Embedded FPGAs Going Mainstream?


Systems on chip have been made with many processing variants ranging from general-purpose CPUs to DSPs, GPUs, and custom processors that are highly optimized for certain tasks. When none of these options provide the necessary performance or consumes too much power, custom hardware takes over. But there is one type of processing element that has rarely been used in a major SoC— the [gettech id... » read more

Emulation’s Footprint Grows


It wasn't that many years ago that [getkc id="30" comment="emulation"] was an expensive tool available to only a few, but it has since become indispensable for a growing number of companies. One obvious reason is the growing size of designs and the inability of [getkc id="11" kc_name="simulation"] to keep up. But emulation also has been going through a number of transformations that have made i... » read more

Side-Channel Attacks Make Devices Vulnerable


As the world begins to take security more seriously, it becomes evident that a device is only as secure as its weakest component. No device can be made secure by protecting against a single kind of attack. Hypervisors add a layer of separation between tasks making sure that one task cannot steal secrets from another. Protection of the JTAG port is necessary to prevent access underneath the h... » read more

Power Limits Of EDA


Power has become a major gating factor in semiconductor design. It is now the third factor in design optimization, along with performance, and is almost becoming more important than area. But there are limits to the amount of help that [getkc id="7" kc_name="EDA"] can provide with [getkc id="106" kc_name="power optimization"]. Power is not just an optimization problem. It is a design problem... » read more

Betting On Power And Deep Learning


Jim Hogan, managing partner of Vista Ventures, sat down with Semiconductor Engineering to talk about what investments deliver the biggest returns, how quickly, and why there are so few investors in some big growth areas. What follows are excerpts of that conversation. SE: What are you investing in these days and why? Hogan: I have about 15 active deals right now. I generally invest in thi... » read more

Getting The Power/Performance Ratio Right


Getting to market quickly means determining as soon as possible if a concept for a new design will work or not, particularly where power and performance are concerned. Making this determination requires intimate knowledge of the scenarios in which the device will operate — and that is just the start. In order to set things up, you need to somehow model the system, which could be done in a ... » read more

Got Energy?


Energy is a finite resource, which means it’s not someone else’s problem. It’s everyone’s problem. This isn’t just another doom and gloom prediction. Energy consumption has been rising steadily for decades. Unfortunately, it has been increasing at a faster rate than energy production. A Semiconductor Industry Association report entitled, “Rebooting the IT Revolution: A Call to Ac... » read more

The Week In Review: Design


Tools Synopsys updated RSoft, its software for the design of photonic devices. The updates include increased integration with the company's TCAD products as well as faster simulations and additional ways to customize photonic device analysis. IP Mentor Graphics, Northwest Logic, and Krivi Semiconductor collaborated on DDR4 SDRAM IP to integrate design and verification into a single flo... » read more

The Week In Review: Design


IP Sonics unveiled Energy Processing Unit (EPU) IP, based on the company's ICE-Grain power architecture, to better manage and control circuit idle time. The IP facilitates design of SoC power architecture and implementation and verification of the resulting power management subsystem. Synopsys debuted ARC SEM security processors with timing and power randomization features to protect agai... » read more

Controlling Heat


Modeling on-chip thermal characteristics and chip-package interactions is becoming much more critical for advanced designs, but how to get there isn't always clear. Every chip, based on its target application, has a thermal design power (TDP) target. This is the typical power it can consume without overreaching the acceptable thermal limits in its intended environment. But in order to rate t... » read more

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