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Designing an IDCT for H.265 using High Level Synthesis

Designing an IDCT for H.265 using High Level Synthesis
by Daniel Payne on 07-27-2015 at 8:00 pm

Math geeks know all about Inverse Discrete Cosine Transforms (IDCT) and a popular use is in the hardware architecture of High Efficiency Video Coding (HEVC), also known as H.265, the new video compression standard and widely used in consumer and industrial video devices. You could go about hand-coding RTL to create an IDCT function,… Read More


6 Memory Considerations for IoT Designs Built Around Cortex-M7 MCUs

6 Memory Considerations for IoT Designs Built Around Cortex-M7 MCUs
by Majeed Ahmad on 07-27-2015 at 12:00 pm

Tightly coupled memory (TCM) is a salient feature in the Cortex-M7 microcontrollers as it boosts the MCU performance by offering single cycle access for the CPU and by securing the high-priority latency-critical requests from the peripherals.… Read More


Synopsys’ Andreas Kuehlmann on Software Development

Synopsys’ Andreas Kuehlmann on Software Development
by Paul McLellan on 07-27-2015 at 7:00 am

Andreas Kuehlmann is the general manager of what is officially now known as the Software Integrity Group of Synopsys, what you might think of as Coverity although they have made some acquisitions too, so they now have a broader technology base. I sat down to talk to him last week.

He was brought up in Germany and came to the US in 1991 … Read More


Power Analysis Needs Shift in Methodology

Power Analysis Needs Shift in Methodology
by Pawan Fangaria on 07-26-2015 at 7:00 am

It’s been the case most of the time that until we hit a bottleneck situation, we do not realize that our focus is not at the right spot. Similar is the case with power analysis at the SoC level. Power has become equally if not more important than the functionality and other parameters of an SoC, and therefore has to be verified earlier … Read More


A Candid Conversation with the GlobalFoundries CEO!

A Candid Conversation with the GlobalFoundries CEO!
by Daniel Nenni on 07-25-2015 at 8:00 pm

I did not know Dr. Sanjay Jha prior to this meeting but I certainly knew of him from his time at Qualcomm. It seemed a bit odd for me to fly to Dresden to meet a man that is based here in Silicon Valley but that made the meeting all that more interesting. Especially after finding out the German Chancellor Angela Merkel would also be visiting… Read More


Device Noise Analysis, What Not to Do for AMS IC Designs

Device Noise Analysis, What Not to Do for AMS IC Designs
by Daniel Payne on 07-24-2015 at 12:00 pm

AMS IC designers have a lot to think about when crafting transistor-level designs to meet specifications and schedules, so the most-used tool in their kit is the trusted SPICE or FastSPICE circuit simulator to help analyze timing, power, sensitivity and even device noise. I just did a Google search for “device noise analysisRead More


FD-SOI: a Gentle Introduction

FD-SOI: a Gentle Introduction
by Paul McLellan on 07-24-2015 at 7:00 am

Over the last couple of weeks, FD-SOI has been in the news with GlobalFoundries announcement of a 22nm FD-SOI process that will run in the Dresden Fab. Also, earlier in the week I talked to Thomas Skotnicki about the saga (and it is a saga) of how FD-SOI got from his PhD thesis to volume manufacturing and global deployment. But there … Read More


Intel to Skip 10nm to Stay Ahead of TSMC and Samsung?

Intel to Skip 10nm to Stay Ahead of TSMC and Samsung?
by Daniel Nenni on 07-23-2015 at 12:00 pm

Quarterly earning calls are a great source of information but they can also be a source of confusion and generally it is an unhealthy combination of the two. On one hand these earning calls are to appease the financial community. On the other hand, in my opinion, these calls are also used to generate fear, uncertainty, and doubt amongst… Read More


Thomas Skotnicki: FD-SOI 26 Years in the Making

Thomas Skotnicki: FD-SOI 26 Years in the Making
by Paul McLellan on 07-23-2015 at 7:00 am

It seems to be FD-SOI week yet again. I talked to Thomas Skotnicki this morning. He is the father of thin-box FD-SOI and its birth is an interesting story. The story began 26 years ago (so not quite as far back as the photo!).

Thomas is of Polish origins (he is actually Tomeczek) and grew up in Warsaw where he earned his PhD. In 1983 in Canterbury,… Read More


Taking prototyping beyond prototypes

Taking prototyping beyond prototypes
by Don Dingee on 07-22-2015 at 12:00 pm

Everyone has heard the expression, “Half the job is having the right tool.” In the case of FPGA-based prototyping, however, the right tool for the job is only the beginning. What teams really need to think through is what exactly should be done with an FPGA-based prototyping tool?

The obvious answer is prototyping an SoC, pre-silicon.… Read More