Product Lifecycle Management (PLM) for electronic systems has moved from a passive ‘fire and forget’ approach to one that is intimately involved not only during design, but also throughout the entire life of every unit delivered to the field. Siemens EDA has a white paper titled “Tessent Silicon Lifecycle Solutions” that talks… Read More
Author: Tom Simon
Smarter Product Lifecycle Management for Semiconductors
Observation Scan Solves ISO 26262 In-System Test Issues
Automotive electronic content has been growing at an accelerating pace, along with a shift from infotainment toward mission critical functions such as traction control, safety systems, engine control, autonomous driving, etc. The ISO 26262 automotive electronics safety standard evolved to help ensure that these systems… Read More
IP and Software Speeds up TWS Earbud SoC Development
The global market for earphones and headphones in 2020 is estimated to have been $34B and is expanding at a compound rate of over 20% per year. Of this almost 50% is said to be earphones which are shifting rapidly to True Wireless Stereo (TWS). We have seen the sales of TWS devices grow from 1M units is 2016 to 109M units in 2019, though … Read More
Enabling Edge AI Vision with RISC-V and a Silicon Platform
AI vision processing moving to the edge is an undeniable industry trend. OpenFive, the custom silicon business unit of SiFive, discusses this trend with compelling facts in their recent paper titled “Enabling AI Vision at the Edge.” AI vision is being deployed in many applications, such as autonomous vehicles, smart cities, … Read More
USB 3.2 Helps Deliver on Type-C Connector Performance Potential
Despite sounding like a minor enhancement version for USB, USB 3.2 introduces many important changes for the USB specification. To see where USB has come from and where it is going, it is essential to look at what is found in USB 3.2. The other salient point is that now the Type-C connector has split out from the underlying USB specification… Read More
USB4 Makes Interfacing Easy, But is Hard to Implement
USB made its big splash by unifying numerous connections into a single cable and interface. At the time there were keyboard ports, mouse ports, printer ports and many others. Over the years USB has delivered improved performance and greater functionality. However, as serial interfaces became more popular and started being used… Read More
FD-SOI Offers Refreshing Performance and Flexibility for Mobile Applications
SoC designers often have to make a, “red pill or blue pill,” decision when it comes to selecting process technology. Usually, a choice has to be made between performance, power and area, with one being prioritized at the expense of the others. However, as is pointed out in a recent paper by Mixel and NXP, designers can have the best … Read More
Achronix Demystifies FPGA Technology Migration
System designers who are switching to a new FPGA platform have a lot to think about. Naturally a change like this is usually done for good reasons, but there are always considerations regarding device configurations, interfaces and the tool chain to deal with. To help users who have decided to switch to their FPGA technology, Achronix… Read More
Expanding Role of Sensors Drives Sensor Fusion
It is long past the time when general purpose processors could meet the needs of sensor fusion. Sensor fusion performs operations to process and integrate raw sensor data so that downstream processing is simplified and is performed at a higher level. When done properly it offers several other significant benefits such as lower… Read More
Probing UPF Dynamic Objects
UPF was created to go beyond what HDL can do for managing on-chip power. HDLs are agnostic when it comes to dealing with supply & ground connections, power domains, level shifters, retention and other power management related elements of SoCs. UPF fills the breach allowing designers to specify in detail what parts of the design… Read More
More Headwinds – CHIPS Act Chop? – Chip Equip Re-Shore? Orders Canceled & Fab Delay