DAC/Semicon West Wednesday


Trade restrictions against China were a regular topic of discussion at both DAC and Semicon West this week. Five Chinese startups exhibited prominently at this week's Design Automation Conference, in the wake of increasingly restrictive trade regulations that limit the sale of U.S. and European EDA tools used to develop advanced semiconductors. Most attendees interviewed said privately th... » read more

DAC/Semicon West Addresses Top Issues, Trends For Chips


The Design Automation Conference (DAC) 2023 and Semicon West returned in full force this week, drawing in more attendees and sponsor companies than since before the pandemic. At times, booth traffic was four to five deep, blocking aisles, and standing room only was common at presentations. Hot topics included generative AI and the underlying semiconductor technology, data security, reliabili... » read more

Pinpointing Timing Delays in Complex SoCs


Telemetry circuits are becoming a necessity in complex heterogeneous chips and packages to show how these devices are behaving post-production, but fusing together relevant data to identify the sources of problems adds its own set of challenges. In the past, engineering teams could build margin into chips to offset any type of variation. But at advanced nodes and in advanced packages, tolera... » read more

How To Use S-Parameters For Power Module Verification


By Wilfried Wessel (Siemens EDA), Simon Liebetegger (University of Applied Sciences Darmstadt), and Florian Bauer (Siemens EDA) Power modules are high-power switching circuits that convert DC- in AC-currents in electric vehicles, renewable energy, and many more applications. New materials [14] and device technologies [14], such as wide bandgap semiconductors, including silicon carbide (SiC) ... » read more

Confusion Grows Over Sensor Fusion In Autos


A key strategy for fully autonomous vehicles is the ability to fuse together inputs from multiple sensors, which is essential for making safe and secure decisions, but it's turning out to be much harder than first imagined. There are multiple problems that need to be solved, including how to partition, prioritize, and ultimately combine different types of data, and how to architect the proce... » read more

Blog Review: June 28


In a podcast, Siemens' Spencer Acain discusses the role of AI and machine learning in IC verification and how it could help address noise by analyzing different signals from the diagnosis data to figure out the real root cause of a failure. Synopsys' Ian Land and Ron DiGiuseppe find that designers of aerospace microelectronics are applying lessons and technologies learned from the automotive... » read more

New Age Solution For Data Integrity And Authenticity


With the advent of faster processing chips, the rate of data transfer has increased enormously. Be it artificial intelligence (AI), the Internet of Things (IOT), compute intensive analytics, or cloud computing, the demand for processing data in a fraction of a second is huge. Chips with superfast computing capabilities are used in applications where malfunctions can be life threatening, such as... » read more

Not All There: Heterogeneous Multiprocessor Design Tools


The design, implementation, and programming of multicore heterogeneous systems is becoming more common, often driven by the software workloads, but the tooling to help optimize the processors, interconnect, and memory are disjointed. Over the past few years, many tools have emerged that help with the definition and implementation of a single processor, optimized for a given set of software. ... » read more

Week In Review: Automotive, Security, Pervasive Computing


Stellantis and Foxconn formed a 50/50 joint venture called SiliconAuto, to be headquartered in the Netherlands. The goal is to close the gap between supply and demand for chips used in computer-controlled features and modules, especially for electric vehicles (EVs). The U.S. Department of Justice created a National Security Cyber Section within its National Security Division to increase the ... » read more

The Uncertainties Of RISC-V Compliance


How far can a RISC-V design be pushed and still be compliant? The answer isn't always black-and-white because the RISC-V concept is very different from previous open-source projects. But as interest and activity in RISC-V continues to grow, constructive discussions are taking place to address some of the challenges of designing with an open-standard ISA. “The RISC-V standard is somethin... » read more

← Older posts Newer posts →