Semiconductor Engineering .:. What Cognitive Computing Means For Chip Design

All of these are concepts aim to make human types of problems computable, whether it be a self-driving car, a health care-providing robot, or a walking and talking assistant robot for the home or office. R&D teams around the world are working to create a whole new world of machines more intelligent than humans. Designing systems as complex as the human brain -- which is still largely a mystery -- is no small task. For example, tomorrow's bleeding edge cars will be the ultimate in efficient system-level design sophistication given the complexity, integration, interdependencies, safety, convenience and comfort required on so many levels. "It fundamentally changes the paradigm and even what we expect of processors to be doing," said Chris Rowen, a Cadence fellow and CTO of the IP Group.