The coronavirus pandemic found the semiconductor industry and the chip production supply chain ecosystem unprepared. Companies and main actors in the sector could not read the signs. The decision-makers suffered to deal with the challenges in time and take the right actions. The bullwhip effect caused by the COVID-19 destabilized the operations and some of the experts say that these problems might last and on the other side, this might open doors to innovative solutions that might change the game. The global shutdowns, the misread of the demand for electronics, underestimating customers’ demand for the automotive sector, and the Internet of Things in general, were some of the main problems causing chaos in the industry. The paper studies the state-of-the-art and the solutions offered by the semiconductor industry and by the initiatives that Europe, the USA, and especially China, took to make companies and their countries take the most out of this situation.
The paper makes an overview of the existing methods applied for circuit design with low power consumption objective. It considers Computer-Aided Design (CAD) tools and modules for power consumption estimation at the design stage. For analog and mixed analog-digital circuit design, the power estimation options in ORCAD Design Suit with PSpice and Analog Filter Wizard are studied. For digital communication systems the study covers the power estimation, analysis and optimization in ISE and Vivado systems, Xilinx Power Estimator (XPE) tool and spreadsheet, the XPower Analyzer, as well as similar tools proposed by ALTERA - PowerPlay Early Power Estimator and QUARTUS II Power Play Power Analyzer. Two examples are developed: Power consumption estimation of a Universal Software Radio Peripheral (USRP)-based communication system design, based on datasheets and software energy monitoring tools, and power consumption estimation of a Kasami pseudo-random sequence generator circuit design on FPGA using Vivado.
Online calculators, generators, wizards and free design tools increased considerably the accessibility of communication circuits and systems design. The paper presents a study on the online design tools and defines design tasks that can be solved with their assistance. The concept of Local resources, assisted by Web assistants in a Web portal, is considered. The Web assistants in the portal integrate Sets of connexions and e-Content. The paper gives examples combining online tools with locally installed Computer-aided design (CAD) tools for more effective communication circuits and systems design.
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