We spend an inordinate amount of energy tracking the big chip – the application processor – in a mobile device. As we’ve seen this space is coming down to a handful of players. A more interesting competition is heating up around the APU for the rest of chips needed to make a phone.… Read More
Author: Don Dingee
SoC QoS gets help from machine learning
Several companies have attacked the QoS problem in SoC design, and what is emerging from that conversation is the best approach may be several approaches combined in a hybrid QoS solution. At the recent Linley Group Mobile Conference, NetSpeed Systems outlined just such a solution with an unexpected plot twist in synthesis.
The… Read More
A Chinese smartphone drill in progress
One of our astute readers caught what looks like a major gaffe in the Linley Group mobile conference presentations from this week. It’s another indication of the speed of change in mobile markets and the instability that is giving Apple and others heartburn.
Here’s the chart in question:
The point of contention is who, exactly, … Read More
SMART sensors with OTP memory for the IIoT
A few years back before IoT became the buzzword, the industrial automation community had already talking about “smart sensors” since the mid-1990s. The impetus for those discussions was IEEE 1451, a family of standards for adding intelligence and wireless communications to sensors so they could be incorporated into field networks.… Read More
Loving it when a Qualcomm plan comes together
Corporate layoffs are always a touchy subject. I think that’s because there is skepticism that one round of layoffs can turn into two, then if business still doesn’t improve the spiral accelerates into more rounds. Too many rounds indicate management didn’t really have a clue what was going on in the business, instead trying to … Read More
Can one process handle IIoT safety and security?
SemiWiki had another article recently making the case that in IoT applications, safety and security are intertwined, adding that both are important, but they are not the same thing. Mentor Graphics has weighed in with a new white paper trying to tie both issues to a methodology.
Industrial IoT – or IIoT as you’ll often see in shorthand… Read More
Not-so-ulterior motive leads SoftBank to ARM
This week’s £24.3B offer for ARM Holdings plc from SoftBank has been widely viewed as Brexit reflexit. It did firm up in the preceding two weeks, but this acquisition offer has been years in the making – and if it sticks, one SoftBank motive many analysts and editors are missing comes front and center.… Read More
10 Challenges in IP Design Collaboration
Enterprise design management can be summed up in one word: collaboration. Intellectual property (IP) reuse and the success of distributed system-on-chip (SoC) design efforts depend strongly on how well designers can collaborate. As time-to-market windows have shortened, the challenges around design collaboration have… Read More
Webinar alert – Hybrid prototyping for ARMv8
All the talk about ARM server SoCs has been focused on who will come up with the breakthrough chip design. Watching trends like OPNFV develop suggests the big breakthrough is more likely to come on the ARMv8 software side. How do you quickly validate ARMv8 software when you don’t have the exact ARMv8 SoC target?… Read More
Time-saving modules expand Prototype Ready family
A big advantage of FPGA-based prototyping is the ability to run real-world I/O at-speed, significantly faster and more accurately than hardware emulation systems typically requiring a protocol adapter. Dealing with real-world I/O means more thorough verification of SoC integration, and the opportunity to optimize systems… Read More
Achieving Seamless 1.6 Tbps Interoperability for High BW HPC AI/ML SoCs: A Technical Webinar with Samtec and Synopsys