Research project addresses need for greener electronics

The three year multinational/multidisciplinary program: 'END — Models, Solutions, Methods and Tools for Energy-Aware Design' has been unveiled by the European Nanoelectronics Initiative Advisory Council (ENIAC). The END project will pursue the energy efficiency objective through an approach that unifies, under a common design platform, the development of modeling, simulation, design and eda techniques for a range of devices and systems. These include digital blocks, analogue/rf blocks and discrete components. The project will also address the conception and experimentation of new power supply systems, with particular emphasis on energy management aspects. According to ENIAC, the mission is to enable a synergic approach to energy-aware design, offering solutions covering the many different facets of the problem of accounting for energy effects during the design of heterogeneous circuits and systems, such as those that will be hosted by the electronic products of the future. "The ultimate objective of the END project is to bring innovative energy-aware design solutions and eda technologies into the product development of the industrial partners of the Consortium," said Salvatore Rinaudo, END project coordinator and Industrial and Multisegment Sector CAD R&D Director at STMicroelectronics. "We will enable the design and manufacture of electronic circuits that will be at the basis of the green information society of the future." The END project brings together user companies (IDMs, fabless), design centres, universities and institutes in a range of projects that will establish standards and contribute to building a solid energy-aware electronics design base for Europe. In particular, the project goals include the development of power models for non-bulk cmos devices, a unified low power design methodology for heterogeneous systems and SoC devices, energy-efficient building blocks for heterogeneous systems, energy-efficient IP components for SoCs, energy management of systems based on multiple, heterogeneous supplies, and demonstrators of solar energy and wireless sensor systems. The project will cost approximately €12.6million, with funding provided by both the ENIAC JU (Joint Undertaking) and from the public authorities of Belgium, Greece, Italy and Slovakia. Project partners: STMicroelectronics s.r.l., Italy (Project Coordinator) Centro Ricerche FIAT, Italy ETH Lab, Eurotech Group, Italy Numonyx Italy, Italy Consorzio Nazionale Interuniversitario per la Nanoelettronica, Italy Politecnico di Torino, Italy Alma Mater Studiorum - Università di Bologna, Italy Università degli Studi di Catania, Italy Università degli Studi di Salerno, Italy NXP Semiconductors, Germany Intracom S.A. Telecom Solutions, Greece inAccess Networks, Greece University of Patras, Greece ON Semiconductor, Belgium ON Semiconductor, Slovakia Slovak University of Technology in Bratislava, Slovakia LEITAT Technological Center, Spain Centre Suisse d'Electronique et de Microtechnique, Switzerland.