Timing Is Of The Essence


Today's advanced 16/7nm system-on-chips (SoCs) are faced with increased variation as they push for lower power. While the sizes of the transistors continue to shrink following Moore's Law, the threshold voltages fail to scale. This causes wide timing variability leading to timing closure difficulties, design re-spins and poor functional yield. Learn how ANSYS Path FX with its unique variatio... » read more

Achieving eFPGA Timing Closure In An ASIC


When we start school as young children, one of the first lessons we learn is how to share, followed quickly by not running with scissors. As Kent Orthner, Achronix’s senior director of Systems Engineering, discussed at the Design Automation Conference in June, sharing is also key when it comes to closing timing with embedded FPGAs (eFPGAs). With an eFPGA, such as Achronix’s Speedcore IP,... » read more

Achieving ASIC Timing Closure With Speedcore eFPGAs


Achronix's Speedcore eFPGA IP allows companies to embed a programmable logic fabric in their ASICs, delivering to end users the capability to modify or upgrade the functionality of an ASIC after being deployed in the field. This flexibility dramatically expands the solution space that can be served by the ASIC as it can be updated to support changing standards and algorithms. Timing closure is ... » read more

Tech Talk: On-Chip Variation


Raymond Nijssen, vice president of systems engineering at Achronix, discusses on-chip and process variation at 7nm and 5nm, the role of embedded FPGAs, and how to reduce margin and pessimistic designs. https://youtu.be/LQnw_3H9soQ » read more

7/5nm Timing Closure Intensifies


Timing closure issues are increasing in magnitude at 7/5nm, and ones that were often considered minor in the past no longer can be ignored. Timing closure is an essential part of any chip design. The process ensures that all combinatorial paths through a design meet the necessary timing so that it can run reliably at a specified clock rate. Timing closure hasn't changed significantly over th... » read more

What Can Be Cut From A Design?


A long-standing approach of throwing everything into a chip increasingly is being replaced by a focus on what can be left out it. This shift is happening at every level, from the initial design to implementation. After years of trying to fill every square nanometer of real estate on a piece of silicon with memory and logic, doubling the number of [getkc id="26" kc_name="transistors"] from on... » read more

Routing Signals At 7nm


[getperson id="11763" comment="Tobias Bjerregaard"], [getentity id="22908" e_name="Teklatech's"] CEO, discusses the challenges of designs at 7nm and beyond, including power integrity, how to reduce IR drop and timing issues, and how to improve the economics of scaling. SE: How much further can device scaling go? Bjerregaard: The way you should look at this is [getkc id="74" comment="Moore... » read more

Tech Talk: Timing Closure


Arteris' George Janac talks about timing closure issues in advanced chips and why this has reared its head again for the first time in a decade.   Related Stories Timing Closure Issues Resurface Adding more features and more power states is making it harder to design chips at 10nm and 7nm. » read more

Timing Closure Issues Resurface


Timing closure has resurfaced as a major challenge at 10nm and 7nm due to more features and power modes, increased process variation and other manufacturing-related issues. While timing-related problems are roughly correlated to rising complexity in semiconductors, they tend to generate problems in waves—about once per decade. In SoCs, timing closure problems have spawned entire methodolog... » read more

How To Reduce Timing Closure Headaches


As chips have become more complex, timing closure has provided some of the most vexing challenges facing design engineers today. This step requires an increasing amount of time to complete and adds significantly to design costs and back-end schedule risks. Wire delay dominates transistor switching delay Building high-performance modern CPUs involves pipelining to achieve high frequencies. I... » read more

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