Why selecting ARM Cortex-M7 processor based Atmel SAMV70/71 for automotive entertainment application? The top three reasons are the Cortex-M7 clock speed (300 Mhz), the integration of a floating point (FPU) DSP and, last but not least because Atmel SAMV70/71 has obtained automotive qualification. If you dig into SAMV70/71… Read More
Semiconductor Intellectual Property
TSMC 10nm Readiness and 3DIC
At the TSMC Technology Symposium last month Suk Lee presented a lot of information on design enablement. Suk is an interesting guy with a unique background in ASIC, Semiconductor, EDA, and now Foundry. In baseball terms that would be like playing infield, outfield, home plate, and umpire!
Around the turn of the millennium Suk actually… Read More
Automating Timing Closure Using Interconnect IP, Physical Information
Timing closure is a “tortoise” for some system-on-chip (SoC) designers just the way many digital guys call RF design a “black art”. Chip designers often tell horror stories of doing up to 20 back-end physical synthesis place & route (SP&R) iterations with each iteration taking a week or more. “Timing closure”, a largely… Read More
The 2015 DAC Designer and IP Track
What an exciting year for DAC with record submissions in nearly every category. Most impressive is the increase in Designer and IP Track submissions, content that is helping to continue to evolve and improve the show. If you haven’t already registered, why not do so now?
A brief bit of background about the conference: DAC’s roots… Read More
Semiwiki Blogger at DAC: MIPI Beyond Mobile, Myth or Reality?
Some of the various MIPI specifications are now massively used in mobile (smartphone or tablet), especially the Multimedia related specs like Camera Serial Interface (CSI-2), Display Serial Interface (DSI) or SoundWire (even if the spec has been released in December 2014, the adoption rate is very sharp, no doubt that it will… Read More
Heterogeneous Processing: Power Reduction and Performance Advances
Implementation of Heterogeneous processors has shown demonstrated reduction in power consumption and improved performance in mobile processors like ARM_big.LITTLE technology, where low power and relatively slower cores are coupled with the more powerful ARM cores. According to ARM Holdings, it can save 75% of CPU energy… Read More
Agile IC: All You Gotta Do To Join Is…
Back last October 1st was an announcement of Agile IC Methodology. As I said then:Today Sonics has launched the Agile IC Methodology along with several collaborators. The initial phase is to create a LinkedIn group to start the discussion.
See also Agile IC Development
At that point there was just an idea and a LinkedIn group. The… Read More
Shift-West of Semicon Power Centers
It’s true that Japan was once the center of semiconductor business and we were carrying on with that perception until recently. In 1990, six out of top10 semiconductor companies (excluding pure-play foundries) were in Japan; and 59% of worldwide semiconductor market was concentrated with the top10 companies. The semiconductor… Read More
Xtensa Fusion DSP Target IoT including Wireless and Security
Internet of Things (IoT) can be seen as a fashionable buzzword covering so many distinct applications that IoT is sometimes nick-named “Internet of Everything”, or it can be perceived as the next revolution in electronic systems generating more revenues than the smartphone and computer market together in 2020. But the industry… Read More
CEVA DSP Cores … Inside Intel
Intel Corp. is gaining discernible market share in the LTE chips business, and Qualcomm, the 800-pound gorilla in the mobile baseband market, suddenly looks in Intel’s crosshairs. A closer look at Intel’s journey from a mobile silicon underdog to the owner of a swelling LTE footprint shows that design ingredients… Read More
TSMC N3 Process Technology Wiki