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ARM big.LITTLE Virtual Platforms

ARM big.LITTLE Virtual Platforms
by Paul McLellan on 04-03-2012 at 7:11 pm

You have probably heard something about ARM’s big.LITTLE architecture. This links a Cortex-A15 multi-core CPU with a Cortex-A7 CPU. The A15 is a high-performance processor and the A7 is a very low power processor. The basic idea is that when high-performance is required (playing a graphical video game on your smartphone,… Read More


Conquering the Big Data Challenges

Conquering the Big Data Challenges
by Beth Martin on 04-02-2012 at 4:38 pm

Extrapolating the trends from last 20 years to the next ten suggests that we will be implementing a trillion transistors or more by 2020. At 20nm, with the chip sizes touching billions of transistors, the age old problem of how to implement a design in the most efficient manner remains unanswered. … Read More


EDA on the iPad

EDA on the iPad
by Daniel Payne on 04-02-2012 at 1:16 pm

ss ipad

I started a forum discussion about running Schematic Capture and SPICE on an iPad back in January, since then I bought an iPad 3rd generation and tried out that app.

It was easy to visit the App store, find the Spicy Schematic Capture app, download and start learning how to use their schematic and SPICE circuit simulator.… Read More


DAC 2012 Technical Program Highlights

DAC 2012 Technical Program Highlights
by Daniel Nenni on 04-01-2012 at 11:00 pm

The technical program for DAC 2012 has an exceptional quality of technical papers, panels, special sessions, WACI (Wild and Crazy Ideas), WIP (Work In Progress), full day tutorials and user-track. The program is tailored for researchers and developers focused on electronic design automation (EDA) and embedded systems and … Read More


Intel will NOT build ARM chips!

Intel will NOT build ARM chips!
by Daniel Nenni on 04-01-2012 at 6:00 pm

As I mentioned in my previous blog “NVIDIA Claims TSMC 20nm will not Scale?” Jen-Hsun Huang is a very entertaining guy. I always listen to the NVIDIA conference calls because you never know what he will say next. Clearly he is a smart guy so you have to ask yourself why all the rhetoric?

In the Forbes article NVIDIA: Intel should let usRead More


IC Layout Design at Qualcomm

IC Layout Design at Qualcomm
by Daniel Payne on 03-31-2012 at 6:54 pm

I first met Betty Pokerwinski of Qualcomm at LinkedIn in the group called IC Layout Designers. I post frequently on LinkedIn and a blog article on an EDA tool called Visual Design Diff from ClioSoft created quite a discussion, enough so that I contacted Betty to learn more about her IC layout group at Qualcomm.

Questions and AnswersRead More


Apple’s 4G Field of Dreams Build Out

Apple’s 4G Field of Dreams Build Out
by Ed McKernan on 03-30-2012 at 9:00 am

As Apple begins to flood the market with a full line of mobile devices sporting 4G LTE communications capability, starting with the iPAD and soon to follow with Ivy Bridge based MAC Book Pros and then in the Fall with iPhone 5s, one has to ask will the carriers be able to keep pace in order for customers to have a satisfied user experience.… Read More


Synopsys Users Group Silicon Valley 2012 Keynote: ARM

Synopsys Users Group Silicon Valley 2012 Keynote: ARM
by Daniel Nenni on 03-28-2012 at 12:49 pm


Keynote #2 at SNUG 2012 was John Cornish, VP Marketing at ARM. Why they sent a marketing person to speak in front of 2,000+ engineers I do not know. To top that, next time they should send a sales person and do a real dog and pony show. To find out more about John I checked his LinkedIn profile which was bare. So enough about John, lets hit … Read More