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arc v 800x100 High Quality (1)
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Synopsys Creates a High-performance ARC Core

Synopsys Creates a High-performance ARC Core
by Paul McLellan on 11-05-2013 at 10:00 am

ARC is a family of configurable processors. Originally it was a standalone company in the UK (what is it with the UK and processor cores?) spun out from Argonaut Software. The A in ARC stood for Argonaut originally. ARC International was acquired by Virage and then Virage was acquired by Synopsys so now it is part of Synopsys Designware… Read More


Interface PHY IP supporting Mobile Application on TSMC 20nm? Available!

Interface PHY IP supporting Mobile Application on TSMC 20nm? Available!
by Eric Esteve on 09-20-2013 at 8:42 am

If we check the many articles daily published in Semiwiki, I am sure that Moore’s Law has been mentioned every single day. There is a good reason why we constantly write about new technologies and advanced features like FinFet, FD-SOI, 450 mm wafers or double patterning: all of these are new challenges that the SC industry will have… Read More


Searching an ADC (or DAC) at 28 nm may be such a burden…

Searching an ADC (or DAC) at 28 nm may be such a burden…
by Eric Esteve on 09-09-2013 at 9:13 am

If you have ever send a Request For Quotation (RFQ) for an ASIC including processor IP core, memories, Interfaces IP like PCIe, SATA or USB and Analog function like Analog to Digital Converter (ADC) or Digital to Analog Converter (DAC), you have discovered, like I did a couple of years ago, that these Analog functions may be the key… Read More


Mobile SoC will benefit now from M-PCIe

Mobile SoC will benefit now from M-PCIe
by Eric Esteve on 08-27-2013 at 10:12 am

We have already discussed the recently released M-PCIe ECN from PCI-SIG in Semiwiki at the end of 2012, but the new “standard” (in fact an Engineering Change from PCI-SIG and MIPI Alliance) was only real on paper, at that time. The upcoming webinar from Synopsys, M-PCIe: Utilizing Low-Power PCI Express in Mobile Designs, shows … Read More


How to Benchmark a Processor

How to Benchmark a Processor
by Paul McLellan on 08-15-2013 at 2:11 am

How do you benchmark a processor? It seems like it should be easy, just run some code and see how fast it is. Traditionally processors were indeed benchmarked by raw performance like GMACS, GFLOPS, memory bandwidth and so on. But in today’s world where systems have become very complex and applications very compute intensive, the… Read More


Pre-verified, Integrated Sensor IP Subsystem?

Pre-verified, Integrated Sensor IP Subsystem?
by Eric Esteve on 07-31-2013 at 11:16 am

Last year, I said that the launch of ARC based complete sound system IP by Synopsys ring the bell for the opening of a new IP market segment, the “Subsystem IP”. This week, Synopsys has announced the availability of the DesignWare® Sensor IP Subsystem, a complete and integrated hardware and software solution for sensor control applications.… Read More


♫ IMG Sitting on the DOK of the Bay…Closin’ Timin’

♫ IMG Sitting on the DOK of the Bay…Closin’ Timin’
by Paul McLellan on 07-24-2013 at 7:00 am

Scott Fitzgerald is supposed to have said “the rich are not like other people” to Ernest Hemingway (he didn’t). In the same way, processors are not like other blocks, and not because they have more gates (they don’t). However, special approaches to optimizing processors are important because the clock… Read More


Debugging Verification Constraints

Debugging Verification Constraints
by Paul McLellan on 07-23-2013 at 3:44 pm

In his DAC keynote last year (2012) Mike Mueller of ARM compared how much CPU was required to verify the first ARM versus one of the latest ARM Cortex CPUs. Of course the newer CPU is hundreds of times larger than the first ARM but the amount of verification required was millions of times as much, requiring ARM to construct their own datacenter… Read More


Can we really find a way to speed-up Processor & DSP core designs?

Can we really find a way to speed-up Processor & DSP core designs?
by Eric Esteve on 06-21-2013 at 9:05 am

Once upon a time, ASIC designers involved in Processor design, like I was, for the first time in 1987 for Thomson CSF and again in 1994 for Texas Instruments, at that time supporting height (8) ASIC designed by another French company, the Advanced Computer Research Institute (ACRI), had to re-invent the wheel almost every day. When… Read More


Are you going to the plug fest?

Are you going to the plug fest?
by Eric Esteve on 05-17-2013 at 10:16 am

PCI Express 3.0 specification is 1000 pages long. Most of us, and most of the designers integrating PCIe gen-3 into their latest ASIC, FPGA or system will probably never read it completely, or even open it. In fact, they don’t need to read it completely, but they should care about one point, whether they buy an ASSP or a PCIe design IP:… Read More