Specialization Vs. Generalization In Processors


Academia has been looking at specialization for many years, but solutions were rejected because general-purpose solutions were advancing fast enough to keep up with most application requirements. That is no longer the case. The introduction and support of the RISC-V processor architecture has attracted a lot of attention, but whether that is the right direction for the majority of modern comput... » read more

MRAM Getting More Attention At Smallest Nodes


Magneto-resistive RAM (MRAM) appears to be gaining traction at the most advanced nodes, in part because of recent improvements in the memory itself and in part because new markets require solutions for which MRAM may be uniquely qualified. There are still plenty of skeptics when it comes to MRAM, and lots of potential competitors. That has limited MRAM to a niche role over the past couple de... » read more

Week In Review: Auto, Security, Pervasive Computing


Hyundai, Samsung Catalyst Fund, and others invested a combined $100 million in Canada-based Tenstorrent to accelerate the design and development of AI chiplets and machine-learning software and allow the integration of AI into future Hyundai, Kia, and Genesis vehicles, plus other future mobilities such as robotics and advanced air mobility (AAM). The National Highway Traffic Safety Administr... » read more

Week In Review: Design, Low Power


Qualcomm, NXP, Infineon, Nordic, and Bosch are jointly investing in a new RISC-V company, to be formed in Germany, that will speed up RISC-V’s adoption in commercial products. The company will be “a single source to enable compatible RISC-V based products, provide reference architectures, and help establish solutions widely used in the industry,” according to a press release. The co... » read more

AI Transformer Models Enable Machine Vision Object Detection


The object detection required for machine vision applications such as autonomous driving, smart manufacturing, and surveillance applications depends on AI modeling. The goal now is to improve the models and simplify their development. Over the years, many AI models have been introduced, including YOLO, Faster R-CNN, Mask R-CNN, RetinaNet, and others, to detect images or video signals, interp... » read more

Semiconductor Industry Is Pulling AI Across A Diversity Of End Uses And Applications


Earlier this month, I had the pleasure of joining a group of industry peers during SEMICON West and the Design Automation Conference in San Francisco for an enlightening panel discussion that we organized titled, “How AI Is Reinventing the Semiconductor Industry Inside and Out.” Moderated by Gartner, I was joined on the panel by senior executives from Advantest, Synopsys and the TinyML Foun... » read more

HW/SW Security Mechanisms For Future Automotive Society


The demand of information security for automotive has substantially increased in recent years. The In-vehicle network is digitalized, and its connectivity is becoming very popular. Similar to the typical network security developed with the internet around 2000, the strong demand of cybersecurity within automotive is rapidly changing. Automotive hacking and theft caused by the flaw of security m... » read more

Blog Review: July 26


Siemens' Chris Spear shows how to make a group of specialized classes in SystemVerilog. Synopsys' Guy Cortez and Randy Fish consider what a silicon lifecycle management strategy looks like for SoCs deployed in HPC and data center environments. Cadence's Veena Parthan provides a primer on writing Python scripts for Fidelity, including API descriptions and different sets of packages to acce... » read more

Week In Review: Auto, Security, Pervasive Computing


The Biden-Harris Administration announced the U.S. Cyber Trust Mark, a cybersecurity certification and labeling program to help consumers choose smart devices less vulnerable to cyberattacks. The Federal Communications Commission (FCC) is applying to register the Cyber Trust Mark with the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office and it would appear on qualifying smart products, including refrigerators,... » read more

Demand For Timing Innovation Grows


The semiconductor industry has begun exploring a range of timing options as demand for increased performance and more features exceeds the ability to design chips using the same techniques and technology that have been relied on for decades. Like many elements in computing, timing is a hierarchy or stack. It includes everything from partitioning AI computations into multiple parts and assemb... » read more

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