June 1, 2010
The analysis of important power and temperature metrics for chip design is becoming increasingly inefficient when attempted at the register-transfer level. The article proposes the fundamentals of a system-level modeling strategy that will shrink design times, provide more opportunities for architectural exploration, and deliver significant power savings.
June 1, 2010
System Modeling Language (SysML) is a Unified Modeling Language (UML) profile that allows the creation of standard descriptions of a system. However, this profile is too generic to address embedded and real-time system design. The Modeling and Analysis for Real-Time and Embedded Systems (MARTE) UML profile attempts to fill this gap by providing elements from [...]
June 1, 2010
Product engineering services can be efficiently outsourced and even the biggest players are doing it, says Michel Villemain
June 1, 2010
We talked to Mentor Graphics CEO Wally Rhines about the solutions that already exist to combat increasing design complexity.
June 1, 2010
Disneyland might be next door, but DAC 2010 is stressing a real-world perspective on chip design. We spoke to general chair Sachin Sapatnekar.
June 1, 2010
We look at some of the findings analyst group iSuppli had hoped to present at a recent summit before a Finnish volcano intervened.
June 1, 2010
As usual, this issue includes our regular preview of the Design Automation Conference (DAC), taking place this year in Anaheim, California (June 13-18). However, given this journal’s particular focus on practical design information, I wanted to highlight one DAC strand up front. Indeed, given that the event has taken more than its share of criticism [...]
May 1, 2010
This year's Design Automation and Test in Europe conference heard from a broad range of users and suppliers about the challenges to and solutions for getting optimal yields at advanced process nodes, particularly as the industry advances toward 22nm. This article recaps presentations by four executives at the Dresden-hosted event: Pierre Garnier of Texas Instruments, [...]
May 1, 2010
The time-dependent dielectric breakdown (TDDB) of inter-metal dielectrics on large-scale chips is becoming an increasingly important reliability issue across several semiconductor markets. This mechanism can cause early failures in use and is difficult to detect by traditional test, and hard to control by traditional reliability techniques.
May 1, 2010
Designers have been using dummy fill to address design for manufacturing for some time, but the process of simply wallpapering shapes into a design's "white space" to help it maintain planarity can no longer cope with the complex challenges presented at today's advanced process nodes. Not only is planarity harder to maintain, but there are [...]