I recently wrote an article about networks-on-chip (NoC) and how Systems-On-Chip integrated circuits (SoCs) are becoming increasingly more complex and heterogeneous in nature. While researching for that article I came upon a new micro-site by Dassault Systemes that goes into great detail about the operational challenges… Read More
Author: Mitch Heins
Dassault Systemes Hosts New Microsite Focused on IP Reuse Challenges
NetSpeed Bridges the Gap Between Architecture and Implementation
This is part II of an article covering NetSpeed’s network-on-chip (NoC) offerings. This article dives a little deeper into what a NoC is and how NetSpeed’s network synthesis tool, NocStudio, helps system architects optimize a NoC for their system-on-a-chip (SoC) design.
Traditionally IC designers have used proprietary buses,… Read More
NetSpeed Leverages Machine Learning for Automotive IC End-to-End QoS Solutions
A couple of weeks back I wrote an article about the use of machine learning and deep neural networks in self-driving cars. Now I find that machine learning is also being applied to help build advanced end-to-end QoS (quality of service) solutions for the automotive IC market. With the advent of self-driving cars comes requirements… Read More
ARM and Open Silicon Join Forces to Fight the IoT Edge Wars!
I spent the last several days doing a deep dive into the world of IoT security and what I’ve learned has scared the pants off me. Various analysts predict that there will be over 30 billion connected IoT devices by the year 2020 growing from 9.9 million in 2013. A quick audit of my home identified over 40 connected devices including everything… Read More
NVIDIA’s Deep Learning GPUs Driving Your Car!
In a recent SemiWiki article it was noted that 5 of the top 20 semiconductor suppliers are showing double-digit gains for 2016. At the top of the list was NVIDIA with an annual growth rate of 35%. Most of this gain is due to sales of its graphics processors (GPUs) which one normally associates with high performance computer gaming engines.… Read More
Mentor’s Battle of the Photonic Bulge
A few weeks back I wrote an article mentioning that Mentor Graphics has been quietly working on solutions for photonic integrated circuits (PICs) for some time now, while one of their competitors has recently established a photonics beachhead. One of the most common challenges for PIC designs is their curvilinear nature, thus… Read More
Heads Up! Photonics West is Just Around the Corner
As I write about integrated photonics I continue to hear from long-time experts in the field who lament that integrated photonics has been around for decades and other than telecom/datacom, it seems to never be a mainstream technology. It’s hard to argue that this time around it will be different as those people have lived through… Read More
Fabless and IDMs Training up on Integrated Photonics
I had the good fortune to be able to attend a very informative five-day photonic integrated circuit (PIC) training this last week in Santa Clara, CA. The training was organized by Erik Pennings of 7 Pennies consulting and hosted by Tektronix. Several ecosystem partners from the design automation, photonic foundries and photonic… Read More
Cadence Design Secures Photonic Beachhead
I had the privilege to attend a five-day PIC (photonic integrated circuit) training hosted by 7-Penniesand Tektronix in San Jose, CA this week. This training was quite comprehensive and covered photonic materials and platforms, design automation, fabrication, packaging and test. It also included invited talks from photonic… Read More
Mentor DefectSim Seen as Breakthrough for AMS Test
For decades, digital test has been fully automated including methodologies and automation for test pattern generation, grading and test time compression. Automation for analog and mixed-signal (AMS) IC test has not however kept pace. This is troubling as according to IBSapproximately 85% of SoC design starts are now AMS designs.… Read More
Application-Specific Lithography: Sense Amplifier and Sub-Wordline Driver Metal Patterning in DRAM