Power Bits
Imec and Holst Centre unveiled an analog-signal processor ASIC that reduces the overall power consumption of a heart activity signal monitor by five times. Key to the process is intelligent processing from an adaptive sampling scheme—slashing the amount of data that needs to be processed by the DSP and then transmitted by the radio.
This is one of the hidden benefits of Synopsys’ announced acquisitions of CoWare and VaST. The more you can control the software, the more you can control the overall efficiency of the entire system—particularly when it comes to a multicore system. The key is adding intelligence into the processing up front, which is where software prototyping comes into play. The amount of data in circuit design is exploding, but not all of it has to be processed at every step.
Imec wasn’t the only one looking at low-power medical devices. MIT is developing a series of self-powered sensors that harvest electricity from temperature differences in the body. Who needs batteries?
Broadcom introduced a new low-power chip that combines Bluetooth with FM and a GPS, as well as all the normal stuff you’d find in a smart phone. Most of the services in smart phones have been software-based. This should change the market—and potentially the amount of power necessary to make it work.
On the utilities side, Springsoft introduced a power-aware debug solution for verifying low-power chips that supports both UPF and CPF. Spanning rival formats is always an opportunity, particularly when companies use tools from more than one EDA vendor.
Tags: Broadcom, CoWare, Holst Centre, IMEC, Springsoft, Synopsys, VaST