Knowledge is power, and I’ve seen the trend over time of people getting more and deeper access to knowledge as each year goes by. I remember, as a student in high school back the in 70’s, the first time I wanted to buy stock in a company. You could only get a quote by calling a broker or visiting the broker’s office. Today you can get real … Read More
Achieving Lower Power through RTL Design Restructuring (webinar)
From a consumer viewpoint I want the longest battery life from my electronic devices: iPad tablet, Galaxy Note 4 smart phone, Garmin Edge 820 bike computer, and Amazon Kindle book reader. In September I blogged about RTL Design Restructuring and how it could help achieve lower power, and this month I’m looking forward to … Read More
Processors, Processors, Processors Everywhere
At first glance a processor conference might seem a bit arcane, however we live in an era where processors are ubiquitous. There is hardly any aspect of our lives that they do not touch in some way. Last week at the Linley Processor Conference the topics included deep learning, autonomous driving, energy, manufacturing, smart cities,… Read More
You’re Going to Want to Attend the Cadence Photonics Summit Workshop, October 19-20
Photonics IC’s (PIC’s) are used to transmit and receive data through a (single-mode or multi-mode) optical fiber carrier, and provide the requisite electro-optical conversion for system integration. The architecture of the PIC spans the full characteristics of data transmission and reception:
- light generation
Typically,… Read More
Cadence DSPs float for efficiency in complex apps
Floating-point computation has been a staple of mainframe, minicomputer, supercomputer, workstation, and PC platforms for decades. Almost all modern microprocessor IP supports the IEEE 754 floating-point standard. Embedded design, for reasons of power and area and thereby cost, often eschews floating-point hardware… Read More
It’s a heterogeneous world and cache rules it now
Cache evolved when the world was all about homogeneous processing and slow and expensive shared memory. Now, compute is just part of the problem – devices need to handle display, connectivity, storage, and other tasks, all at the same time. Different, heterogeneous cores handle different workflows in the modern SoC, and the burden… Read More
Synopsys Hosting Formal Methods in CAD Conference Next Week
FMCAD (Formal Methods in Computer Aided Design) is a technical conference with a 20-year pedigree. This is a conference for serious formal methods teams. Key notes are from Berkeley and UCLA, committee members are all formal heavyweights and best I can tell, there is no exhibitors area.… Read More
Next Book Signing: Linley Processor Conference 2016!
It is a busy month for book signings but it is a pleasure to do it for the greater good of the semiconductor industry. It really is an honor to meet the people who keep our electronic devices on the leading edge of technology, absolutely.
The Linley Processor Conference is on September 27[SUP]th[/SUP]and 28[SUP]th[/SUP] at the Hyatt… Read More
Next SemiWiki Book Signing Event: MIPI DEVCON!
This is the first MIPI DEVCOM event and the location is my favorite, the Computer Museum in Silicon Valley. For those of you who haven’t been, the Computer Museum preserves and presents for posterity the artifacts and stories of the information age, an age we all grew up in. For those of you who have been to the Computer Museum there … Read More
Why are Top Brass from NXP, Qualcomm, Skyworks Keynoting Upcoming IEEE SOI-3D-SubVt (S3S) Conference? (San Francisco, Oct.’16)
By Fred Allibert
The IEEE S3S Conference (10-13 October 2016 at the San Francisco Airport Hyatt Regency) brings together 3 key technologies that will play a major role in tomorrow’s industry: SOI, 3D integration, and Subthreshold Microelectronics. The numerous degrees of freedom they allow enable the ultra-low power operation… Read More
Quantum Computing Technologies and Challenges