Given that the majority of my 30+ years in Silicon Valley has revolved around semiconductor IP it should be of no surprise that IP is a big part of SemiWiki and our first book “Fabless: The Transformation of the Semiconductor Industry”. That is also why one of my first round blogger draft choices was IP expert Dr. Eric Esteve. Eric has… Read More
Semiconductor Intellectual Property
What Presentations to Attend During IP-SoC 2014 ?
Will you go to Grenoble next week to attend to IP-SoC? I will do it and will certainly listen to these Keynote Talks:
- “Platform IP: the next wave for SOCs from IoT to Datacenter” by Tony King-Smith, Executive Vice President, Marketing , Imagination Technologies
- “From Server-class to IoT SoCs: Enabling System
Microprocessors: Will ARM Rule the World?
Last week was the Linley Microprocessor Conference. Not the mobile one, which I find the most interesting since smartphones are such a bit part of what drives process technology these days, this is the one focused on networking and servers. But increasingly both markets are being driven by the same thing, namely mobile data. In … Read More
Who Really Needs USB 3.1?
USB is certainly the most ubiquitous of the Interface protocols. I would bet that everybody is using USB everyday (I mean activate a USB connection, as we also use PCIe or SATA even if we don’t realize that we do it), but which application will get benefit of the 10 Gbps delivered by USB 3.1? Before precisely answering the question, … Read More
G.fast on the copper quick road for broadband
After a four year gestation period typical of global communications standards, G.fast has reached the point where chipset makers can implement parts against stable specifications. Formal approval of the physical layer spec, G.9701, is expected by the end of 2014. G.9700, dealing with power spectral density issues, was approved… Read More
Sensing, Processing and Connecting: IoT Fundamentals
Internet of Things, or Internet of Everything, is certainly the buzzword of the year. Does IoT describe one product family? Not really as the acronym describes a family of concepts, each of these concepts could effectively be turned into a family of products, if this concept reach the market, or fulfill a market need. Nevertheless… Read More
SecureCore: secure MPU for IoT
The evaluation of the number of connected (IoT) systems by 2020 varies depending on the source, but we should see in the range of 30 billion IoT devices by that date. We already know some of the basic requirements: such a device will have to be connected, low cost, ultra-low power and… secure. The first three are key enablers, but we … Read More
How Lucio Lanza Got Into EDA
Lucio Lanza is this year’s recipient of the Kaufman award. Unlike most recipients, Lucio worked closely with Phil Kaufman earlier in his career. I met with him at his office in Palo Alto to hear the story.
Even if you have never met him, it would be a reasonable guess from his name that Lucio Lanza is Italian. And you’d be right. He grew… Read More
MIPI Soundwire IP Sounds Innovative
MIPI SoundWire specification will be integrated into mobiles systems, like smartphone or media tablet. In fact some of the well-known chip makers have already decided to integrate MIPI SoundWire into their last application processor release. MIPI SoundWire is also the type of specification which could be used in many other … Read More
Linux and the ARC of the Coherent
Remember that thing called “real-time Linux”? Yeah, nobody else does either. As builds became configurable and clock speeds increased, embedded Linux manifested itself as fast enough for many applications – if a few other SoC details are addressed.
Most obvious for SoCs to run Linux is the need for a fully integrated MMU implementation.… Read More
TSMC vs Intel Foundry vs Samsung Foundry 2026