Being engrossed in the digital information world, it is easy to forget that the real world is comprised of mostly analog signals and data. Digital Signal Processors (DSP) take digitized forms of these worldly signals and manipulate them mathematically. Although floating-point is a more relevant and accurate way of representing… Read More
Semiconductor Intellectual Property
StarFive Surpasses Development Goal with the Prodigy Rapid Prototyping System from S2C
Faced with the challenge of developing a high-performance hardware platform with critical software components, what choices do companies have in rapidly moving their development forward with modest budgets and resources?
That was the challenge faced by StarFive Technology, a leading IP and semiconductor SoC platform solution… Read More
PCIe Gen 6 Verification IP Speeds Up Chip Development
PCIe is a prevalent and popular interface standard that is used in just about every digital electronic system. It is used widely in SOCs and in devices that connect to them. Since it was first released in 2003, it has evolved to keep up with rapidly accelerating needs for high speed data transfers. Each version has doubled in throughput,… Read More
The Zen of Auto Safety – a Path to Enlightenment
Safety is a complex topic, but we’re busy. We take the course, get the certificate. Check, along with a million other things we need to do. But maybe it’s not quite that simple. I talked recently with Kurt Shuler (VP of marketing) and Stefano Lorenzini (functional safety manager) at Arteris IP and concluded that finding enlightenment… Read More
IPnest Forecast Interface IP Category Growth to $2.5B in 2025
Why should the interface IP category see such a high growth rate until 2025? IP vendors revenues totaled $1068 million in 2020, compared with $872 in 2019. That is 22.4% YoY growth rate and confirm that last year YoY value of 18% was the sign for a long-term growth, as IPnest shows in “Interface IP Survey 2016-2020 & Forecast 2021-2025”,… Read More
Safety + Security for Automotive SoCs with ASIL B Compliant tRoot HSMs
Automotive segment is a market that has historically been supported by a few select suppliers within the semiconductor ecosystem. Over the last decade, this market has transitioned from just being about reliability, performance, fuel efficiency, etc., to placing equal importance to user experience. This user experience … Read More
Webinar: Learn about NVMe conformance Testing
Several years ago I recall upgrading my aging MacBook Pro laptop from using a Hard Disk Drive (HDD) to a Solid State Drive (SSD) that used Non-Volatile Memory (NVM). Oh what a speed improvement when pushing that On button each morning to start the work day, or clicking an App to see it launch without delay. Another epiphany for me in … Read More
A Free RISC-V CPU Core Builder – Democratizing CPUs
There are now over a hundred RISC-V CPU cores listed on riscv.org‘s RISC-V Exchange! Amazing. If you need a RISC-V CPU core, you’ll likely be able to find one that suits your needs… if you evaluate a hundred CPU cores to find it.
Or, now, you can configure exactly the core you need, and have it built in seconds, for free! WARP-V … Read More
Low Power Positioning for Logistics – Ultimate Tracking
When thinking about positioning you probably first think of navigation. The device in your car that helps get from where you are to where you want to be. Or navigating while hiking in the backcountry. But those applications are not the where the big unit growth will come. The biggest demand will be in asset tracking, expected to reach… Read More
Life in a Formal Verification Lane
This summer, I got the opportunity to work as a Formal Verification Intern with Axiomise for six weeks. I’m a keen designer and love working in design and architecture. Although, I’ve not started my professional career yet, I have done most of my projects as a designer in my undergraduate and postgraduate studies.
Having said that,… Read More


TSMC CoWoS versus Intel EMIB Semiconductor Packaging