Blog Review: Oct. 15


Obesity makes your liver age faster, but you'll need a sophisticated biological clock to see that. Ansys' Bill Vandermark uncovers the top 5 engineering articles of the week. This one includes cyborg horses and an implanted prosthetic arm. Mentor's Colin Walls takes a look at "hard" and "soft" real time. It sounds like something out of a Salvador Dali painting. Rambus' Aharon Etengoff t... » read more

Driving Memory Beyond DDR4


While attending recent technology trade shows, the Intel Developer’s Forum (IDF) in August and last week’s ARM TechCon, I participated in many interesting discussions around server performance, power consumption, memory bandwidth and capacity. The race to introduce higher-performing servers that consume less power is fueled by the growing demand for new applications in the enterprise, commu... » read more

Memory Directions Uncertain


Semiconductor Engineering sat down with a panel of experts to find out what is happening in world of memories. Taking part in the discussion are [getperson id="11073" comment="Charlie Cheng"], chief executive officer at [getentity id="22135" e_name="Kilopass Technology"]; Navraj Nandra, senior director of marketing for Analog/Mixed signal IP, embedded memories and logic libraries at [getentity ... » read more

Blog Review: Oct. 8


Mentor's Robin Bornoff examines the thickness of leg hair and just how much of a drag it causes for bicyclists. More hair equals more drag, and thicker hair is worse. Ansys' Justin Nescott routes out the top five engineering articles of the week. Of particular note: The world's most precise clock, which loses one second every 13.8 billion years. Cadence's Richard Goering puts some conte... » read more

The Week In Review: Design


IP ARM introduced a new software platform and a free operating system aimed at IoT development. The OS incorporates security, communication and device management features for improved energy efficiency. The device server simplifies the connection and management of devices, incorporating security and improving efficiency. Cadence rolled out a broad IP portfolio for TSMC's 16nm platform, and ... » read more

The JTAG Connection


It is fairly common knowledge that hacking into today’s intelligent Internet devices is child’s play in most cases. The main reason is that the devices have little or no innate security designed in. When they do have some level of security, it is generally provisioned by software running on the host system, to which the devices are connected. But that only works with a device on the grid. O... » read more

Blog Review: Sept. 17


Ansys’ Benoit Debbaut looks at the Pitch drop experiment, which was started in 1927 (yes, that date is correct) to observe the excruciatingly slow movement of a thick liquid weighted down by gravity. Since inception, a total of nine drops have fallen. So when will the tenth drop fall? Place your bets...when you get around to it. Mentor’s Matthew Ballance highlights an interesting challe... » read more

How Reliable Is Your IP?


Almost everyone who has bought a new smartphone, car, home electronics device or appliance either has experienced technical glitches that require a replacement or repair, or they know someone who has experienced these problems. The good news is that only a very small fraction of the electronic glitches or failures can be contributed to hardware design. Most of it is due to manufacturing vari... » read more

Making Chips Run Faster


For all the talk about low power, the real focus of most chipmakers is still performance. The reality is that OEMs might be willing to sacrifice increasing performance for longer battery life, but they will rarely lower performance to reach that goal. This is more obvious for some applications than others. A machine monitor probably isn’t the place where performance will make much of a dif... » read more

Are We Headed For A Power Wall?


A common theme in semiconductor design circles today are the many power reduction techniques available to engineers to bring the power down in their devices. While power gating and other techniques are effective today, it does lead to questions about how long they will continue providing a benefit. Anand Iyer, director of product marketing for [getentity id="22016" e_name="Calypto"], believe... » read more

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