March 2011

Optimism and caution characterized this year's Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas

Poster sessions are all too often given Cinderella status at major conferences, but they often contain novel and interesting responses to current technology challenges. This article reviews five poster papers that were released at the 2010 International Test Conference ranging in topic from improved device interfaces for gigahertz test to IP security to the diagnosing [...]

Nanotechnology's economic potential will only be harnessed through more basic research, according to a new report from the NSF. Paul Dempsey reports.

DATE 2011 will be held this month around one of France's most active high-tech clusters. We preview some of the conference's highlights.

As part of our nanotechnology focus, we look at the prospects for graphene and carbon nanotubes in electronics. Paul Dempsey reports.

The article is abstracted from a presentation given at NASCUG by Umesh Sisodia and originally developed by Ashwani Singh of CircuitSutra Technologies on how to create adaptors between various modeling abstraction levels in SystemC.

Your current verification strategy, no matter how robust, may not always satisfy the latest demands placed upon it given the rate of change in semiconductor design. To stay at the forefront of innovation, you must be willing and able to take advantage of the potential in emerging and evolving technologies. It is not simply that […]

The article describes a methodology and appropriate code for developing a reset strategy that will work within a verification process. Specifically, the proposal has been drafted within the terms of the Open Verification Methodology.

The article reviews the design assessment process that a company should undertake when developing an analog-centric application-specific integrated circuit (ASIC). The authors argue that a number of myths surround strategies that incorporate a large amount of specialist analog design work, including evaluations related to cost and functionality. In particular, the need for differentiation in today's [...]

Constrained random testbenches excel at quickly hitting the majority of coverage but their effectiveness trails off as coverage closure nears completion. This paper describes a testbench API that sits on top of OVM sequences allowing the existing constrained random infrastructure to be guided, enabling faster, more efficient coverage closure. Design and verification engineers can use [...]