Scope: SOC conference, falling DRAM prices

Scope previews the International SOC Conference; ponders the significance of the chronic oversupply of DRAM; and highlights pre-GPS navigation, as covered 50 years ago in EDN.

Edited by Ron Wilson -- EDN, 10/11/2007

Looking Ahead: To the International SOC conference

Commencing Nov 7 in Newport Beach, CA, this two-day, 5-year-old conference is attracting an increasingly interesting set of keynotes and technical papers. Among this year’s keynote speakers, Jeff Parkhurst, academic-research-programs manager at Intel, will discuss terascale computing, complex SOC (system-on-chip) design, and Moore’s Law. Rob Rutenbar, professor of electrical and computer engineering at Carnegie Mellon University (Pittsburgh), will discuss the statistical analyses that modern finance and risk analysis employ and their applicability to the problems of closure in SOC design. Panels will examine the challenges of wireless SOCs, directions in SOC architecture, and the future—if any—of structured ASICs.