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François Thomas, Field Marketing Director, Cadence Europe IC, Velizy, France

ABSTRACT

For some time, power has been a design issue, particularly with mobile applications where longer battery life is always desirable – wireless phones, Palm computers, laptop computers, etc. But as complexity and speed increase, all applications become power limited, especially in applications such as set-top boxes, DVD players/recorders and video games, which are mainly used in the family home where noisy fans are not acceptable. Even for computing or communication infrastructures, power dissipation has become a costly issue and a limitation. Also in new technologies, 90 nm and below, in addition to the well-known CMOS switching power, leaking current is significant. Until now, timing and signal integrity convergence have been the main design concerns. As power density on chips reaches levels found in power plants and ultimately rocket engines, power convergence will become the next design challenge and will require a global solution.