Will The Chip Work?


As the number of possible issues mount for integrating IP into complex chips, so does the focus on solving these issues. What becomes quickly apparent to anyone integrating multiple IP blocks is that one size doesn't fit all, either from an IP or a tools standpoint. There is no single solution because there is no single way of putting IP together. Each architecture is unique, and each brings... » read more

Will The Chip Work?


IP is getting better, but the challenges of integrating it are getting worse. As the number of IP blocks in SoCs increases at each new process node, so does the difficulty of making them all work together. In some cases, this can mean extra code and a slight performance hit on power and performance. In other cases, it may require more drastic measures, ranging from a re-spin to a new archite... » read more

Bigger Standards Required


One of the great benefits of standards in the semiconductor world is that they make it easier to move forward and speed up technologies and markets—but not always. They are revered by semiconductor companies, despite the fact that they sometimes outlive their usefulness and need to be folded into other standards, and they are recognized as the best way to get things done across a complex, far... » read more

Security Made Easier


The FIDO (Fast IDentity Online) Alliance was formed in July 2012 to address the lack of interoperability among strong authentication devices as well as the problems users face with creating and remembering multiple usernames and passwords. The FIDO Alliance’s mission is to change the landscape of authentication by eliminating the reliance on passwords. This is accomplished by developing speci... » read more

Can IP Integration Be Automated?


What exactly does it mean to automate [getkc id="43" comment="IP"] integration? Ask four people in the industry and you’ll get four different answers. “The key issue is how you can assemble the hardware as quickly as you can out of pre-made pieces of IP,” said Charlie Janac, chairman and CEO of [getentity id="22674" e_name="Arteris"]. To Simon Rance, senior product manager in the ... » read more

ISO 26262: Top 3 Reasons For Hardware Implementation Of Functional Safety


I’ve written articles before about ISO 26262 Certification because many SoC design teams are challenged by the barriers they have to overcome to achieve automotive functional safety, especially if they previously enjoyed success in mobility or computing but now want to shift attention to the growing array of electronics used in transportation such as automated driver assistance systems (ADAS)... » read more

Appetite For Services Grows


Semiconductor service revenues have been growing for the past year, fueled by complex thermal and power issues at advanced nodes, the difficulty of integrating more and more IP blocks, and far more techniques, languages and methodologies that engineers need to learn to be productive in the finFET generation. The services business typically acts as a bridge between down and up cycles in the c... » read more

The Week In Review: Design/IoT


M&A ARM acquired Israel-based Sansa Security, a provider of hardware security IP and software for advanced system-on-chip components deployed in IoT and mobile devices. The company's technology is currently deployed across a range of smart connected devices and enterprise systems. Sansa IP will be integrated into ARM's TrustZone and IoT portfolios. Standards Accellera sent UVM 1.2 ... » read more

One-on-One: Smarter Architectures


Edward Lee, distinguished professor of electrical engineering and computer science professor at the [getentity id="22165" comment="UC Berkeley"], sat down with Semiconductor Engineering to talk about what is needed to maximize the usefulness of the [getkc id="76" comment="Internet of Things"] and how our perceptions need to shift to take advantage of this technology. What follows are excerpts o... » read more

Design By Architect Or Committee?


Everything we do is based on a language. It doesn’t matter if we are talking about design, verification, specification, software or mask data. They all provide a way to communicate intent, and then there are engines that work on the intent to produce something else that is desirable, also based on a language. Over time, the EDA industry has built up a hierarchy of languages from the most deta... » read more

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