Please join IBM, Samsung Electronics, Co., Ltd., and GLOBALFOUNDRIES at the 2012 Common Platform Technology Forum. The forum will showcase the alliance’s technological progress and how joint collaboration and innovation is setting the direction for industry-leading solutions to enable next-generation products.
Continue reading “Semiconductors: A Decade of Invention… A World of Solutions”
Digital designers have used diff tools for years on their text-based HDL source code, but what about for the transistor-level IC designer, where is their diff tool for schematics or layout?
Continue reading “What Changed On My Transistor-Level Schematic?”
Once again with Synopsys and Arteris, the innovation is coming to solve an issue, faced by their potential customers: “In our research, we’ve found that almost half of project delays are caused by problems with the system architecture design and specification,” said Chris Rommel, vice president, embedded software and hardware, VDC Research. “Many of these architecture problems are related to escalating SoC complexity, including multicore requirements. Therefore, solutions like the one developed by Synopsys and Arteris to efficiently analyze multicore SoC architectures early in the design flow should become increasingly valuable as engineering teams look for ways to help improve project schedules and performance results.”
From a pure business point of view, Arteris and Synopsys teaming up to solve problems related to SoC complexity, including (ARM based ?) multicore requirements makes a lot of sense: both ARM and Synopsys have invested into Arteris, along with Qualcomm, the others being VC. When building a partnership, this is a very good sign of success when the two companies also have common business goals! And that’s good for the future customers, as they know that they will invest money, and also large engineering resources, into a solution which has a real future – which is not only a good way to make market communication! You can see the PR here.
Let’s have a look at what is behind this communication. The SoC development platform from Synopsys, Platform Architect environment with Multicore Optimization Technology (MCO), has been enhanced with transactors and analysis monitor support for Arteris’ FlexNoC interconnect models. The new MCO offers system architects three distinct advantages for early performance analysis and optimization of complex designs:
1.obtaining fully-instrumented performance models before software and RTL availability,
2.clearly measuring and visualizing the dynamic behavior and performance bottlenecks of multicore designs, and
3.automating the design flow to enable developers to explore hundreds of architecture alternatives in days versus weeks or months with paper specifications and RTL methods
The benefit of this faster turnaround time is that architects using FlexNoC interconnect IP can more fully explore and optimize their multicore architectures and then avoid to over- or under-design their SoC. Both can have a dramatic cost impact: if you over-design the SoC, you will spend endless time to complete the design and release it to production, loosing precious Time-To-Market, which can easily turn into much more money than the already large SoC development cost. If you under-design the SoC, you will probably hit the market window, but with a product comparing poorly with the competition, then lose market share.
“Our goal is to help system designers and architects avoid late discovery of system performance problems that can be extremely costly for both project schedules and budgets,” said John Koeter, vice president of marketing for IP and systems at Synopsys. “By starting architecture analysis and optimization at the transaction-level with Arteris’ FlexNoC interconnect models in Synopsys’ Platform Architect MCO, we offer SoC architects the ability to perform accurate simulation of the multicore system and its most critical application use-cases earlier. With this combination they can achieve the best balance of performance, power and cost at a time in the development process where they have the greatest impact.”
“Arteris FlexNoC’s integration with Synopsys’ Platform Architect MCO environment allows our customers to create better SoCs in less time,” said K. Charles Janac, president and CEO of Arteris. “Integration of the two technologies allows SoC designers to have the same quick turn-around simulation times they experience today with FlexNoC, while gaining critical benefits from the more realistic simulation and earlier analysis of their application scenarios.”
I have blogged in previous post about Arteris FlexNoC’s silicon-proven commercial network-on-chip interconnect IP offering the ability to reduce the number of interconnect wires and logic required for multicore SoC design. Reducing the interconnect wires and logic gates resolves routing congestion and timing closure issues at the back-end place-and-route stage, resulting in shorter development cycle time, faster SoC frequencies, smaller SoC area and less SoC power.
I have also blogged about Sonics vs Arterislegal battle(s), but I honestly prefer to discuss about such a partnership, as it clearly demonstrate who is bringing real innovation on this IP market!
Availability
Arteris and Synopsys’ integration is available today for users of Arteris FlexNoC version 2.6 or later, and Synopsys’ Platform Architect MCO tool version G-2011.06-SP2 or later. For more information on Arteris’ FlexNoC interconnect IP, please visit: www.arteris.com/flexnoc. For information on Synopsys’ Platform Architect MCO tool environment, please visit: http://www.synopsys.com/platformarchitect.
By Eric Estevefrom IPNEST
BYOD – bring your own device – has swept enterprises like a firestorm as CEOs wonder why they can’t use their shiny new iPad on the corporate network, and send their IT guys and gals off to make it happen. Under the right conditions and informed use, BYOD can be a productivity boom and not mess security and privacy up too badly for many apps.
[COMMENT] Continue reading “DARPA looking for new base stations in new BYOD game”
Ken Kundert while at Cadence developed: Spectre, Spectre RF, Verilog-A and Verilog-AMS. About 6 years ago he and Henry Chang left Cadence and created a consulting company called The Designers Guide.
Continue reading “Words of AMS Wisdom from the Developer of Spectre, Spectre RF, Verilog-A, Verilog-AMS”
Although design for manufacturing (DFM) tools and techniques have been around for several nodes, a lot of designers remain skeptical about their actual value, especially since many products still make it successfully to market without the use of DFM.
Continue reading “DFM Provides Proven Value”
Unmanned systems are becoming indispensable to military forces and are used across all of land, sea and air. The generic name for such unmanned systems is UXS, usually UAS (air), UGS (ground) or UUS (underwater). The UAS is the most visible, both due to military strikes and the views of Japan after the Tsunami when areas were unreachable by other means.
As the value of UXS continues to be proven in the field, there is a drive towards lower-cost and lower-risk platforms. But as the systems get smaller but require greater capability (smart weapons, electronic counter-measures, embedded intelligence) the demand for power is potentially insatiable. Especially for airborne vehicles, there is an obvious balance between the amount of sustained power and the weight of power generation and storage systems (this doesn’t sound all that different from the same types of tradeoffs that smartphone designers need to make).
One of the promises of the ANSYS acquisition of Apache is that it become possible to combine the physics-based simulation tools with electronic system modeling to create virtual representations of vehicles and payloads and analyze space, power, thermal prior to physical testing (prior to even building the vehicle).
Power management must be addressed early in the design phase, at the architectural level, to ensure a long-enduring unit. Two of the smallest unmanned air systems currently in operation rely solely on batteries to power their motors and on-board electronic systems. Both the WASP III and Raven micro air vehicles (MAVS) can fly for approximately 45 minutes to 1 hour before they need to land and recharge their batteries. Reducing power consumption in these designs, therefore, is critical to the ability to deliver real-time surveillance information.
But these MAVs carry the same amount of on-board cameras and surveillance capabilities as larger, high-end UASs. Unnecessary power consumption of UAS chips will lead not only to early depletion of their battery power sources, but to electrical and thermal reliability issues, which can shorten the UAS’s expected lifetime and render it unreliable in the field. Military equipment operates, almost by definition, in a hostile environment and reliability in extreme environmental conditions, especially electromagnetic interference, is obviously of paramount importance.
Next-generation unmanned systems are being developed to meet growing requirements of field reconnaissance, strike capability and longer mission duration, as well as new fields of operation in land, sea and air. As the military seeks to expand the role of unmanned systems, industry must rise to the urgent challenge of ensuring that power supply requirements of these systems are met within their allotted power and thermal envelope. Only a multiphysics approach, initiated early in the design phase, can simulate the power consumption and thermal dissipation of these complex systems, enabling successful power reduction and thermal cooling solutions for onboard electronics. The power integrity of these systems and their ability to conform to reliability and emissions standards can be validated through ANSYS and Apache simulation solutions for the individual components as well as for comprehensive onboard electronic systems.
Read the white-paper by Robert Harwood of ANSYS and Margaret Schmitt of Apache here.
The Corporate PC may finally be on life supports and with it the purveyors of the hardware and software solutions as consumer adoption of new technology outpaces the carefully planned IT budgets that guarantee positive 3 year Returns on Investments (ROI). The Apple of the consumer’s eye will soon feast on the iPAD 3 with its retina display and 4G LTE that untethers the productivity class for good from centralized IT departments. It’s “Ash Heap of History Time.”
If it were just the iPAD3 that was rolling out, you could push back and say, Please! However, quick to follow will be redesigned MAC Air’s and MAC Book Pro’s that will feature Intel Ivy Bridge processors and 4G LTE as well. Then the IT department has to admit that the “Cloud” is everywhere and that it no longer makes sense to deal with all the complexity of software versions and updates between the various versions of Dell and HP PCs.
The pain will soon start to get extreme for Microsoft and Google as the train that left the station years ago in terms of the mobile hardware that rests in the users hands on a 24/7 basis will be available from just one vendor: Apple. A sign that chaos reigns is when those on the defense start coming up with half answers. For example, Microsoft is rumored to be working on a version of Office for iOS. That’s nice and what is the price? Surely much less than a version delivered on a Microsoft Cloud. By relying on Nokia and Apple to deliver the hardware, Microsoft falls into a two degrees of separation gap from the end customer. Meanwhile Intel ships Xeon’s at ever increasing prices to Microsoft’s data center and to those of Google and Facebook. The Intel bacteria have glommed onto the Data Center Host.
Is the Motorola alliance with Intel for Smartphones an all encompassing one that precludes the use of nVidia or Qualcomm. What about tablet and Ultrabooks? When will Google/Motorola wake up and see that their main revenue stream of search can be redirected by Siri to the iCloud? Time to consider Andy Grove’s dictum: “Only the Paranoid Survive.”
It is truly historical to observe the alliances that are breaking under the duress of Apple’s assault and the resulting ones to form as a means to stop the blitzkrieg. Intel’s client price and delivery model now revolves around the Apple MAC Air. The pricing every other OEM gets has to be higher than Apple’s. And so, every other OEM and partner is a 2[SUP]nd[/SUP] class citizen sitting at the back of the bus. Apple data centers will receive favorable Xeon treatment. However, what if Google went to Intel and promised to up the server buy while also planning to build 10M tablets a quarter based on Atom. Intel would need to consider a front of the bus seat unless Apple A6 is already taped-out in 22nm.
An Intel no bid to Google then leads to the next scenario – a Google/AMD joint venture on x86 Server Processors and possibly a low cost x86 mobile processor for ultrabooks, so that the search bar remains “Google”. The same scenario could play out for Microsoft and AMD. This is what will make the semiconductor industry extremely interesting over the next several years.
On the semiconductor side, Qualcomm has to consider scaling dramatically in 2012 as they leverage their 4G advantage. Paul Otellini, Intel’s CEO claimed in the last earnings conference call that the communications silicon is being pulled into the x86 platform. In one way or another, Intel is forcing Qualcomm to retreat into an IP mode or to man up in a Jerry Sanders fashion. Furthermore, Qualcomm has to realize that if Intel seeks to own Ultrabook down through tablets to the smartphones then Qualcomm has to make a maximum thrust into the ultrabook space and it can’t be with just ARM. A Qualcomm – AMD “x86 Snapdragon” would allow them to increase the penetration of the communications content just as the x86 value piece is waning. In reality the x86 and ARM cores are both diminishing as a percentage of the overall mobile platform.
We live not only in interesting times but one that is about to have incredible amounts of upheaval. Not all of the Paranoid will Survive.
FULL DISCLOSURE: I am long AAPL, INTC, QCOM, ALTR
In a previous blog, I was forecasting smartphone shipment to reach 430 million units in 2011. I was wrong! Apparently, I am not better than other analysts, as the actual figures for the smartphone shipment in 2011 are more than slightly different, as these have topped 491.4 million units! After 304 million in 2010, that’s a 61.3 percent year over year increase, according with IDC. IPNEST has revised the smartphone shipments forecast for 2012- 2016, taking into account these latest figures for 2011: we expect almost 1 billion smartphoneto be shipped in 2016.
If we come back to the actual shipments, in 2011 one out of three wirelesses handset shipped was a smartphone. This is to be compared with 2010, when it was one out of five. What is the impact on our day to day business, IP and Semiconductor?
Application processor market: this is the obvious first segment to look at, even if it’s not the only one. With an Average Selling Price (ASP) in the $20 range in 2011 for an application processor dedicated to smartphone, this segment has represented a $10 billion market in 2011. If we look at the Total Addressable Market (TAM), it is slightly smaller… this is an understatement, as the difference between the total market and the TAM is made of the A5 (A4) shipments. Apple shipping application processor to… Apple. As Apple has shipped about 60 million iPhone during 2011, the application processor TAM is equal to (490 -60)*20 or $8.6 billion, or almost 3% of the total SC market of $300 billion.
PMIC market: those who have read my previous post about the Power Management IC market have discovered like I did that this segment, even if it’s not as impressive as application processor, is generating pretty decent sales, as the PMIC content has been evaluated around $8 by smartphone (and $20 by Media Tablet!). The PMIC market in the smartphone segment only can be evaluated at $4 billion. If we add the Media Tablet segment, with 63 million units shipped in 2011 according with IDC, we add $1.26 billion to the PMIC segment. Thus, for the smartphone and Media Tablet segment, the PMIC TAM was above $5 billionin 2011. Pretty impressive for a SC segment almost neglected by the IDC, Gartner et al., as they focus on the more sexy application processor segment!
MIPI IP: IPNEST analysis is that MIPI, as any emerging technologies, is firstly used in the high end market, or smartphone segment. As with any new technology, integrating one of the MIPI specifications (CSI, DSI, DigRF, UniPro, LLI and more, see MIPI organization websitefor more information) represent an investment to make, in order to understand the specification, design the function or acquire the IP externally, integrate it into the IC (it can be the application processor or one of the many peripheral IC), and so on… But the many advantages generated by MIPI usage will certainly bring a high return on this investment, especially to the system integrator (manufacturing the smartphone) and ultimately to the end user, as MIPI allow for:
If the smartphone shipments are rocketing, that should be good for MIPI adoption, as more than expected MIPI powered IC will be manufactured. Then, when the production volumes are growing, it’s usual to see the IC price going down. When the price is going down, the over-cost associated with the integration of a new technology tend to disappear. It’s a kind of virtuous cycle: more smartphone shipped means more MIPI powered IC manufactured at a more affordable price for the customer, then more customers supporting the technology. Look at Qualcomm: a couple of years ago, the company was not supporting MIPI (but MDDI, a homemade concurrent specification). Now, Qualcomm has dropped MDDI and fully support MIPI!
For more exaustive information about MIPI, see MIPI Orgor “MIPI IP Survey“
By Eric Estevefrom IPnest
As I mentioned in my previous blog, AMD and GlobalFoundries,it is rather difficult to interpret AMD’s financial results. At the end of the quarterly earnings conference calls analysts get to ask questions. It is the comedy relief portion of the call usually, so I blog this today to better prepare these so called analysts for their job of helping investors understand what is really going on insideAMD.
Continue reading “AMD Financials are Puzzling!?!?!?!”
