Author Archives: Chris Edwards

About Chris Edwards

Chris Edwards has spent a long time covering electronics and EDA. He is a former Editor-in-Chief of Electronic Engineering Times UK and electronics editor of the IET's Engineering & Technology. His work has appeared in a variety of international newspapers including The Guardian, The Daily Telegraph, The Age and the South China Morning Post.
December 11, 2012

Intel launches its first microserver SoC

Intel has launched its first server SoC, based on a stripped-down Atom, in a bid to seal its place in microservers before ARM can ready its 64bit architecture for production. But the chip seems more a stake in the ground than the answer for low-power servers.
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December 10, 2012

Oxygen injection for go-faster 14nm transistors

Mears Technologies and UC Berkeley describe at IEDM 2012 how oxygen in a silicon superlattice could boost performance beyond strained silicon at 14nm.
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December 10, 2012

Germanium finFETs, TFETs and MEMS modelled at IEDM

The modelling track at IEDM 2012 showed how germanium could be used in 14nm finFETs. Other work focused on tunnel FETs and analyzing MEMS using Spice.
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December 5, 2012

IPSoC: Software power optimization ‘must start earlier’

Embedded software engineers need to focus on power optimization in their code much earlier and more comprehensively than many of them do today, says Mentor Graphics technologist Colin Walls.
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December 4, 2012

IPSoC: Configurability and the rise of the IP factory

Traditional IP reuse is giving way to configurable, customized cores delivered by semi-automated "IP factory" groups.
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December 4, 2012

IPSoC: 20nm causes analog ‘density fill headaches’

20nm design is fraught with problems for analog design but one that causes the biggest headaches is density variation, says Synopsys' Joachim Kunkel.
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December 4, 2012

IPSoC: Tabula aims for 22nm white-label parts

Tabula expects to have 22nm FPGAs next year and is trying to recruit IP developers to an 'app store' for data-center hardware.
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November 27, 2012

Cadence gears up for automotive switch to ethernet

Cadence Design Systems has developed semiconductor IP for the automotive industry's OPEN Alliance to make ethernet the core networking backbone of future motor vehicles.
November 26, 2012

Graphics provide the push for NI’s readymades plan

National Instruments wants to shift the focus for many embedded systems designers away from hardware cost optimization towards graphical programming as a way of reducing the time it takes to get targets up, running and productive.
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November 19, 2012

‘Process and metrics before tools for better verification’

Chip-design teams are running into problems with verification because they are focused too much on tools and not enough on processes, Mentor Graphics chief scientist Harry Foster explained today at the first of a series of Verification Futures seminars hosted by TVS in Europe this week.
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