It’s very common these days to hear about a billion gates SoC, but not without a huge design and verification effort and investment of resources. A complete verification of such an SoC needs several verification steps including software and hardware based methodologies that often are not sufficient to cover the whole SoC. In order… Read More
Sophisticated soundscapes usher in cache-coherent multicore DSPDigital audio processing is evolving into an art…Read More
A Quick Look at Agentic/Generative AI in Software EngineeringAgentic methods are hot right now since single…Read More
Improve Precision of Parasitic Extraction for Digital DesignsBy Mark Tawfik Parasitic extraction is essential in…Read More
Perforce at DAC, Unifying Software and Silicon Across the EcosystemAs the new name reflects, chip and system…Read More
Double SoC prototyping performance with S2C’s VP1902-based S8-100As AI, HPC, and networking applications demand ever-higher…Read More
How Good Is Your Library? Are You Sure?
One task that is not very exciting but is critical is that of library quality assurance. Many design groups have created their own procedures, often having been burned in the past, to ensure that the libraries that they use are good. Failure to do so has resulted in:… Read More
How to design silicon photonics–take this class!
Silicon Photonics is the hottest prospect for blazing fast communication between chips in servers, data centers, and supercomputers.
By using light instead of electrical signals, it promise to usher in a new standard of high performance, low power devices while extending the use of more mature process nodes, helping to reduce… Read More
CEVA DSPs and the Tale of Two Chip Underdogs from China
Leadcore Technology Co. Ltd, a subsidiary of Datang Group, is a silicon success story from China. It recently made waves by snatching the baseband socket from Qualcomm in Xiaomi’s sub-$100 LTE smartphone Redmi 2A. Leadcore’s L1860C chipset included quad-core 1.5GHz CPU and Mali-T628MP2 GPU from ARM and LTE modem… Read More
How Good is Your DRC Deck?
Design Rule Check (DRC) is the #1 foundry sign-off check. Fabless companies receive the DRC deck from the foundry; it’s a file comprising thousands of commands in a proprietary checker language for a specific DRC tool. In advanced technologies such a deck executes tens of thousands of geometric operations on the physical… Read More
Accelerate Modern PCB Design and Manufacturing
In modern electronic industry PCBs are required to accommodate highly dense circuits with large number of components and complex routing spaces. While the complexity is increasing, the time-to-market is decreasing. In such a scenario, there is no other option than to reduce the design time by employing innovative editing options… Read More
How to Push Mobile to Use PCI Express?
By offering low-power PCI Express PHY solution for mobile application! To make it clear, we are not talking about Mobile Express (M-PCIe), but clearly about PCI Express protocol, including a PCIe Controller and a PCIe PHY. Initially developed to support internal connection between the CPU and the GPU in a PC, the technology has… Read More
eSilicon Lyfts Its Game
We have got used to services like Uber and Lyft (at least in cities that are not so anti-consumer as to ban them, I’m looking at you New York. Et vous Paris). But in most of the semiconductor world we are still stuck standing at the side of the road waving our hand helplessly in the hope that the light on that taxi is actually on. Leading… Read More
Samsung Foundry Debuts 10nm Wafer!
The Samsung Smart, Connected Lifestyle event was last night at the Bently Reserve in San Francisco. Getting into San Francisco was no picnic with all of the roadwork and new building construction. We even saw people drive up on the sidewalk to get around car clogs. It really was crazy but definitely worth it after seeing the first … Read More
Flash Automobiles
Building flash memory for automotive is not straightforward. Just look at the specs you have to meet for grade 1 qualification:
- 100,000 cycles of endurance (writing new values)
- 10 years data retention
- all at 125°C (also needs to work down to -40°C)
GlobalFoundries have been working with Silicon Storage Technology (which is a wholly-owned… Read More
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