More Updates Everywhere


Being connected to everything has its pros and cons. On the plus side, you'll probably have far fewer of those moments when you forget something, can't get in touch with someone, or can't find what you're looking for. On the downside, you'll be in an always-on world, and all the other people you've reached out to can also reach out back to you. This extends well beyond just person-to-person ... » read more

What Ford Is Driving


Jim Buczkowski, director of electrical and electronics systems research and advanced engineering at Ford Motor Co., sat down with Semiconductor Engineering to talk about quality, security, architectures, packaging and automotive's unique constraints. What follows are excerpts of that conversation. SE: As more electronic content is included in automobiles, what kinds of issues are you dealing... » read more

Emulation Uses Increase


For more than two decades, [getkc id="30" comment="emulation"] was a technology in search of a market. While on paper it has always made sense to speed up simulation, using hardware acceleration was so pricey that few companies could justify the cost. Fast-forward to today and emulation is a major contributor to the bottom line at all of the Big Three [getkc id="7" kc_name="EDA"] companies. ... » read more

Reliability Definition Is Changing


Since the invention of the integrated circuit, reliability has been defined by how long a chip continues to work. It either turned on and did what it was designed to do, or it didn't. But that definition is no longer so black-and-white. Parts of an SoC, or even an IP or memory block, can continue to function while other parts do not. Some may work intermittently, or at lower speeds. Others may ... » read more

CoreSight SoC


To address the challenge of increasing development cost and complexity faced by the semiconductor industry, SoC designers need to think ahead and provide the right hardware platform to help software developers create optimized software in a timely manner. The goal of this paper is to show, through high level steps, how to create a custom debug and trace subsystem for a design quickly and easily... » read more

New Challenges For Wearables


The earliest recorded mention of a wristwatch dates back to the late 1500s, but it really began gaining adherents in Great Britain’s Boer War campaign as a way of synchronizing military actions beyond the line of sight. Strapping a pocket watch to a horse or a camel simply didn’t work, and pulling it out of a jacket pocket was not only inconvenient, it was dangerous. Advertised as a “c... » read more

The Week In Review: Design/IoT


Legal A U.S. District Court invalidated three patents related to emulation, which were part of a patent infringement lawsuit filed by Synopsys against Mentor Graphics. The fourth patent will be reviewed by the U.S. Patent Trial and Appeal Board. Synopsys said it is evaluating an appeal and criticized the decision. "Synopsys strongly disagrees with the court's decision," said a Synopsys spokesp... » read more

What Will Change In Design For 2015?


This year more than 26 people provided predictions for 2015. Most of these came from the EDA industry, so the results may be rather biased. However, ecosystems are coming closer together in many parts of the semiconductor food chain, meaning that the EDA companies often can see what is happening in dependent industries and in the system design houses. Thus their predictions may have already res... » read more

New Challenges For Wearables


It was Dick Tracy’s wristwatch communicator that triggered the public’s appetite for wearable electronics. Introduced in a 1946 syndicated comic strip, the idea was so compelling that it inspired the release of hundreds of wrist-based devices ranging from walkie-talkies to calculators to GPS trackers, heartbeat and movement monitors. Yet despite the public’s fascination with this kind of ... » read more

Invionics: EDA Development Platform


There has been a dearth of EDA startups over the past year. In fact, if you check out the Knowledge Center for companies founded in 2014 you will find exactly one - [getentity id="22834" comment="Pollen Technology"], a metrology company. In 2013 there were four, one of which was [getentity id="22413" comment="Invionics"]. Now before we get excited about a new EDA startup—and yes, it is an EDA... » read more

← Older posts Newer posts →