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MIPI DevCon 2016: Opened to non-MIPI Members!

MIPI DevCon 2016: Opened to non-MIPI Members!
by Eric Esteve on 08-08-2016 at 7:00 am
Categories: Automotive, IoT, Mobile

The MIPI Alliance was founded in 2003 by large IDM to standardize chip-to-chip interfaces in the wireless phone (mobile) segment. The various MIPI specifications (CSI, DSI, DigRF and many more) have been adopted by the application processor chip makers (usually large IDM or fabless, like Intel or Qualcomm initially and many more joining from Asia like MediaTek, Spreadtrum or HiSilicon to only name a few). As important was the adoption from the companies developing peripheral IC like camera sensor, display controller or RF IC as most of these MIPI specifications are functional: CSI stands for Camera specification interface, DSI for Display and so on. Until 2010, not only the MIPI technology was exclusively used in mobile, but there was no demand coming from other, non-mobile, segments and consequently no strategy from the Alliance to push for MIPI usage beyond mobile.

During the last couple of years, MIPI as a low power/low EMI technology has generated high interest in other segments, automotive, wearable, medical and industrial or IoT. That’s why the MIPI Alliance has decided to open and promote the Developers Conference, and that’s good news for the semiconductor industry, for several reasons reviewed in this paper.


If you try to evaluate how many IC including at least one MIPI interface are produced every year to support smartphone manufacturing and you quickly come to several billions. Taking as an example a MIPI powered camera sensor IC (or a display controller IC), every year 100’s of million if not billion of these chips are shipped to the mobile manufacturers. One empirical, but validated economic law states that the higher the production volume, the lower the chip cost. Keeping the sensor IC example, it’s a production proven chip, equipped with a standard based, low power, low EMI interface (MIPI CSI) which can be available for any other application, like for example to interface with an image recognition processor in the automotive segment. Thanks to the huge production volume in the mobile industry, MIPI powered IC have reached an optimized, low production cost, benefiting to any kind of application.

Because MIPI CSI is standardized, the chip maker developing this specific processor can decide to outsource the interface function, buying an IP to a vendor like Synopsys, Cadence or Mixel, avoiding assigning resources to internally develop the function if he is not familiar enough with the technology. If you take a look at the MIPI DevCon agenda, you will notice that all the above listed IP vendors are giving one or more presentation, illustrating the strength of the ecosystem around MIPI. This ecosystem is active for years and includes test equipment manufacturers, Verification IP (VIP) and EDA vendors, foundries, etc. If a chip maker addressing non-mobile segment decides to integrate certain MIPI interface as an IP, he can rely on a dynamic ecosystem.


According with Peter Lefkin, managing director at the MIPI Alliance, this 2016 MIPI DevCon to be held on September 14, 15 in Mountain View, at the hearth of the Silicon Valley, is intended to “learn how MIPI technology is facilitating new capabilities within mobile while at the same time being extended to other markets, such as IoT, automotive, wearables, industrial and augmented/virtual reality”. Let’s take a look at the four tracks:

 

  • Implementations and Use Cases for Beyond Mobile
  • MIPI I3C: Introduction and Impact on Cameras and Other Sensors
  • Verification and Debug
  • Camera and Display – Prototyping, Bridging and Compression

In the first track, some presentations from Mixel, Synopsys or Intel will directly address applications in automotive or IoT, illustrated by use cases. MIPI adoption is segments beyond mobile is real, especially in automotive. If you try to figure out the electronic architecture of the 2025 car, there will be numerous displays (not only for entertainment but also on the dashboard) and numerous cameras. Some cameras will certainly be used for ADAS, but it’s likely that the rear-view mirror will be replaced by electronic systems. In all cases, it will be possible to integrate a MIPI Serial Interface, like Display Serial Interface (DSI), Camera Serial Interface (CSI) or the I3C sensor dedicated interface, whose specification has just been released at the beginning of August 2016.

Some MIPI members, chip makers and IP vendors, have already developed solutions to support I3C, the second track will be dedicated to I3C and its impact on cameras and other sensors. There will be presentations from Intel, Cadence Design Systems, Qualcomm, Synopsys, Lattice Semiconductor or Microsemi. That is, two of the top three chip makers, the top two interface IP vendors and two FPGA vendors who have decided to invest into MIPI technology and who are able to offer low cost/low power FPGA solutions. Did we say ecosystem in this paper? Here is a good example of the I3C specification ecosystem!

The best standard organization, generating very smart and complexes specifications, would never be successful if these specifications never reach production and consumer adoption. That’s why the last two tracks are so important. The third track addresses verification and debug, with papers dealing from verification of mobile SoC designs to system SW development or UFS card certification test. The presentations given in the fourth track are dealing with product development and prototyping, focused on the two functional specifications enjoying the largest adoption rate (see the above picture), Camera and Display.

That’s the first time that the MIPI Alliance organize a development conference widely opened to the electronic industry (including the non-MIPI members) in the Silicon Valley and this will be the opportunity for system architects, engineers, designers, test engineers, engineering managers, and business and marketing executives working in various segments and not only the mobile segment to learn about the MIPI technology and the various MIPI specifications. No doubt that some of them working in emergent markets will realize that integrating certain MIPI interfaces in their system could be a wise decision.

From Eric Esteve from IPNEST

WHAT:MIPI DevCon: Moving Mobile Forward, the Alliance’s first annual developers conference

WHEN & WHERE:Sept. 14-15, 2016, at the Computer History Museum in Mountain View, Calif.

WHO:The conference agenda is designed for system architects, engineers, designers, test engineers, engineering managers, and business and marketing executives. Members of the media and industry analysts are invited to attend with complimentary registration.

WHY:MIPI Alliance technology is driving new capabilities within mobile and impacting markets, such as the Internet of Things (IoT), automotive, wearables, industrial, and augmented/virtual reality. MIPI DevCon 2016 will provide the latest information on MIPI specifications for implementation in mobile and other emergent markets.

TO REGISTER:Find more details and registration links at mipi.org/devcon including a $49 “early bird” registration fee available until Aug. 19.

PROGRAM DETAILS:The MIPI DevCon 2016 agenda features expert commentary and presentations from MIPI members representing the industry’s top companies working in mobile, IoT, automotive and other fast-growth industries.

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Car Sharing Contradictions

Car Sharing Contradictions
by Roger C. Lanctot on 08-07-2016 at 8:00 pm
Categories: Automotive

  • Automotive News tells us that GM’s Julia Steyn, head of Maven, is thrilled with the early performance of this captive car sharing initiative, in comments yesterday in Traverse City, Mich.
  • Tesla Motor’s Elon Musk anticipates limitless demand resulting from car sharing and automated driving, speaking on the company’s Q2 earnings call yesterday.
  • Morgan Stanley foresees car sharing heralding the arrival of peak auto sales, in a report released earlier this year.


The Center for Automotive Research released its own study estimating that the proliferation of car sharing services – expected to grow to 51,000 vehicles and 3.8M users by 2021 – will result in a reduction of 12,700 new and used vehicle sales a year in the U.S. through 2021.

http://tinyurl.com/j298v3b – Study Deems Ride Hailing a Non-threat to U.S. Auto Industry So what is really happening and what is going to happen?

Attendees at the Center for Automotive Research’s Management Briefing Seminar in Traverse City and certainly executives throughout the automotive industry breathed a collective sigh of relief when revised U.S. July sales numbers reported Wednesday hit 1.52M for a 0.5% year-over-year increase and a seasonally adjusted annualized sales rate of 17.86 in the U.S., the highest SAAR of 2016, according to Automotive News.

The news of this latest albeit marginal sales gain was reassuring to many but comes against a backdrop of rising average vehicle prices (up 2.5% this year to $34.264, according to Kelly Blue Book) and increasing vehicle loan and lease terms, though forecasted delinquencies (10%) are well below the peak (13%) during the downturn. Skepticism is growing that the auto industry, at least in the U.S., can extend its growth beyond current record levels and, more likely, is headed for one of its cyclical downturns.

Ford Motor Company CEO Mark Fields pointed to car sharing and ride hailing as contributing to future demand as vehicle utilization increases. AN quoted GM’s Steyn echoing Field’s optimism as she described the growth of Maven’s fleet to 3,500 cars in New York, Chicago, Boston, Ann Arbor, Mich., and Washington, DC. She noted that Maven customers have driven more than five million miles and that GM views the business as complementary.

http://tinyurl.com/zpg9bu6 Why GM is Embracing Car Sharing

Car sharing fundamentally hinges on the creation of a network of vehicles. As such, it is best suited to urban settings for the purpose of convenient access to vehicles for vehicle-less urbanites and visitors.

Before launching Maven earlier this year, GM tested the peer-to-peer car sharing waters with its investment in RelayRides, quickly discovering that sharing your car with neighbors, while a potentially lucrative value proposition, did not scale. GM is continuing to explore the P2P approach in Europe, but P2P has clearly been relegated to niche status.

Multiple car companies along with GM including Ford, Daimler, PSA and BMW are now in the ad hoc car sharing business, some offering one-way rentals (BMW, Ford, Daimler), while others require a round trip (GM). The real challenge will come from managing the maintenance of these small fleets – something rental car companies are better equipped to oversee.

In the short-term, car sharing fleets may represent a way to attract new car buyers. While AvisBudget’s ZipCar and Daimler’s Car2Go started out with low-end vehicles, there are indications that these fleets are diversifying. BMW has begun using its i3 and GM has been making a range of larger utility-type vehicles available.

Car sharing fleets may ultimately serve as a means for introducing new cars to potential buyers. So far, though, the services have not been integrated into vehicle sales operations suggesting that this collateral outcome is not currently part of the plan. (A possible exception is advantageous lease terms offered by car makers to Lyft and Uber ride hailing drivers for new cars.)

Perhaps the biggest challenge for car companies entering the space is managing the process of interacting directly with consumers. Car companies have yet to integrate new car dealers into their car sharing programs – which means they are taking on the potentially expensive logistics of fleet management directly – a function which, long-term, has “outsource” written all over it.

In addition to creating ad hoc urban fleets of shared cars, auto makers are setting the stage for car sharing as a feature. Volvo is leading the way, testing a smartphone-based car sharing proposition capable of allowing any Volvo vehicle to be unlocked, started and shared via a smartphone-delivered code.

The final evolutionary stage of transportation-as-a-service arrives in the form of shared driverless cars. The first step on this path is driverless shuttles in defined environments already introduced or contemplated from Singapore and Copenhagen to the National Harbor in Washington, DC, and downtown Las Vegas.

The remaining question is whether a network of shared vehicles complements or supplements the existing non-networked/owned car park. When asked about the impact of the higher vehicle utilization rates associated with car sharing on vehicle production, Tesla Chairman and CEO Elon Musk said, on yesterday’s earnings call:

“Well, I think the demand for autonomous cars will vastly outweigh the production capability. So it’s more in our mind that the global fleet of vehicles is about 2.5 billion roughly and total new vehicle production per year is only about 100 million. So, the fleet is basically turning over every roughly 20, 25 years. So we would have to make some truly enormous number of autonomous vehicles for there to be any land saturation because it will basically be the only car anyone wants to buy.”

Unless of course, you don’t actually buy a shared autonomous vehicle – you only borrow it. Then, maybe, you don’t need quite so many. That is the question behind Morgan Stanley’s view of peak auto demand arriving in just a few short years.

The Morgan Stanley perspective is disturbing and it does seem to ignore rising demand in emerging markets generally and China in particular. So, the makers of cars will have us all believe that car sharing will stimulate demand. CAR will have us believe that car sharing won’t negatively impact demand very much. Morgan Stanley will have us believe that car sharing will cap demand.

These are radically different views that hinge on consumer behavior and the economics of car ownership. Factor in the even higher cost of cars capable of automated driving and a budding market built on borrowed vs. owned transportation begins to emerge.

All of which means the auto industry is in the midst of a high wire act between an evolutionary advance toward ever-safer and ever-more-fuel-efficient and ever-more-expensive cars and a leap to fully automated and shared operation. At its core, shared and automated vehicle access represents a solution to traffic congestion, vehicle emissions, and rising highway fatalities.

The greatest change of all will be behavioral – ie. convincing consumers to share rather than to own. According to Steyn at Maven, consumer reaction has so far been enthusiastic. If she’s right, we all need to take a closer look at those Morgan Stanley figures.

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Establishing Principles for IoT Security

Establishing Principles for IoT Security
by John Moor on 08-07-2016 at 4:00 pm
Categories: IoT, Security

Much has been said about the potential of IoT. So much so, that it is has been featured at the peak of inflated expectations on Gartner’s hype cycle for quite some time. As the hype inevitably subsides, the reality of delivering the benefits of IoT grows, and the initial excitement turns to concern. Challenges around security and privacy have moved beyond technical consideration and are now board room agenda items – get them wrong and it could be the end of the business… really.

Whilst cyber security is well understood amongst computing professionals, the attraction of IoT is drawing interest from new comers from all quarters who are significantly less familiar with contemporary best practices or even the full implications of a breach. Your insecure product may not be the ultimate target but could provide the pivot point for an attack elsewhere in the system.

Cyber security is also moveable feast – what is deemed secure today may not be tomorrow. We can expect more of the same to apply as IoT applications emerge and mature. There is already a growing number of new-to-security practitioners who are just starting to realise the scale of threat that adding connectivity to their product brings. Introducing security vulnerabilities into a network can create unintended consequences for anybody connected to it and therefore anybody looking to connect has a duty of care towards others. Whilst ultimate security will likely remain elusive, we have to do all we can to add depth in our defences and make it ever harder for adversaries to succeed in their nefarious endeavours.

On that front there is good news; the underlying principles that inform good security practices are well established and quite stable. With a necessary “start at the beginning and successively raise the bar” mentality, the Internet of Things Security Foundation (IoTSF) has set about bringing a focus to holistic matters of IoT security. We invited executive board member and mobile security expert, Professor David Rogers, to edit a security principles primer and it is now downloadable from the IoTSF website – or, if you’d like a physical copy, they’re available too.

Whether you are a technology provider, a technology adopter or a technology user, we hope the primer stimulates thinking on how you can exercise care and extend a duty of care to others. We also hope that you’ll engage with IoTSF, as a stakeholder or perhaps as a member, and help us achieve our mission of making it safe to connect.

I’d like to thank Professor Rogers for editing the publication. I’d also like to thank our founder members and the Executive Steering Board who are leading the way and working together to address security in the era of IoT.

Click here to download the Establishing Principles for Internet of Things Security primer.

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Fabless Photonics Gets a Boost with Aurrion Acquistion by Juniper Networks

Fabless Photonics Gets a Boost with Aurrion Acquistion by Juniper Networks
by Mitch Heins on 08-07-2016 at 12:00 pm
Categories: Silicon Photonics

It was announced this week that Juniper Networks is acquiring integrated photonics fabless supplier Aurrion for an undisclosed amount. Aurrion was founded in 2008 by Dr. Alexander Fang of ex Intel and IBM fame and specializes in Indium Phosphide (InP) based transceivers for long-haul communications.

The twist that made Aurrion’s offering interesting to Juniper Networks is that rather than just developing monolithic InP solutions, Aurrion is using a bonding step to add InP to siliconphotonics at the wafer scale. InP is typically required for active devices such as laser light sources, optical amplifiers, fast modulators and photo detectors. These devices are difficult to make in regular silicon processes due to Si’s indirect band gap. Instead Aurrion is bonding the InP to the Si in the form of small InP chiplets that can be used tocreate the active devices and integrate them with the rest of the lower cost silicon-based photonics.The example shown here is a III-V optical amplifier with silicon on an SOI PIC. The top section shows metalcontacts (yellow) applying a current across the III-V quantum well (red) to generate an optical emission (white area inthe center of the red). The bottom half of the figure shows a tapered mode converter that couples light between the III-V hybrid waveguide and the silicon waveguide below it. The end goal is to reduce cost through the integration of the InP optical amplifier onto the silicon based PIC die.

Pradeep Sindhu, CEO of Juniper, welcomed Aurrion into the fold in one of his blogs on August 2[SUP]nd[/SUP] where he claimed that the optoelectronic portion of state-of-the-art switches now represents more than half of the cost of the switch. Juniper is acquiring Aurrion with the hopes that they will be able to drive these costs down through integration with silicon. He goes on to expound that the real problem is the explosive growth of video streaming, social networking and data center to data center traffic driving a need for every greater bandwidth density at ever decreasing costs and increasing flexibility. To that end, earlier in the year Juniper acquired BTI Systems, who specializes in software-defined networking (SDN). The acquisitions of BTI and Aurrion is in response to customers demanding greater bandwidth and more flexibility at lower costs. In an article with CRN, Juniper CEO Sindhu said that “Aurrion delivered dramatically lower bit-per-second costs for networking systems, higher capacities for networking interfaces and greater flexibility in how bandwidth carried on light is processed inside the electronic portions of the networking systems”. This last point has been the holy grail for many wishing to leverage the bandwidth capabilities of photonics. The question has been how to cost effectively manage the interface between the electronics and the photonics to make the tighter integration viable. Juniper is betting that Aurrion’s hybrid solution will be the answer.

Since its inception in 2008, Aurrion had been active in publishing several integrated photonics articles and papers but had not yet formally announced a real product. They did however receive a $13.9 million multi-year contract from DARPA (Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency) as part of DARPA’s E-PHI (Electronic-Photonic Heterogeneous Integration) program to develop new architectures for PICs on Si substrates. The company also raised $22.54 million through four rounds of funding before the acquisition.

This acquisition by Juniper is being favorably compared to the 2012 acquisition of Lightwire by Cisco where that acquisition is credited with helping Cisco to create their CPAK 100-Gbps optical transceiver as well as to improve other on-board optical approaches. Juniper had already been integrating optics into their switches and routers and it appears that Aurrion’s efforts will be directly applicable to improving the costs of those solutions by enabling further integration.

All in all, I view this as another strong move by the industry towards making fabless photonics a mainstream reality.

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LTE Trajectory Places High Demands on Baseband Processing

LTE Trajectory Places High Demands on Baseband Processing
by Tom Simon on 08-07-2016 at 7:00 am
Categories: Ceva, Events, IP

LTE stands for Long Term Evolution, and that is exactly what is happening. At the Linley Mobile & Wearables Conference 2016 we received a preview of what is coming in the mobile and wearable markets. LTE is one of the biggest drivers in this entire domain. There was much discussion about the LTE Release 12 and how it increases bandwidth, boosts efficiency and even offers IoT products an easy to implement low bandwidth and power option, bringing them into the fold.

At the top end of the performance spectrum, LTE Release 12 offers several new Categories for extremely high data rate communication. Look for a whopping 600mbps. The techniques used to achieve this include MIMO, Carrier Aggregation, including aggregation of time and frequency division duplexing, and higher QAM modulation techniques. Things that are coming in Release 13 include dual connectivity so that more than one tower at a time can talk to your handset, adding LAA to take advantage of unlicensed spectrum, and adding WiFi as a peer to offload the cell data link. Additionally, VoLTE is coming and will make all voice communication operate purely as packet data over the LTE data link.

More than ever there is pressure on the baseband system in User Equipment (UE) to work at higher rates and in the most efficient manner possible. With multiple PHY’s there is a struggle to avoid using a dedicated processor for each band. With LTE, 3G, 2G, TD-SCDMA all needing their own radios, it gets pretty chaotic. With dual connectivity and carrier aggregation there will be simultaneous RF streams that constitute the IP data stream for the handset or mobile device.

Baseband processors have become hugely important for optimal UE operation. At the Linley Conference Emmanuel Gresset, Director, Business Development at CEVA, unveiled the newest member of the CEVA-X family, which has an emphasis on PHY control applications. The new CEVA-X2 is the follow on to the previously announced CEVA-X4.

CEVA contends that to handle different tasks in the baseband, a different combination or ratio of DSP versus Control is necessary. The diagram below illustrates this point. Emmanuel emphasized that the CEVA-X architecture combines control plane processing with advanced DSP capabilities. In doing so they are again targeting baseband. While not widely known, CEVA has their design IP in 1 in 3 handsets worldwide.

So what is under the hood? The CEVA-X2 has a 10 stage pipeline, with a 5 way VLIW and 64 bit SIMD. It has 2 scalar units and can perform 4 16×16 MAC and 2 32×32 MAC operations. CEVA has a big differentiation when it comes to its ultra-fast context switching. This is very important when dealing with multiple-RAT. Here is a table with a more detailed breakdown of the X2’s capabilities.

CEVA is suggesting that the reference architecture for the baseband use a single CEVA-X2 to manage the PHY’s. Used this way it can manage the data from the PHY’s without requiring intervention from the DSP. QoS is maintained with flexible priority and task queues. CEVA-X allows for the addition of hardware accelerators. Many of these accelerators are already used in production by tier 1 vendors for 4G and 3G. A partial list of functions includes Viterbi Decoder, WCDMA Despreader, Fast Hadamard Transform, FFT/DFT, MLD MIMO Decoder among others. To compliment the hardware accelerators CEVA also offers communications libraries that are production proven. As you might expect these include LTE-Advanced, LTE, WCDMA, NB-IoT, WiFi-11ac and n, as well as TD-SCDMA.

The applications supported by their reference architectures include wearables with Cat-1, WiFi, GNSS, with voice and audio. The newer LTE specifications include Cat-1 and Cat-0 which are intended for low power and low bandwidth products. In looking at the CEVA reference architecture for LTE UE Cat-12 that supports data rates of 600Mbps, we find the CEVA-X2 in use as well at the very powerful CEVA-XC4500 and the smaller CEVA-X5.

Emmanuel finished his presentation with a view toward LTE Release 13 support and also by looking ahead to 5G, which will roll out in earnest by 2020, but will have selective deployment by 2018. LTE 5G will feature more of everything. There will be much higher data rates, which will come from use of more Carrier Aggregation and more flexible cell architectures – such as micro cells. 5G will be a game changer for machine to machine and vehicle to vehicle communication.

CEVA has a history of design wins in the LTE modem space and seems to be well positioned with its new offerings and its roadmap. for more information on the CEVA-X2 look here. I am looking forward to seeing how the new use models for LTE change not only the scenario of one phone talking to another, but how they change our notions of internet everywhere and connections between machines (M2M) and cars (V2V). The next 5 years will likely show us some of the biggest leaps of vehicle and machine automation ever seen.

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Custom layout productivity requires unrelenting EDA vendor focus

Custom layout productivity requires unrelenting EDA vendor focus
by Tom Dillinger on 08-05-2016 at 12:00 pm
Categories: Cadence, EDA

The EDA tools industry relies upon ongoing productivity enhancements to existing products, to manage increasing SoC complexity and to address shrinking design schedules. The source of ideas for enhancements can come from a variety of sources – e.g., customer feedback, collaboration with the foundries, and features found in tools used by other domains (package and/or PCB design).

A prevalent economic theory, known as the BCG model, categorizes products into four sets – stars; cash cows; question marks; and dogs. The theory is supposed to guide companies on how to invest free cash flow on product R&D. Cash cows are high market share products that have a low growth rate, that provide funding for potential stars (and question marks). This model may be fine for Kellogg’s Corn Flakes, Coca-Cola, Ford pickup trucks, and even software products like Microsoft Office, but is definitely not applicable to the EDA tools that are fundamental to SoC designs.

A case in point is the market share-leading Virtuoso Layout Suite (VLS) from Cadence. The VLS product family has been the predominant physical layout platform for custom digital, analog, and RF design for decades. The platform has remained the market leader due to the continued focus on improving designer productivity – this is once again demonstrated by the recent announcement of key VLS enhancements.

Parenthetically, please note that a couple of years ago, Cadence split the VLS product family into two code streams – the release 6.x (e.g., v6.1.7) and the release 12.x (e.g., v12.2) products. The base productivity enhancements are incorporated into both releases, while specific additional capabilities required by new process nodes are only added to the Virtuoso Advanced Node (12.x) platform.

I recently had the opportunity to chat with Mike Kelly, Director, Virtuoso Product Marketing, about some of the productivity features recently added.

(There are new capabilities being developed by Cadence in 12.x specifically for the requirements of 10nm and 7nm process nodes, as well – look for a subsequent semiwiki article to review some of the new functionality.)

Mike highlighted that among the existing VLS 6.x family customers, there are lots of new design starts in process nodes from 180nm to 28nm, in support of the growing applications areas of automotive, RF, and IoT. And, there are emerging markets which bring unique requirements to existing physical layout design, such as silicon photonics (link).

One of the key considerations in EDA tool development is the compatibility of existing datasets with new releases. Mike confirmed that these productivity enhancements use the same Virtuoso libraries and views – there are no project design migration issues.

Graphic Rendering Enhancements

Mike indicated, “We responded to customer feedback, who wanted faster performance for common layout tasks, especially on large datasets. We’ve implemented new rendering algorithms, and also added multithreading support. Fit, pan, zoom, drag, and redraw operations are vastly improved, by 10X to over 100X.”

This improved performance applies not only to initial layout design, but also extends to the debug phase, where designers are cross-referencing to the DRC and LVS results from Cadence’s Physical Verification System (PVS).

Ruler Enhancements

Cadence also worked closely with customers to evaluate session log files, to see what commands are used most often, and would be candidates for performance profiling and enhancement. It’s likely no surprise that one of the most common operations in custom layout design is “zoom in, pop-up ruler, measure, zoom out”.

The latest 6.1.7 and 12.2 releases include a dynamic measurement feature, where user setup enables interactive layer/shape measurement, replacing the current ruler command sequence.

Dynamic Net Labeling

As mentioned above, sometimes great ideas for new EDA tool features come from other technology sources. Mike offered this example. “One of the key features of the Cadence Allegro PCB tool annotates signal nets with their name during interactive editing. Leveraging the custom schematic-driven layout connectivity model within Virtuoso, we added dynamic net labeling in VLS, as well.”

ModGen updates

Perhaps the most significant enhancements to VLS pertain to the accelerated methodology for creating complex block layouts, combining new features of the Module Generator (ModGen) and the device-level Space-Based Router technologies.

ModGen now supports a pattern mapping input description methodology, using the Graphic Pattern Editor. Designers can now more easily describe the placement of arrays of pCells, readily supporting the unique centroid patterns required for analog circuit matching, to reduce the impact of local process variation. (pCells support all the requisite features for layout optimization, such as common source/drain node merging.)

The automated (and interactive) space-based routing technology integrated within ModGen offers a rich set of routing topologies and options – e.g., point-to-point, trunk-to-pin, cloning.

Clearly, the EDA industry must follow a unique product development business model, where a constant focus on user productivity is required. An example of that focus is demonstrated in the recent set of enhancements in Cadence’s Virtuoso Layout Suite. In the business lingo of the BCG matrix, it remains “a star”.

This article could only cover some of the recent VLS enhancements – for more details, please follow this link.

-chipguy

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Radio Integration – the Benefits of Built-In

Radio Integration – the Benefits of Built-In
by Bernard Murphy on 08-05-2016 at 7:00 am
Categories: Events, IoT, IP, Mobile, Synopsys

It’s always a pleasure when a vendor gives a really informative, vendor-independent presentation on what’s happening in some domain of the industry and wraps up with (by that point) a well-deserved summary of that vendor’ solutions in that space. Ron Lowman did just that at the Linley conference on Mobile and Wearables, where he talked about when and when not to integrate radios onto the main SoC and why.

Ron started with a characterization of integration options:

  • Standalone RF transceiver, where the MCU provides both app code and the wireless stack
  • Wireless network transceiver where the wireless stack is integrated with an independent RF transceiver
  • Fully integrated solution, where RF transceiver, wireless stack and app code are integrated with the MCU
  • A combo solution where an apps processor with integrated RF MAC connects to multiple independent RF transceivers and pulls app code and wireless stack from flash memory

Based on this, he provided a nice characterization of where different solutions are being used, by type (as defined above) and by process (primarily for Mobile and Wearables, the focus of this conference):

Perhaps unsurprisingly for IoT, health and fitness bands like less aggressive technologies and fully-integrated solutions for size, power and cost, especially if they only need to support one connectivity standard. Higher end products running at more aggressive technologies and needing to support multiple connectivity options prefer combo solutions given practicalities of porting analog IP to aggressive nodes and issues around managing noise. Similar expectations apply for mobile. Augmented Reality applications, while arguably wearable, require significant processing power so will follow mobile rather than wearable trends. Ron expects these trends to continue more or less indefinitely. That said, monolithic solutions will migrate to lower technologies when cost-effective.

An important consideration in integration choices is of course power. Ron referenced a recent study by Microsoft, looking at power consumption for various protocols, cycling through sleep modes. Naturally different protocols consume different currents in receive and transmit, and based on sleep versus active states, according to whichever vendor solution you are using. But Microsoft also made this very interesting observation: “The parameters that dominated power consumption were not the active or sleep currents but rather the time required to reconnect after a sleep cycle and to what extent the RF module slept between individual RF packets”.

In other words, latency between the MCU and the RF module (when waking the RF module) is a significant factor in power consumption. This argues that, all other things being equal, you really want to integrate the radio when battery life is an important differentiator (because latency on-chip will be much lower than latency off-chip). Naturally there are other advantages – integrated solutions will reduce PCB size, are potentially cheaper and possibly also more secure.

Of course there are reasons not to want to integrate. If you buy an RF chipset solution, you don’t have to worry about qualification or certification. The solution may already support multiple standards (WiFi, BLE etc), you may feel latency will be good enough (even though you know this also has an impact on power). However if BLE would be sufficient, you’re wasting a lot of power (and memory) in supporting WiFi. Even if WiFi is the initial use-mode, if the BLE use-mode for your wearable takes off, you’re ready to go with perhaps no more than a software upgrade and you have a built-in advantage of better battery life.

Which brings us back to the integrated part of the story, where Ron started the commercial pitch. Synopsys supports multiple wireless protocols, but let’s just focus on BLE – a likely candidate for a wearable. Here’s what they have:


The solution is available and complete, including a low power PHY. The PHY is ready for integration, with Analog/RF IO pads, deep n-well isolation, guard-ring and more. Since the solution is on chip, it can connect directly to an MCU core, mitigating that power wastage in sleep cycling. Synopsys have already pre-certified and pre-qualified the IP and offer their customers help in getting device qualification and certification. And perhaps what is ultimately most important, solutions for the rest of the wearable market are already moving in this direction, so you don’t want to left behind.

Incidentally, a follow-on presentation from Fawad Khan of MediaTek echoed that they think BLE will be dominant for wearables. You can learn more about the Synopsys Bluetooth IP HERE. The Microsoft study on radio power consumption is HERE.

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Smarter Cities and How They Can Serve Humanity

Smarter Cities and How They Can Serve Humanity
by Bill McCabe on 08-04-2016 at 4:00 pm
Categories: IoT

Communications technology is progressing at a phenomenal rate, especially when it comes to wireless communications and the ever growing Internet of Things. While many observers and media outlets focus on the benefits of devices and how they will impact consumers, producers, and service providers, there are also huge benefits to be gained by modernizing cities, and progressing towards a smart city model.

A smart city is any city where technology is used to improve public services, safety, and efficiency, and the development of such cities will have major economic and social benefits for individuals and organizations within them.

Major Benefits of Emerging Smart Cities
While many of the consumer technologies in the IoT industry have focused on consumer convenience and entertainment, smart city technologies are aimed more at improving quality of life and providing economic advantages within urban areas.

Transportation
One major area of focus for smart city developers, is transportation. Smart city planning requires that transportation is completely integrated, with mass automation. Big data plays a significant role, as connected sensors record data ranging from traffic statistics, to public transport vehicle location, or even the number of pedestrians who are using a major controlled crossing at any time of the day. A smart city will collect this data to aid urban planning, making it easier for cities to plan new infrastructure.

A smart city can also better manage its transportation infrastructure in real time. Sensor data can help to reroute traffic using electronic road signs, or could automatically adjust signal light timing at major intersections, depending on real time congestion and traffic flow. Rather than urban planners reacting to accumulated data over long time periods, smart cities will have immediate access to sensor data which can be interpreted by machines almost immediately, allowing for traffic management changes to occur within minutes, rather than days or months.

Safety
Safety in large cities has always been a major concern, and a significant area of expenditure for governments. Smart traffic management aids road safety, but other areas of personal safety can also be improved with smart cities. Automation can control lighting in public areas, allowing for increased security. Sensors can alert public services when maintenance needs to be performed on street lighting and traffic signals, and data can be used to increase efficiency of maintenance schedules, resulting in cost savings for large cities. Public cameras can deter and detect crime, and sensors can be used to detect gas leaks, fires, or air quality risks in public spaces. With the integration of location beacons in emergency vehicles, fire, police, and ambulance services can better coordinate coverage in high risk areas, and respond to incidents with increased speed.

Utilities
The benefits even extend into utilities. Sensors on electrical lines can detect faults and control electricity flow in real time. Water lines can also be monitored by IoT connected sensors, allowing for the real time detection of leaks and flow problems. Advanced sensors can even test for water quality along mains. Sensors on gas lines will also increase safety and reduce waste from inefficiency. According to data from the New Jersey Institute of Technology, wide scale smart energy sensors could save the United States up to $1.2 billion dollars per year, and efficiency improvements with other utilities would only add to the potential savings.

Significant Advantages for Stakeholders and Residents
The worldwide smart city technology market is expected to be worth almost $30 billion within the next seven years, a figure that illustrates the huge level of interest from cities and their technology partners.
Smart cities are not just about reducing the costs and resource requirements of the cities themselves, because the benefits will be directly felt by all who live and work within these urban areas. Convenience and quality of life can be improved, and city savings may translate to reduced local rates and taxes, while allowing for increased investment into key infrastructure and public services.

What do you see as the future of smarter cities. Please call if you would like to discuss and see how we see them unfolding Click here for a free Consultation