ISO 26262 is serious stuff, the governing process behind automotive safety. But, as I have observed before, it doesn’t make for light reading. The standard is all about process and V-diagrams, mountains of documentation and accredited experts. I wouldn’t trade a word of it (or my safety) for a more satisfying read, but all that … Read More
HCM Is More Than Data Management
While tracking Moore’s Law has become a more expensive and difficult endeavor in the HPC design, the mobile SOC design space is also increasingly heterogeneous and complex. Strict safety guidelines such as the ISO-26262 being imposed in the automotive applications further exacerbate the situation.
Looking closer into the … Read More
NVIDIA GTC 2018 Then There Were Three
If there was a central takeaway to Nvidia’s GTC event last week in San Jose it was this: autonomous vehicles are already operating or at least testing in virtual every corner of the planet including companies such as Tier IV and ZMP in Japan, and Pony.ai and Baidu in China. But two U.S. companies standout globally for the growing… Read More
The Good the Bad and Tesla and Uber
In “Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory” circa 1971, Gene Wilder plays a vaguely misanthropic Willy Wonka who leads the young winners of his golden wrapper contest on a tour of the seven deadly sins within his candy factory and labs. (Who can forget Augustus Gloop?) At one point, Mike Teavee, a television-obsessed… Read More
Stress and Aging
These failings aren’t just a cross we humans bear; they’re also a concern for chips, particularly in electrical over-stress (EOS) and aging of the circuitry. Such concerns are not new, but they are taking on new urgency given the high reliability and long lifetime expectations we have for safety-critical components in cars and… Read More
Mentor Leads Emulation Innovation
Publishing eBooks on FPGA Prototyping and Emulation really was an eye opener for me as a long time EDA and IP professional. Both markets are considered EDA in the traditional sense but they are very much in the systems business with a lot of IP. Both markets are also growing very rapidly and operate side-by-side with complimentary… Read More
Nvidia: What the Doctor Ordered
Nvidia has an affinity for taking on computational challenges. Whether it be diagnostic tools derived from medical imaging, mapping the earth’s core or defining the structure of HIV, Nvidia is there with GPU computational resources to amp up the teraflops and shrink the computing time. In fact, according to Nvidia’s most recent… Read More
FlexE at SoC IP Days with Open Silicon
On Thursday April 5th the Design and Reuse SoC IP days continues in Santa Clara at the Hyatt Regency (my favorite hangout). SemiWiki is a co-sponsor and I am Chairman of the IP Security Track. More than 400 people have registered thus far and I expect a big turnout, if you look at the program you will see why. You should also know that registration… Read More
Uber’s Epic Fail Changes Everything
This morning at Nvidia’s AI and Deep Learning Conference, GTC 2018, CEO Jen-Hsun Huang will give a keynote in which he will tout the company’s extraordinary progress in fostering and advancing the cause of artificial intelligence and deep learning along with the correlated autonomous driving industry. Hundreds… Read More
Vertical Prototyping with Intel FPGAs
It has been an article of faith in the design tools business that there’s little to be gained from targeting market verticals because as far as tools are concerned, all verticals have the same needs. Which is good in some respects; you maximize the breadth of the market to which tooling can appeal. But in so doing the depth of contribution… Read More
Selling the Forges of the Future: U.S. Report Exposes China’s Reliance on Western Chip Tools