How Many Cores? (Part 1)


The optimal number of processor cores in chip designs is becoming less obvious, in part due to new design and architectural options that make it harder to draw clear comparisons, and in part because just throwing more cores at a problem does not guarantee better performance. This is hardly a new problem, but it does have a sizable list of new permutations and variables—right-sized heteroge... » read more

The Price Of Fear


Fear sells, and judging from the attendance numbers and the messages coming out of this week's RSA Conference, it's selling quite well. Increasing connectedness comes at a significant price, and apparently lots of people are willing to pay that price. Security has become a huge and growing business. Attendance is one indicator. There were an estimated 40,000 attendees at this year's conferen... » read more

Battle Looms Over Mobile Payments


The lines are drawn. The sides are sizing each other up. Apple is on one side with secure element, and Google and Microsoft are on the other side with host card emulation. Both are mobile payment systems for smartphones that rely on near-field communication technology. Apple fired the first shot with SE, and Google soon replied with HCE. And now both sides are ramping up after months of dela... » read more

What’s After Smartphones?


One of the unique things about the semiconductor industry is that it has fueled the digital revolution almost entirely by focusing on its core competencies of performance, power and area. There are few, if any, industries that can tie global growth and success to what amounts to an almost isolationist business model. Salespeople have to sell those chips, of course. Marketers have to create ... » read more

What Is Cyberwarfare?


Cyberwarfare is emerging as the most sophisticated battleground of the 21st century. In fact, the military in all major countries make it a priority. Collectively they are spending tens of billions of dollars on education and building a knowledgebase of how attacks can be perpetrated and what defenses are needed. The entire effort is based on technology, both legacy and new, starting on the ... » read more

The Future Of Medical Device Certification


Given the critical nature of the functions performed by today’s medical devices, greater scrutiny along with the need for more certifiable software is on this rise. There is more interest today in government standards such as FDA 510K and IEC 62304 for medical device software. Enhanced scrutiny from government agencies can introduce unexpected delays – or even jeopardize the commercial rele... » read more

Enablement For A Decade Of Innovation


As I do every January, I am looking back 5, 10, and 15 years to see what predictions did and did not turn out to be right, and how that relates to design technologies enabling those developments. Looking back five years reveals just how key system-development technologies were for what IEEE dubbed the “Top 11 Technologies of the Decade”. Looking back 10 years shows how they enabled communic... » read more

Bridging Hardware And Software


Methodology and reuse are two fairly standard concepts when it comes to semiconductor design, but they're viewed completely differently by hardware and software teams. It's a given that hardware and software have different goals and opinions about how best to do design. And while all agree that a single methodology can pay dividends in future chips, there is disagreement over who should shap... » read more

Solving ‘Simulator Sickness’ With Smart Software, SoC Design


The growth in virtual and augmented reality headsets is expected to explode in the coming years. The U.K.-based research firm KZero estimates headset unit volume will jump from nearly 4 million this year to 38.4 million in 2018. But that growth rate might be stunted if users continue to struggle with “simulator sickness,” that queasy feeling that something is just not right as they navi... » read more

True Random Number Generators For Truly Secure Systems


Random numbers form the basis, or root, of most security systems. Yet the methods for generating random numbers vary widely in practice as well as efficacy. Over time, many popular randomization algorithms and circuit implementations have been shown to be provably flawed. The paper will examine current methods for generating random numbers based on various sources of entropy as well as their as... » read more

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