Using Formal Verification To Prevent Catastrophic Security Breaches

By Dave Kelf - 29 Sep, 2016 - Comments: 0

The news of last week’s Yahoo hack that affected 500-million or so users sent shock waves of anxiety far and wide. It’s not clear yet how the massive data breach occurred or through what means the hackers accessed the network. It could be the chips that drive the network, often vulnerable to attacks on their operational integrity. It’s no surprise, then, that semiconductor companies ar... » read more

Customizable Apps – Avoiding The Pitfalls Of EDA Frameworks

By Dave Kelf - 25 Aug, 2016 - Comments: 0

For those of us involved with EDA tools in the late '80s and early '90s, the word “frameworks” brings back memories of rigid methodology and use models, coupled with CAD complexity. Cadence and Mentor, among others, proposed the EDA framework as a mechanism to provide design revision management coupled with tool flow control (I can already imagine your eyes glazing over). For some situat... » read more

Formal Has Its Day

By Dave Kelf - 28 Jul, 2016 - Comments: 0

As new technologies receive more mainstream attention, it is common for the experts in the area to provide a critical mass of enthusiasm. Formal is in this mode with multiple meetings throughout the year and around the globe. Perhaps one of the most successful of these is the annual Formal Day event put on by Test & Verification Solutions (TVS) based in the UK. This live and online event is... » read more

The Secret To Good Comedy And SystemC Code Verification… Timing!

By Dave Kelf - 30 Jun, 2016 - Comments: 0

The High-Level Synthesis (HLS) of algorithmic code, usually written in SystemC, is steadily gaining ground. However, the verification of this code is still a somewhat mixed-up, ad-hoc process. The situation is improving as new techniques are applied, but it is clear that in-the-trenches evaluation of these solutions on real projects is more important right now than grand visions missing substan... » read more

Going Open Source

By Dave Kelf - 26 May, 2016 - Comments: 2

Open Source often is thought of as an alternative to commercial software licensed using fairly typical business models. For example, variants of open source Linux supplied by companies such as Red Hat charge a subscription for support and maintenance. Maybe there is an opportunity to leverage Open Source alongside commercial EDA software to provide use model advantages and open development f... » read more

The Early Bird Catches The Bug Using Formal

By Dave Kelf - 28 Apr, 2016 - Comments: 0

It has been suggested that formal might replace simulation, at least in some parts of the design flow. Not likely! The question is, how can formal be layered on top of simulation flows to improve coverage and schedule? The way formal is being used at the larger semiconductor companies is evolving. In many of these companies a small team of hardcore formal experts are employed across differen... » read more

Everything You Wanted to Know About Formal, But Were Too Afraid to Ask

By Dave Kelf - 24 Mar, 2016 - Comments: 0

Formal Verification is one of those EDA technologies that's been used in mainstream development in one or two applications for many years. The true power of the approach only now has started to capture the attention of engineers. Although there are a few reasons for this, perhaps the most significant is formal’s ill-gotten reputation as a mysterious beast too difficult to tame. After worki... » read more

Newer posts →