Checkout the Upcoming Synopsys Power Webinar

Checkout the Upcoming Synopsys Power Webinar
by Bernard Murphy on 09-09-2016 at 7:00 am

This is part 3 of a series of 4 on low power design, scheduled for September 21st at 10am. Kiran Vittal and Ken Mason will be discussing using the SpyGlass Power solutions (analysis and verification) to optimize power at RTL. Atrenta always had a leading position in this area; I expect a year following their acquisition by Synopsys,… Read More


We Have Met the Enemy (of Security) and It Is Us

We Have Met the Enemy (of Security) and It Is Us
by Bernard Murphy on 09-05-2016 at 7:00 am

(With apologies to Pogo.) For all the great work that we are seeing in improving both software and hardware security, we – not the technology – are in many ways the weakest link in the security chain. Recent reports indicate we are surprisingly easy to fool, despite our much proclaimed awareness of risks.

In a recent experiment at … Read More


Petahertz Electronics?

Petahertz Electronics?
by Bernard Murphy on 09-02-2016 at 7:00 am

In the early days of integrated components, we used to think kHz (~10[SUP]3[/SUP]Hz) processing was pretty wild. Those systems were quickly eclipsed by MHz (~10[SUP]6[/SUP]Hz) performers and now we’re blasé about GHz (~10[SUP]9[/SUP]Hz) speeds. Recently (2014), DARPA announced a THz (~10[SUP]12[/SUP]Hz) amplifier, built… Read More


We Don’t Need Graphic Design. We Do Need Graphic Views

We Don’t Need Graphic Design. We Do Need Graphic Views
by Bernard Murphy on 08-29-2016 at 7:00 am

Many years ago, there were attempts to (re-) introduce a graphical entry approach to building RTL design. The Renoir product was one example. The idea has some initial appeal. You describe the behavior in a small block using (textual) RTL but the larger structure of instances and higher-level connectivity can be described as a … Read More


Bacteriography

Bacteriography
by Bernard Murphy on 08-25-2016 at 7:00 am

I recently found a couple of articles which caught my interest, both on roles bacteria can play in electronics. The first has to do with a method to form semiconductor-like structures on a sheet of graphene. Graphene is an excellent conductor but in sheet form but conducts more or less equally in all directions. So the first problem… Read More


A New Player in the Functional Verification Space

A New Player in the Functional Verification Space
by Bernard Murphy on 08-22-2016 at 7:00 am

Israel has a strong pedigree in functional verification. Among others, Verisity (an early contributor to class-based testbench design and constrained random testing) started in Israel and RocketTick (hardware-based simulation acceleration), acquired more recently by Cadence, is based in Israel. So when I hear about an … Read More


Why is Jet-Lag Worse Flying East?

Why is Jet-Lag Worse Flying East?
by Bernard Murphy on 08-18-2016 at 7:00 am

Anyone who travels long distances frequently is painfully familiar with this problem, but you may be wondering why I am mentioning it in this forum. The American Institute of Physics has a Chaos journal which looks at interdisciplinary problems in non-linear dynamics and recently published an article on just this topic.

There… Read More


Real Artificial Neurons

Real Artificial Neurons
by Bernard Murphy on 08-16-2016 at 7:00 am

Neural nets are a hot topic these days and encourage us to think of solutions to complex tasks like image recognition in terms of how the human brain handles that task. But our model today for this neuromorphic computing is several steps removed from how neurons actually work. We’re still using conventional digital computation … Read More


The Higgs Boson and Machine Learning

The Higgs Boson and Machine Learning
by Bernard Murphy on 08-11-2016 at 7:00 am

Technology in and around the LHC can sometimes be a useful exemplar for how technologies may evolve in the more mundane world of IoT devices, clouds and intelligent systems. I wrote recently on how LHC teams manage Big Data; here I want to look at how they use machine learning to study and reduce that data.

The reason high-energy physics… Read More


What’s the Biggest Number?

What’s the Biggest Number?
by Bernard Murphy on 08-09-2016 at 7:00 am

Time for a little fun again. Most of us played this game when we were kids. It fairly quickly degenerates into “infinity plus one” or the even more preemptive “whatever you say next plus one”. But if you’re not allowed to use infinity and you have to name the number and demonstrate how you get to it, is this still interesting? For mathematicians… Read More