They say what adds value is to take something difficult and make it look simple. USB looks so simple when it is done right, but designers know it can be one of the more tempermental features in an SoC, especially in the latest SuperSpeed incarnation.… Read More
At the annual Linley Processor Conference this past week a number of chip vendors proposed a raft of new networking solutions directed at solving today’s bandwidth issues. Perhaps the overall highlight of the conference was the recognition by Keynote Speaker Linley Gwennap of the shift that is taking place towards ARM based solutions.… Read More
In a discussion with one of my PR network recently, I found myself thinking out loud that if the merchant SoC market is getting squeezed hard, that validates something I’ve been thinking – the merchant CPU board market is dying from the middle out.… Read More
With an estimated 7 billion connected devices, the demand for rich content, including video, games, and mobile apps is skyrocketing. Service providers around the globe are scrambling to transform their networks to satisfy the overwhelming demand for content bandwidth. Over the next few years, they will be looking to network… Read More
Daniel Payne recently blogged some of the integration challenges facing Synopsys with their impending acquisition of SpringSoft. On my way back from San Diego last week I stopped by Tanner EDA to discuss an alternative tool flow for users who find themselves concerned about the Laker Custom Layout road map.
Design of the analog… Read More
Interesting to note; our cell phones today have more computing power than NASA had for the first landing on the moon. The insides of these mobile devices that we can’t live without are not like personal computers or even laptops with a traditional CPU (central processing unit) and a dozen other support chips. The brain, heart, and… Read More
There was a day, not too long ago, when a software developer could be intimate with a processor through understanding its register set. Before coding, developers would reach for a manual, digging through pages and pages of 1s and 0s with defined functions to find how to gain control over the processor and its capability. One bit set… Read More
In the embedded world that drives much of today’s ASIC innovation, there is no bigger name than ARM. Not to enter the ARM vs. Intel fray, but it’s no exaggeration to say that ARM’s impact on SoCs is as great as Intel’s on the PC. Few cutting edge SoCs are coming to market that do not include some sort of embedded… Read More
One of the truisms of today’s disaggregated semiconductor design and manufacturing model is counter-intuitive to the do-it-yourself focus that is at the heart of every engineer. And yet, time and time again, success rewards those who understand that with today’s ever increasing complexity, it is difficult, if… Read More
Remember the processor-memory gap— a situation where the processor is forced to stall while waiting for a memory operation to complete? This was largely a result of the high latency required for off chip memory accesses. Haven’t we solved that problem now with SoCs? SoCs are typically architected with their processors … Read More
