Walking into the Mentor Graphics booth at ARM TechCon, I was greeted by my friends Warren Kurisu and Shay Benchorin. It was good to see them both again. They were poised in front of a table with a Samsung tablet and a small Wi-Fi-ish box, next to a large Samsung printer. The demonstration was similar to a lobby check-in process, where… Read More
Semiconductor Intellectual Property
IoT: Where are we Now and Why Most IoT Startups Fail
“Mobile has won,” proclaimed Google chairman Eric Schmidt on Bloomberg TV in December 2013. Now, what’s next? If you were at the recent ARM TechCon held in Santa Clara, California on November 10-12, 2015, it’s unmistakably the Internet of Things (IoT).
That, however, comes with a number of strings attached.… Read More
Six Ways Your Car Can Be Hacked!
The question is not IF but WHEN your car will be hacked. How about this: You connect your smartphone to your car and malware sets off the airbags. My car has front, side, and rear airbags so that would be a very painful and expensive experience for sure. According to my mechanic this is certainly possible and it would cost more than $10,000… Read More
Power Reduction Verification Techniques Highlighted by Mentor at ARM Techcon
Power management is a perennial topic these days, and it came up in several presentations at the recent ARM Techcon in Santa Clara in mid November. The techniques covered in these talks address dynamic and static power consumption. The IEEE 1801 standard deals with specifying power design intent in Universal Power Format (UPF)… Read More
Finding under- and over-designed NoC links
When it comes to predicting SoC performance in the early stages of development, most designers rely on simulation. For network-on-chip (NoC) design, two important factors suggest that simulation by itself may no longer be sufficient in delivering an optimized design.
The first factor is use cases. I think I’ve told the story … Read More
USB Type-C opens doors for embedded system connectivity
Every now and then there is an innovation or advancement that changes the way we operate, the way the world operates. These innovations and advancements in technology creates opportunities for the businesses and provides improved features to the consumers. They are also widely and swiftly adopted. USB Type-C is one such technology… Read More
HLS with ARM and FPGA Technologies Boosts SoC Performance
The way SoC size and complexity are increasing; new ways of development and verification are also evolving with innovative automated tools and environment for SoC development and optimization. IP based SoC development methodology has proved to be the most efficient for large SoCs. This needs collaboration among multiple players… Read More
How to Secure IoT Edge Device from Multiple Attacks?
In the 1990’s, designing for performance was the main challenge and the marketing message for Intel processors was limited to the core frequency. Then designers had to optimize power consumption to target mobile phones/smartphone and build power efficient SoC, low power but high performance devices. Now in 2015 the semi industry… Read More
Globalfoundries 22FDX Technology Shows Advantages in PPA over 28nm Node
I really enjoy ARM Techcon when it rolls around every year because it has such a wide range of topics and exhibits. You can find maker gadgets, IoT information, small boards for industrial control, software development kits, semiconductor IP vendors as well as the big EDA players and foundries. This year after perusing the exhibit… Read More
Migrating legacy USB Stack to USB Type-C platforms
There is a great deal of buzz around the new USB Type-C connector and its power delivery specifications. Industry leaders like Intel, Google, and Apple are leading the way by integrating this new connector into products like MacBook and Chromebook. The new connector will soon find its way into smartphones and many other types of… Read More


Quantum Advantage is About the Algorithm, not the Computer