During the Design Automation Conference (DAC) in San Francisco on Wednesday (June 6), IBM Corp. and Intel Corp. separately outlined the new techniques and challenges in microprocessor design from two different angles.
IBM presented the design issues for its Power processor architecture, while Intel discussed its recently-introduced Ivy Bridge chip. Not surprisingly, IBM and Intel agreed that area scaling, power, heterogeneous IP integration, design methodology and design-for-manufacturing (DFM) remain the key challenges to enable future designs.
Clearly, though, the days when the IC design teams and the chip manufacturing world lived in separate silos are over. “Collaboration between product and process development and optimization is key,” said Brad Heaney, a project manager within Intel’s Architecture Group, during a keynote presentation at DAC.
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