Unintended Patent Consequences


Section 101 of the U.S. patent law limits the types of things for which patent protection can be sought. It says: "Whoever invents or discovers any new and useful process, machine, manufacture, or composition of matter, or any new and useful improvement thereof, may obtain a patent therefor, subject to the conditions and requirements of this title." In 2012, the Supreme Court made what they t... » read more

The Week In Review: Design/IoT


IP & Chips Synopsys debuted MIPI I3CSM controller IP, which incorporates in-band interrupts within the 2-wire interface to deliver low pin count. The IP supports all data rates up to 26.7 Mbps, dynamic address allocation, multi-master operations and 32-bit ARM AMBA Advanced Peripheral Bus slave interface. Marvell unveiled a family of Ethernet transceivers fully optimized for 2.5Gbps a... » read more

ESL Flow is Dead


It was 20 years ago that Gary Smith coined the term [getkc id="48" comment="Electronic System Level"] (ESL). He foresaw the next logical migration in abstraction up from the [getkc id="49" comment="Register Transfer Level"] (RTL) to something that would be capable of describing and building complex electronic systems. He also saw that the future of EDA depended upon who would control that marke... » read more

Bridging Hardware And Software


The barriers between hardware and software design and verification are breaking down with more intricately integrated systems, bringing together different disciplines and tools. But there are lingering questions about exactly what this shift means design methodologies, team interactions, and what kind of training will be required in the future. Playing heavily into this is the fact that toda... » read more

Earthquake Proof Your Software Development


In this blog we tend to focus on the benefits and opportunities that arise when using virtual prototyping. However, in real life we well know that any situation bears not only opportunities but also risks. I was reminded of this by the recent earthquake disaster in Kumamoto Japan. Having lived in the most earthquake prone areas in the world for the past 10 years, I know firsthand how easy it is... » read more

Securing The Internet of Things Using Hardware Rooted Processor Security — An Architect’s Guide


Security is a key requirement for Internet of Things (IoT) devices and must be considered for all aspects of the design. This paper provides an overview of security basics, feature requirements, technical solutions, and associated system-level trade-offs for implementing security in IoT devices. Making the required trade-offs is significantly easier by leveraging secure, proven building blocks ... » read more

Blog Review: April 27


In a video, Cadence's Chris Rowan looks at the future of neural networks, particularly the shift from cloud-based to embedded devices and what we can increasingly expect from them. Waiting for RTL? Mentor's Rich Edelman suggests a way to get tests that are missing some simple RTL running with a bit of SystemVerilog. Synopsys' Richard Solomon provides a primer on calculating the bandwidth ... » read more

Are Simulation’s Days Numbered?


Semiconductor Engineering sat down to discuss the limitations of simulation in more complex designs with [getperson id="11049" comment="Michael McNamara"], CEO of [getentity id="22716" comment="Adapt-IP”]; Pete Hardee, product management director at [getentity id="22032" e_name="Cadence"]; David Kelf, vice president of marketing for for [getentity id="22395" e_name="OneSpin Solutions"]; Lauro... » read more

Blog Review: April 20


Synopsys' Michael Posner digs into the relationships between USB Type-C, USB 3.1, Power Delivery and DisplayPort specifications. Cadence's Paul McLellan listens in on a discussion of the memory market's growth in China, and what's on the horizon. Mentor's Andy Macleod looks at the challenges that come with the increased car customization consumers are demanding. An energy-harvesting, t... » read more

Rightsizing Challenges Grow


Rightsizing chip architectures is getting much more complicated. There are more options to choose from, more potential bottlenecks, and many more choices about what process to use at what process node and for which markets and price points. Rightsizing is a way of targeting chips to specific application needs, supplying sufficient performance while minimizing power and cost. It has been a to... » read more

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