EDN Executive Editor Ron Wilson explores how IC design teams really work: the struggle for power efficiency and performance, wrestling with semiconductor processes and design methodologies, the challenges of global design teams. How do we somehow herd architecture, IP, design and verification into a successful tape-out? en-us http://www.edn.com/blog/1690000169.html?nid=3080 Copyright 2009 Reed Business Information. Subject to its Terms of Use Wed, 25 Nov 2009 08:53:33 PST http://www.edn.com/blog/1690000169/post/200050820.html?nid=3080 The argument between ASICs, ASSPs, and FPGAs has ranged over the same territory for a decade. FPGAs are slower, more power-hungry, and more expensi... http://ad.doubleclick.net/clk;217624134;12103198;u?http://www.actel.com/products/iglooseries/default.aspx Actel’s IGLOO family of reprogrammable, full-featured flash FPGAs is designed to meet the demanding power, area, and cost requirements of today’s portable electronics. Find out how the industry’s lowest power FPGAs will help you meet all your low power needs for your portable design. http://www.edn.com/blog/1690000169/post/1770050777.html?nid=3080 Some time ago, as the storm of recession broke over the industry, we encouraged companies to look quickly to developing markets for demand that was... http://www.edn.com/blog/1690000169/post/1040050704.html?nid=3080 As the pressure of growing data traffic bears down on cellular networks, service providers are turning to femtocells as an achievable near-term sol... http://www.edn.com/blog/1690000169/post/180050618.html?nid=3080 An announcement today by three companies—semiconductor vendor Fulcrum Microsystems, 10G Ethernet switch vendor Arista Networks, and network t... http://www.edn.com/blog/1690000169/post/470050447.html?nid=3080 As SoCs become more complex, the concept of using a network to replace the bus or crossbar switch as the interconnect backbone on the chip has beco... http://www.edn.com/blog/1690000169/post/1040050304.html?nid=3080 In a plenary talk at the International Test Conference this morning Intel fellow Shekhar Borkar offered a tightly-reasoned description of how IC ar... http://www.edn.com/blog/1690000169/post/840050284.html?nid=3080 An evening panel session at the International Test Conference this evening reviewed decades of the research work at Stanford University's Center fo... http://www.edn.com/blog/1690000169/post/590050259.html?nid=3080 It's not often that a simple product-line extension makes it over the threshold into newsworthiness here. Generally anyone who is interested can pu... http://www.edn.com/blog/1690000169/post/1010050101.html?nid=3080 Gennum, the generally quiet high-performance mixed-signal chip and IP vendor, is rapidly spreading its customer base across a wide range of applica... http://www.edn.com/blog/1690000169/post/1010049901.html?nid=3080 PMC-Sierra continues to be very positive on the gradual spread of the ITU-T G.709 Optical Transport Network (OTN.) The company sees OTN dominating ... http://www.edn.com/blog/1690000169/post/1780049778.html?nid=3080 The ordinary life cycle for a proprietary I/O scheme begins with its creation to solve a specific design problem. If the product becomes widely use... http://www.edn.com/blog/1690000169/post/1400049740.html?nid=3080 Leveraging high-level synthesis technology developed at Synplicity, Synopsys this week introduced a unique approach for generating synthesizable da... http://www.edn.com/blog/1690000169/post/1010049701.html?nid=3080 In a startling move announced this morning, growing semiconductor intellectual property vendor Virage Logic announced that, through an unusual and ... http://www.edn.com/blog/1690000169/post/570049657.html?nid=3080 In the just-previous post we discussed ARM's implementation of an ARM 1176 core in IBM 45nm SoI using a standard CMOS flow. Now we should continue ... http://www.edn.com/blog/1690000169/post/470049647.html?nid=3080 For several years it has been clear that SoI processes have a more favorable speed vs. voltage characteristic than comparable-node bulk silicon pro... http://www.edn.com/blog/1690000169/post/120049612.html?nid=3080 Ensphere Solutions, a design-services shop that has recently entered the fabless semiconductor market with a range of multi-Gbit optical transceive... http://www.edn.com/blog/1690000169/post/1830049583.html?nid=3080 Boeing--giant aircraft manufacturer, equally giant but much lower-profile defense contractor, and one-time paragon of complex project management--h... http://www.edn.com/blog/1690000169/post/630049463.html?nid=3080 As much time as we spend here discussing the challenges of 40nm or the promises of 28nm, 180 must look like a typo. But in fact two announcements t... http://www.edn.com/blog/1690000169/post/1940049394.html?nid=3080 In the discussion of Globalfoundries celebrated spin-off from AMD and subsequently-announced intent to purchase Chartered Semiconductor, one questi... http://www.edn.com/blog/1690000169/post/1780049378.html?nid=3080 No, that's not a light at the end of the tunnel. The news on EDA revenues in the second quarter is dismal compared to the relative optimism after Q... http://www.edn.com/blog/1690000169/post/1160049316.html?nid=3080 An IP announcement by LSI last week highlights several key issues in the design of a modern serial interface PHY. The block, the PHY 9500, is the f... http://www.edn.com/blog/1690000169/post/990049299.html?nid=3080 By acquiring datapath tool and consulting specialists Arithmatica, C-level synthesis vendor Forte Design Systems has potentially added a new d... http://www.edn.com/blog/1690000169/post/1050049105.html?nid=3080 This weekend I was talking with some friends and the topic of Lehman Brothers came up. I suppose it was timely, given our culture's morbid fascinat... http://www.edn.com/blog/1690000169/post/940049094.html?nid=3080 Synopsys is quietly reorganizing its Star RC extraction tool into a set of three products. The current Star RC will become a midrange product, aime... http://www.edn.com/blog/1690000169/post/1010048901.html?nid=3080 Every once in a while it's a good idea to step back from the day-to-day routine of product announcements and take stock of just where we stand on a...