SILVACO 051525 Webinar 800x100 v2

Low power physical design in the age of FinFETs

Low power physical design in the age of FinFETs
by Beth Martin on 09-30-2016 at 7:00 am

Low power is now a goal for most digital circuit designs. This is to reduce costs for packaging, cooling, and electricity; to increase battery life; and to improve performance without overheating. I talked to the experts on physical design for ultra-low power at Mentor Graphics recently about the challenges to P&R tools and… Read More


Cadence DSPs float for efficiency in complex apps

Cadence DSPs float for efficiency in complex apps
by Don Dingee on 09-29-2016 at 4:00 pm

Floating-point computation has been a staple of mainframe, minicomputer, supercomputer, workstation, and PC platforms for decades. Almost all modern microprocessor IP supports the IEEE 754 floating-point standard. Embedded design, for reasons of power and area and thereby cost, often eschews floating-point hardware… Read More


16nm HBM Implementation Presentation Highlights CoWoS During TSMC’s OIP

16nm HBM Implementation Presentation Highlights CoWoS During TSMC’s OIP
by Tom Simon on 09-29-2016 at 12:00 pm

Once a year, during the TSMC’s Open Innovation Platform (OIP) Forum you can expect to see cutting edge technical achievements by TSMC and their partners. This year was no exception, with Open-Silicon presenting its accomplishments in implementing an HBM reference design in 16nm. It’s well understood that HBM offers huge benefits… Read More


Power Exploration at RTL Design with Mentor PowerPro

Power Exploration at RTL Design with Mentor PowerPro
by Bernard Murphy on 09-29-2016 at 7:00 am

There was a comment recently that design for low power is not an event, it’s a process; that comment is absolutely correct. Power is affected by everything in the electronic ecosystem, from application software all the way down to layout and process choices. Yet power as a metric is much more challenging to model and control than … Read More


It’s a heterogeneous world and cache rules it now

It’s a heterogeneous world and cache rules it now
by Don Dingee on 09-28-2016 at 4:00 pm

Cache evolved when the world was all about homogeneous processing and slow and expensive shared memory. Now, compute is just part of the problem – devices need to handle display, connectivity, storage, and other tasks, all at the same time. Different, heterogeneous cores handle different workflows in the modern SoC, and the burden… Read More


Intel Foundry Rounds Out IP Lineup With ARM at IDF 2016

Intel Foundry Rounds Out IP Lineup With ARM at IDF 2016
by Patrick Moorhead on 09-28-2016 at 12:00 pm

There are always debates on who does what best in the semiconductor industry, but most agree that Intel is the best in process and transistor technology. This leadership has served the company extremely well over the last few decades and allowed them to reach a position of dominance in the PC and server semiconductor markets. In … Read More


What Will Kill ROP Cyberattacks?

What Will Kill ROP Cyberattacks?
by Matthew Rosenquist on 09-28-2016 at 10:00 am

IBM recently announced a software-oriented solution to help eradicate Return Oriented Programming (ROP) malware attacks. ROP is a significant and growing problem in the industry. Crafty hackers will use snippets of code from other trusted programs and stitch it together to create their attacks. It has become a very popular… Read More


The Privacy Delusion

The Privacy Delusion
by Roger C. Lanctot on 09-28-2016 at 7:00 am

Why do we think we have privacy in our cars? Why does the government believe there is an interest in preserving privacy in cars? Can we just get over it? One of the least private places known to mankind – outside of the Internet – is the car!

But our transportation regulators in the U.S. and their counterparts at the European Commission… Read More


Synopsys Hosting Formal Methods in CAD Conference Next Week

Synopsys Hosting Formal Methods in CAD Conference Next Week
by Bernard Murphy on 09-27-2016 at 8:00 pm

SynopsysB

FMCAD (Formal Methods in Computer Aided Design) is a technical conference with a 20-year pedigree. This is a conference for serious formal methods teams. Key notes are from Berkeley and UCLA, committee members are all formal heavyweights and best I can tell, there is no exhibitors area.… Read More


Making photonic design more straightforward

Making photonic design more straightforward
by Don Dingee on 09-27-2016 at 4:00 pm

The arrival of optical computing has been predicted every year for the last fifteen years. As with any other technology backed by prolific research, lofty goals get dialed back as problems are identified. What emerges first is a set of use cases where the technology fits with practical, realizable implementations.

When it comes… Read More