How much power does a system consume? The simplistic path to power estimation for a system used to be tossing a few metrics – standby, typical, worst case, with figures pulled from a datasheet, simulation, or physical measurement – into a spreadsheet. After filling the remaining holes with SWAG (scientific wild-ass guesses), … Read More
My former co-worker, Kenneth Bakalar at Mentor Graphics is an expert in AMS modeling languages and UPFmethodology, so he recently teamed up with Eric Jeandeau to author an interesting white paper: Interpreting UPF for a Mixed-Signal Design Under Test. This white paper is based on a presentation made at DVCon earlier this year.… Read More
SoCs face a lot of issues related to security and the Network-on-Chip (NoC) is in a good position to facilitate system-wide services. SoCs are now so complex that one of the challenges is to make sure that the chip does what it is meant to do and doesn’t do what it isn’t meant to do. Just as in software, security used to be … Read More
With all the focus in design on SoCs in the latest sexy process (Hi-K Metal Gate! FinFETs!) it is easy to forget all the other chips that go into a system. When we say “system on a chip” there are actually very few systems that really get everything onto a single chip. One of the big areas that usually cannot go on the latest… Read More
The tech standards cycle almost always goes like this: Problems or limits develop with the existing way of doing things. Innovators attempt to engineer solutions, usually many of them. Chaos ensues when customers figure out nothing new works with anything else. Competitors sit down and agree on a specification where things work… Read More
With worldwide annual media tablet shipments forecast changing –growing- almost every quarter, the latest from ABI research calling for shipment to approach 100 million units in 2012 and passing 150 million in 2014, with the same kind of forecast for smartphone passing 400 million units this year (438 million) and approaching… Read More
Power has become the strongest driver of semiconductor design today, more important than area, more important than timing. Whether the device is handheld, like a wireless phone, or tethered, like a router, complex power and energy requirements must be met. Shrinking geometries continue to impose new challenges as power management… Read More
