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What Makes Us Indecisive?

What Makes Us Indecisive?
by Sunit Rikhi on 11-06-2015 at 7:00 am

An indecision is actually a very bad decision. It is an implicit decision for the status quo. It is worse than an explicit decision regardless of how bad that decision turns out to be. In my experience, our indecisiveness is caused by various reasons involving trade-offs.… Read More


Moore’s Law Linear Approximation and Mathematical Analysis!

Moore’s Law Linear Approximation and Mathematical Analysis!
by Vaibbhav Taraate on 11-05-2015 at 4:00 pm

Respected Gordon Moore has given the real computing power to the world and Respected Stephen Hawking’s work from past many years has given the reality of physics and mathematics to the universe. We can imagine the shrinking and intelligence in computing due to the real evolution of semiconductor technology. The processRead More


The Revenge of Microprocessor Design: The Return of the Macro

The Revenge of Microprocessor Design: The Return of the Macro
by Bernard Murphy on 11-05-2015 at 12:00 pm

(Two Star Wars™ allusions in one title – eat your heart out George Lucas.) Most of us are comfortable with the idea that you design more or less whatever you want in RTL and let the synthesis tool pick logic gates to implement that functionality. Sure it may need a little guidance here and there but otherwise synthesis is more or less … Read More


China Further Expands Its Influence in Semiconductor Industry

China Further Expands Its Influence in Semiconductor Industry
by Raman Chitkara on 11-05-2015 at 7:00 am

For the fourth consecutive year, China’s semiconductor consumption growth far exceeded worldwide market growth. At the end of 2014, the country had a record 56.6% of the global semiconductor consumption market.

China’s semiconductor consumption grew by 12.6% in 2014, exceeding the worldwide chip market growth of 9.8%. To … Read More


Moore’s Law and Silicon Forest

Moore’s Law and Silicon Forest
by Daniel Payne on 11-04-2015 at 4:00 pm

When I first moved to Oregon in 1978 the largest industry was forestry, but then the endangered Spotted Owl was found and that put an end to many forestry companies and decimated the economy of many rural cities. Strangely enough it turns out that the Spotted Owl was found in great numbers across multiple states, so it never should’ve… Read More


Why Gemini 2.0 is tailored for tomorrow’ SoC designs?

Why Gemini 2.0 is tailored for tomorrow’ SoC designs?
by Eric Esteve on 11-04-2015 at 7:00 am

You probably have seen many times this graphic showing that the number of IP blocks has exploded, going from a few dozens in SoC designed in 65 nm to 120 if not more for last generation SoC targeting 16FF or 10FF. This graphic is very good at synthesizing the raw IP count, but it doesn’t tell you about another strong trend: more agents … Read More


Pushing on AXI-connected IP in FPGAs

Pushing on AXI-connected IP in FPGAs
by Don Dingee on 11-03-2015 at 12:00 pm

Success stories are great. Reading how someone uses a product contributes much more insight than reading about a product. Last month we had a teaser for a presentation by Wave Semiconductor; this month, we have the slides showing how they are using FPGA-based prototyping, AXI transactions, and DPI to speed up development.

First,… Read More


Perfecting the Great Verification Fugue

Perfecting the Great Verification Fugue
by Bernard Murphy on 11-03-2015 at 7:00 am

Michael Sanie (Senior Director Marketing in the Synopsys Verification Group) gave the wrap-up presentation at SpyGlass World recently, on the Synopsys Verification Direction. I learned from an interview Michael gave to Paul McLellan that he is an accomplished pianist. I’m a pianist also, though of considerably less talent,… Read More


Implications of LTE in the 5 GHz Band

Implications of LTE in the 5 GHz Band
by Maury Wood on 11-02-2015 at 4:00 pm

Back in December 2013, during a 3GPP Radio Access Network (RAN) plenary meeting, Ericsson and Qualcomm introduced LTE-Unlicensed, a scheme that puts LTE-Advanced signals in the 5 GHz unlicensed UNII band, in conjunction with an LTE “anchor” signal in a licensed band. The objective is supplemental downlink bandwidth… Read More