eFPGA is now widely available, has been used in dozens of chips, is being designed into dozens more and it has an increasing list of benefits for a range of applications. Embedded FPGA, or eFPGA, enables your SoC to have flexibility in critical areas where algorithm, protocol or market needs are changing. FPGAs can also accelerate… Read More
Semiconductor Intellectual Property
3 Steps to a Security Plan
Assessing the security of a hardware design sometimes seems like a combination of the guy looking under a streetlight for his car keys, because that’s where the light is (We have this tool, let’s see what problems it can find) and a whack-a-mole response to the latest publicized vulnerabilities (Cache timing side channels? What… Read More
Flex Logix CEO Update 2020
We started working with Felx Logix more than eight years ago and let me tell you it has been an interesting journey. Geoff Tate was our second CEO Interview so this is a follow up to that. The first one garnered more than 15,000 views and I expect more this time given the continued success of Flex Logix pioneering the eFPGA market, absolutely.… Read More
Ultra-Low Power Inference at the Extreme Edge
I wrote last year about Eta Compute and their continuously tuned dynamic voltage-frequency scaling (CVFS). That piece was mostly about the how and why of the technology, that in self-timed circuits (a core technology for Eta Compute) it is possible to continuously vary voltage and frequency, whereas in conventional synchronous… Read More
Webinar: Build Your Next HBM2/2E Chip with SiFive
I have been watching the trend for quite some time now that many advanced FinFET designs today are actually 2.5D systems in package. All of these 2.5D silicon interposer-based designs have high-bandwidth memory (HBM) stacks on board. Often there are multiple memory stacks in both 4-high and 8-high configurations. If you follow… Read More
Talking Sense With Moortec…Are You Listening?!
It almost doesn’t matter what your job may be, whether in the public sector or a private company, or how technical or how dangerous, many of life’s adages and sayings can be interpreted to have some direct meaning for all of us.
Over the years in our personal lives, we have been constantly advised that prevention is better than cure…certainly… Read More
Webinar: Real-time In-Chip Monitoring to Boost multi-core AI, ML, DL Systems
During the COVID-19 pandemic I’m using Zoom and attending more webinars to keep updated on semiconductor industry trends, and one huge trend is the importance of AI applied to SoCs. Using more cores to handle ML and DL makes sense, but then how do you keep the chips within their power and reliability limits while at the same … 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
Synopsys – Turbocharging the TCAM Portfolio with eSilicon
About 90 days ago, Synopsys completed the acquisition of certain IP assets from eSilicon. The remaining entirety of eSilicon was acquired by Inphi Corporation. I was the VP of marketing at eSilicon during that acquisition so it’s very interesting to me to find out how things are going with those certain IP assets. I got an opportunity… Read More
SiFive’s Approach to Embedding Intelligence Everywhere
Before the advent of RISC-V, designers looking for embedded processors were effectively limited to a handful of proprietary processors using ISAs from decades ago. While the major ISAs are being updated and enhanced, they also are facing limitations from many decisions made over many years. RISC-V was conceived with a clean… Read More
Should Intel be Split in Half?