I attended one of the Arm partner events in Cambridge many years ago, when they first talked about the coherent hub for managing cache coherence. I was impressed, but the obvious question even then was how any non-Arm IP was going to hook into this hub. They had a solution, of course, the ACE interface, and I left satisfied. As is the … Read More
AI in Korea. Low-Key PR, Active Development
Based on press coverage and technical paper volume, you could be forgiven for thinking that Korea had decided to take a pass on AI mania, or maybe just to dabble a little here and there to stay abreast of trends. But you’d be wrong. Korea is very active in AI; they don’t feel a need to trumpet what they’re doing from the rooftops. If you … Read More
CEO Interview: Charlie Janac of Arteris IP
Charlie Janac is president and CEO of Arteris IP where he is responsible for growing and establishing a strong global presence for the company that is pioneering the concept of NoC technology. Charlie’s career spans over 20 years and multiple industries including electronic design automation, semiconductor capital equipment,… Read More
Interconnect Basics: Wires to Crossbar to NoC
To many of us, if we ever think about interconnect on an SoC, we may think delay, power consumption, congestion, that sort of thing. All important points from an implementation point of view, but what about the functional and system implications? In the early days, interconnect was very democratic, all wires more or less equal, … Read More
Where’s the Value in Next-Gen Cars?
Value chains can be very robust and seemingly unbreakable – until they’re not. One we’ve taken for granted for many years is the chain for electronics systems in cars. The auto OEM, e.g. Toyota, gets electronics module from a Tier-1 supplier such as Denso. They, in turn, build their modules using chips from a semiconductor chip maker… Read More
Design in the Time of COVID
There’s a lot of debate about how and when we are going to emerge from the worldwide economic downturn triggered by the pandemic. Everyone agrees we will emerge. This isn’t humanity’s first pandemic, nor will it be our last. But do we come out quickly or slowly? And what does the economy look like on the other side, particularly for … Read More
AI, Safety and Low Power, Compounding Complexity
The nexus of complexity in SoC design these days has to be in automotive ADAS devices. Arteris IP highlighted this in the Linley Processor Conference recently where they talked about an ADAS chip that Toshiba had built. This has multiple vision and AI accelerators, both DSP and DNN-based. It is clearly aiming for ISO 26262 ASIL D … Read More
That Last Level Cache is Pretty Important
Last-level cache seemed to me like one of those, yeah I get it, but sort of obscure technical corners that only uber-geek cache specialists would care about. Then I stumbled on an AnandTech review on the iPhone 11 Pro and Max and started to understand that this contributes to more than just engineering satisfaction.
Caching
A brief… Read More
Trends in AI and Safety for Cars
The potential for AI in cars, whether for driver assistance or full autonomy, has been trumpeted everywhere and continues to grow. Within the car we have vision, radar and ultrasonic sensors to detect obstacles in front, behind and to the side of the car. Outside the car, V2x promises to share real-time information between vehicles… Read More
Autonomous Driving Still Terra Incognita
I already posted on one automotive panel at this year’s Arm TechCon. A second I attended was a more open-ended discussion on where we’re really at in autonomous driving. Most of you probably agree we’ve passed the peak of the hype curve and are now into the long slog of trying to connect hope to reality. There are a lot of challenges, … Read More