Who will provide data center Soc of the future, Intel or Qualcomm ?

Who will provide data center Soc of the future, Intel or Qualcomm ?
by Eric Esteve on 03-29-2016 at 4:00 pm

Intel has been incredibly successful by designing high performance server SoC to address the data center market segment, and the chance to see the company loosing large market share is pretty low, at least in the short term. Now, if we look at the really long term, 2030 or even 2040, like did the Semiconductor Industry Association… Read More


A Brief History of Defacto Technologies

A Brief History of Defacto Technologies
by Pawan Fangaria on 03-04-2016 at 7:00 am

In early 2000s, semiconductor design at RTL level was gaining momentum. The idea was to process more design steps such as insertion of test and other design structures upfront at the RTL level. The design optimization and verification were to be done at the RTL level to reduce long iterations through gate level design because changes… Read More


5 Verification Challenges of IoT Solved by Emulation

5 Verification Challenges of IoT Solved by Emulation
by Pawan Fangaria on 12-09-2015 at 4:00 pm

Software-centric Emulation environment takes the forefront in modern SoC verification. As more and more devices are IoT enabled, the SoCs have to make special provisions to factor many things including communication, power usage, and network switching, and so on. Also, the demand for an SoC (specifically for smartphone which… Read More


How to Gain Low-Power at High-Performance

How to Gain Low-Power at High-Performance
by Pawan Fangaria on 11-28-2015 at 12:00 pm

In a world of smart devices, high performance is required in order to address several specific needs such as intelligent and immediate data processing for IoT applications, instant response from mobile devices, highly interactive user interfaces, and so on. Most of these devices are battery operated and hence require lower … Read More


28nm FD-SOI: A Unique Sweet Spot Poised to Grow

28nm FD-SOI: A Unique Sweet Spot Poised to Grow
by Pawan Fangaria on 11-11-2015 at 12:00 pm

I have been silently watching STMicroelectronics pursuing FD-SOI technology since quite a few years. FinFET was anyway getting more attention in the semiconductor industry because of several factors involved. But from a technology as well as economic perspective there are many plus points with FD-SOI. I remember my debate,… Read More


Together At Last—Combining Netlist and Layout Data for Power-Aware Verification

Together At Last—Combining Netlist and Layout Data for Power-Aware Verification
by Beth Martin on 09-25-2015 at 12:00 pm

The market demanded that gadgets it loves become ever more conscious of their power consumption, and chip designers responded with an array of clever techniques to cut IC power use. Unsurprisingly, these new techniques added to the complexity of IC verification. When you’re verifying a design that has 100+ separate power domains,… Read More


A Complete Simulation Platform for Mobile Systems

A Complete Simulation Platform for Mobile Systems
by Pawan Fangaria on 08-23-2015 at 7:00 am

If we take an insight into the semiconductor industry, we can easily find that mobile systems are the main drivers of this industry. The Smartphone business has remained at the top since a good number of years. Although the Smartphone sales growth has started showing a sign of stagnation, it is still a main contributor with a solid… Read More


Older Nodes Get New Life With Ultra Low Power Variants for IoT

Older Nodes Get New Life With Ultra Low Power Variants for IoT
by Tom Simon on 08-20-2015 at 12:00 pm

Ever since I can remember, and I’ve been in EDA since the early 80’s, new process development has largely focused on the latest nodes. Trailing nodes were quickly put into support mode. New nodes benefited the most from static and dynamic voltage reduction efforts, as well as improvements in flows and performance. Only a small number… Read More


A New Unified Power Solution at All Levels

A New Unified Power Solution at All Levels
by Pawan Fangaria on 08-13-2015 at 7:00 am

When situation demands, multiple solutions appear with a slight lag of time. Similar is the story with estimating and optimizing power at SoC level. In the SoC era, power has become a critical criterion long ago, and there are tools available for power analysis and optimization. However, with more mobile and IoT (Internet of Things)… Read More


Build Low Power IoT Design with Foundation IP at 40nm

Build Low Power IoT Design with Foundation IP at 40nm
by Pawan Fangaria on 07-28-2015 at 12:00 pm

In a power hungry world of semiconductor devices, multiple ways are being devised to budget power from system to transistor level. The success of IoT (Internet of Things) Edge devices specifically depend on lowest power, lowest area, optimal performance, and lowest cost. These devices need to be highly energy efficient for sustained… Read More