EE Daily News

Tale of the tape outs: ARM adds the Cortex-A57 to array of FinFET test chip projects

2013-04-04T17:13:00.001-07:00

While the foundry industry is just beginning to develop chips in a (last of Moore's scaling law) 20nm process, which adds the cost and complexity of Double-Patterning Technology (DPT) in order to achieve the smaller feature size, a race is on to catch up with Intel's more advanced 3D transistors, using FinFET technology. On Tuesday, April 2, ARM announced that they had completed a "tape out" of their highest performance next-generation processor, the Cortex-A57, targeting a 16nm FinFET...

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Broadcom, Maxim, Freescale and TI increase focus on small cells at Mobile World Congress

2013-02-25T16:31:00.001-08:00

Small cells and heterogeneous networks continue to be hot topics at this year's Mobile World Congress (MWC), which kicked off today in Barcelona. We are seeing announcements from several chip vendors who are expanding their offerings in this space, with an increased focus on supporting wireless operator plans to ramp up deployment for LTE metro, enterprise and residential applications. Broadcom has announced that they are sampling a new family of dual-mode 3G/LTE SoCs, the BCM617xx...

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Samsung details Exynos Octa at 60th ISSCC

2013-02-21T11:42:00.001-08:00

Samsung discussed details of their Exynos Octa processor design at the 2013 IEEE International Solid State Circuits Conference Samsung raised the bar for CPU core count in mobile application processors at the 2013 IEEE International Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas, with their announcement of the next-generation Exynos Octa. The Exynos Octa will incorporate ARM's big.LITTLE configuration times four, with one large quartet of high-performance Cortex-A15 cores trading off operation...

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ARM and Synopsys collaborate for Cortex-A57 virtual prototype

2013-02-12T16:48:00.001-08:00

In late October last year, at ARM's TechCon event in Silicon Valley, ARM announced the first processor cores to be built with their next-generation 64-bit v8 architecture, the Cortex-A57 and Cortex A-53. Now, in order to enable early development of software in parallel with hardware development, Synopsys has announced the addition of the ARM v8 processors to their Virtualizer Development Kits (VDKs). Tom De Schutter, Senior Product Marketing Manager for System Level Solutions at Synopsys, says...

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Tensilica adds Image/Video Processor to DSP IP core offerings

2013-02-12T11:39:00.000-08:00

Tensilica's IVP is a complete image and video processing subsystem At the 2013 International Consumer Electronics Show (CES) in January, semiconductor companies engaged in a daily competition to one-up each other with announcements of their next-generation application processors. Advances in imaging and video capabilities were central to those announcements, as NVIDIA rolled out Tegra-4 with 72 GPUs, along with a dedicated computational photography engine for High Dynamic Range (HDR) still...

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Broadcom brings ARM to the Enterprise with new Ethernet switch SoCs

2013-01-28T16:47:00.000-08:00

In a January announcement with ARM, Broadcom disclosed that they had signed an agreement to extend their licenses for the 32 bit ARMv7 CPU, with the addition of the latest 64 bit ARMv8 architecture. While the industry continues to watch for developments of ARM-based servers to enter the enterprise and data center space, Broadcom announced today that they have integrated single and dual-core ARM Cortex A9 CPUs into their new StrataXGS series SoCs, for enterprise Ethernet switching...

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2013 International Consumer Electronics Show marked the transition to a post-PC era

2013-01-21T18:41:00.001-08:00

Dr. Stephen Woo, Samsung Electronics President for Device Solutions Business, shared the stage with ARM CEO Warren East, during his keynote presentation at the 2013 CES When Microsoft announced that they would no longer appear at the International Consumer Electronics Show (CES) after the 2012 event, some observers misread this as a sign of the show's imminent decline. For many years the show's ceremonial kickoff, the pre-opening Monday night keynote presentation, was delivered by...

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Part II: 2013 Predictions for the mobile industry from Silicon Valley VCs

2012-12-27T15:28:00.001-08:00

In the first installment of our review of the mobile industry outlook and predictions from Silicon Valley Venture Capitalists (VCs), we covered the software vs. hardware bias in the VC community, opportunities in mobile payments and advertising, and opinions on the prospects for competition in device platforms. We compiled VC opinions presented at the Wireless Communications Alliance's (WCA) annual “What’s Hot (and What’s Not) in Mobility" event, and the Mobile Monday Silicon Valley (MOMOSV)...

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Opinions and 2013 predictions from VCs in the mobile space.

2012-12-18T15:33:00.001-08:00

As is the case in many industries, groups representing the wireless industry in Silicon Valley have a tradition of concluding the year by taking a measure of the hottest current trends, and gathering predictions on what lies ahead. In November, the Wireless Communications Alliance (WCA) held their annual “What’s Hot (and What’s Not) in Mobility event, and on December 10, the Mobile Monday Silicon Valley (MOMOSV) group held the “Year in Review and 2013 Predictions” at Microsoft’s offices in San...

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Broadcom dual-core HSPA+ processor extends Android Jelly Bean to low-end smartphones

2012-12-04T07:15:00.000-08:00

Broadcom has announced the addition of a dual-core HSPA+ processor to their "affordable" smartphone chip set family, along with the development of a portfolio of turnkey 3G designs which primarily target handset manufacturers in the Chinese market. The turnkey platforms offer a selection of configurations, including the new BCM21664T, as well as the single and dual-core ARM Cortex A9 processors which Broadcom announced at the Mobile World Congress (MWC) in February this year. Broadcom has been...

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TI combines ARM cores with DSP to accelerate applications in the cloud

2012-11-13T07:30:00.000-08:00

Texas Instruments' new Keystone processors provide a combination of ARM Cortex-A15 cores and C66x DSP cores, along with a Secure Acceleration Pac for cryptography, a Packet Accelerator and a 1G/10G Ethernet switch, for accelerating cloud applications. At this year's Mobile World Congress in February, Texas Instruments announced the semiconductor industry's first quad implementation of 28nm ARM Cortex-A15 cores in a small cell wireless base station on a chip, the TCI6636 SoC. For wireless...

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AMD-SeaMicro plugs ARM into "Ambidextrous" Strategy

2012-10-29T23:24:00.000-07:00

At a press conference in San Francisco today, AMD announced that it will add ARM's 64-bit A-15 core architecture to their Opteron processors for data center servers and cloud computing, while continuing to design x86-based CPUs. The move fills in some of the missing pieces in AMD's "ambidextrous" strategy, which the company announced at its annual Financial Analyst Day in February. In the earlier announcement, AMD said that their strategy was to bring "Agile Delivery of Industry-Leading IP to...

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Apple iPad mini versus Google Nexus-7

2012-10-23T14:55:00.000-07:00

Apple announced the iPad mini at the historic California Theater in downtown San Jose, CA Apple announced their much-anticipated iPad mini this morning, during a "Special Event" at the historic California Theater in San Jose, CA. CEO Tim Cook gushed about how "cool" the new 7.9" iPad mini is. Though Apple boasted of commanding a 91% share of the tablet space, with 100 million iPads shipped, the company covets the remaining 9% of the market taken mostly by the smaller...

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Patent Wars heat up EDA industry: Synopsys Inc. v. Mentor Graphics

2012-10-02T17:02:00.002-07:00

The ranks of combatants in the long litigious hardware emulation segment of the Electronic Design Automation (EDA) industry moved up to heavyweight class today, with the disclosure that Synopsys Inc. will be taking on Mentor Graphics, in a patent lawsuit filed in the U.S. District Court in San Jose, CA on September 27th. As first reported by EDA industry veteran John Cooley, in an email to subscribers of his DeepChip.com website, Synopsys filed a Complaint for Declaratory and Injunctive...

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Broadcom claims first 28nm communications processor with new XLP 200

2012-10-01T19:04:00.000-07:00

Broadcom has introduced a new line of multicore communications processors, developed through their $3.7 billion acquisition of Netlogic Microsystems, which was completed in February this year. The company is seeking to leverage that investment to increase their penetration in what is, by their estimate, a $3 billion market that includes applications such as enterprise, service provider 4G/LTE, data center cloud computing, and software defined networking (SDN). Broadcom claims that the XLP...

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Qualcomm - on The Future of Computing & Connected Experiences

2012-09-05T20:10:00.011-07:00

Qualcomm CEO Dr. Paul E. Jacobs speaks on The Future of Computing at the Computer History Museum in Mountain View, CA The ongoing revolution in computing paradigms, to a world which will be dominated by mobile devices, was clearly evident in a succession of Silicon Valley technical conferences last week. At the annual HotChips Conference on high-performance processors, in Cupertino August 27 - 29, the traditional world of computing was well represented by Intel, AMD, and IBM. Each company...

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Netgear offers refunds to owners of faulty CMD31T DOCSIS 3.0 modems

2012-08-25T09:54:00.003-07:00

Owners of the Netgear CMD31T DOCSIS 3.0 cable modem have been reporting problems since March of this year, when a Comcast XFINITY network upgrade to IPv6 revealed a deficiency in the device's firmware. As a result, Comcast temporarily rolled back the IPv6 upgrade in Silicon Valley, and removed the CMD31T from their list of supported devices. Comcast's customers were stuck, unless they were still covered by their retailer's refund policy. Netgear sells the CMD31T with just 90 days of "Basic...

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Predictions for the System on Chip Industry from EDA veteran Jim Hogan

2012-08-20T17:01:00.008-07:00

Jim Hogan presents to Silicon Valley NIT Alumni Meetup group On August 15, the Silicon Valley Alumni Meetup Group for India's National Institutes of Technology (NIT) hosted presentations by Dr. Ajoy Bose, President and CEO of Electronic Design Automation (EDA) vendor Atrenta, and well-known EDA industry executive and investor - Jim Hogan. Dr. Bose provided a review of the concepts underlying System on Chip (SoC) Realization, for those non-EDA attendees who may have been unfamiliar with the...

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Charter says blacklisting Netgear CMD31T modem was 'inadvertent'

2012-08-17T14:49:00.000-07:00

Earlier this week, a Charter Communications internet service subscriber in Atlanta reported to the company that he was having problems connecting with his Netgear CMD31T DOCSIS 3.0 modem. On Monday, August 13, a Charter customer support supervisor responded to the customer by reporting that the CMD31T had been "blacklisted"CMD31T - BLACKLISTED IN 05/24/2012 PER THE BLACKLIST DOCUMENTIn recent months, Netgear had also been dropped from the approved modem list by Comcast XFINITY, due to a problem...

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Charter Communications blacklists Netgear DOCSIS modems, as Comcast XFINITY users continue to experience problems.

2012-08-16T08:02:00.004-07:00

CMD31T - BLACKLISTED 05/24/2012 Add Charter Communications customers to the list of broadband subscribers who have been cut off the 'net, when their Internet Service Provider (ISP) ceased to support the Netgear CMD31T DOCSIS (Data Over Cable Service Interface Specification) 3.0 modem. This follows the problems that Comcast Xfinity subscribers experienced back in March, when that provider of cable broadband services was forced to roll back an IPv6 upgrade, after finding that it rendered the...

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Synopsys moves to fill their analog design tool gap with Springsoft acquisition

2012-08-03T20:53:00.004-07:00

On Friday, August 3, Synopsys Inc. ended the week as they had started it, with an acquisition targeted at shoring up the EDA vendor's greatest weakness, a lack of commercially successful analog design tools. On Monday, the company announced they were buying Ciranova, developer of PyCell Studio, which Synopsys relies on for generation of OpenAccess-based layout cell libraries to support their Galaxy Custom Designer product. Ciranova also provides the Helix tool for performing analog layout...

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What does Samsung get with purchase of CSR handset connectivity group?

2012-07-24T15:14:00.002-07:00

On July 17, CSR plc (Cambridge Silicon Radio) announced their intent to sell their handset connectivity and location development group to Samsung, for US$310 million. The purchase price equates to US$1 million per person, with 310 CSR employees (292 in R&D plus 18 in marketing and support) scheduled to be transferred to Samsung when the deal is closed. In an interview following the announcement, CSR CEO Joep van Beurden said that the employees in the handset development group represent 25%...

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Speakers at SEMICON West describe a fragmented 3D IC landscape

2012-07-17T17:53:00.014-07:00

SEMICON West, which completed its 42nd annual event at the Moscone Convention Center in San Francisco last week, is the premier trade-show of the SEMI industry association, representing the global semiconductor manufacturing supply chain. While much of this year's SEMICON show and technical discussions were focused on how to continue traditional Moore's Law scaling, increasing cost and technical barriers have driven the industry to turn more attention to the potential alternative for achieving...

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Growth of voice-recognition UI drives need for embedded speech processors

2012-07-09T00:12:00.007-07:00

Google introduced offline voice typing for Android Jelly Bean at the 2012 IO Developer's COnference. Apple's introduction of the Siri (described as beta) voice-input User Interface (UI) on the iPhone 4S, and the company's pervasive advertising campaign, has raised the public's awareness that speech recognition technology is no longer just science fiction. While Google has incorporated voice input in their mobile apps for several years, the addition of a spoken response in Siri has stimulated...

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The curious case of the Nexus Q

2012-06-28T19:54:00.003-07:00

The most curious announcement from Google, at their I/O conference this week, has been the "Nexus Q". At a Sony-Google TV event in May, Google Product Manager Eric Liu was asked if a Nexus-like device might become available for the TV platform. The question pertained to the status of the Nexus-branded products as Google-endorsed platforms for application developers. Up until the Q announcement, Google has relied on partners such as Sony and Logitech to design and build Google TV...

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