more

Building An Efficient, Tightly-Coupled Embedded System Using An Extensible Processor


The increasing demand for better filtering and processing capabilities of the processor within embedded systems results in a trend to shift from 8-bit microcontroller tightly coupled embedded systems towards 32-bit processor bus-based embedded systems. As a consequence, the power, performance and area (PPA) ratio of these systems also shifts in favor of performance at the cost of power and area... » read more

big.LITTLE Technology: The Future of Mobile


With the evolution from the first mobile phones through smartphones to today’s superphones and tablets, the demand for compute performance in mobile devices has grown at an incredible rate. Today’s devices need to service smarter and more complex interactions, such as voice and gesture control, combined with seamless and reliable content delivery. Gaming and user interfaces have also grown ... » read more

Big Shift In SoC Verification


Semiconductor Engineering sat down to discuss software-driven verification with Ken Knowlson, principal engineer at Intel; Mark Olen, product manager for the Design Verification Technology Division of Mentor Graphics; Steve Chappell, senior manager for CAE technology and verification at Synopsys; Frank Schirrmeister, group director for product marketing of the System Development Suite at Cadenc... » read more

Are Processors Running Out Of Steam?


Check out any smart phone these days and you’ll find some reference to the number of cores in the device. It’s not the number of cores that makes a difference, though—or even the clock speed at which they run. Performance depends on the underlying design for how they’re utilized, how often that happens, how much memory they share, how much interaction there is between the cores, and the... » read more

On-Chip MCUs Excel At Power Management


By Ann Steffora Mutschler When it comes to supplying power to an SoC, there is an increasing trend to make it more intelligent—how to control it more accurately, how it is monitored and how it communicates with different aspects of the chip. Traditional power supply models with analog supplies have less of this control, so a number of engineering teams are considering the use of on-chip m... » read more

Moore’s Legacy


Low-Power High-Performance Engineering talks with MIPS' Mark Throndson, product marketing director, and Ranganathan "Suds" Sudhakar, chief architect, about Moore's Law, multicore chips, software, coherency and the insatiable global demand for speed. [youtube vid=VfvfYSkPpcs] » read more

Four Factors Driving Processor Choices


By Ed Sperling Choosing processors for an SoC, a system-in-package, or even a complete system is becoming much more difficult, and the challenge is growing as demands on performance, power, area and time to market continue to increase. There are many reasons why this is becoming more difficult—and some designs will require more tradeoffs than others, depending upon IP re-use or a particul... » read more

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