Power Management And Integration Of IPs In SoCs: Part 2


Most IP are available as either soft or hard macros. But both pose immense challenges. This is especially so when integrating them into low power designs and conducting power aware (PA) verification, because the majority of IP are self-contained and pre-verified at the block level and they must be preserved in their entirety when integrated or verified in the SoC level. Part one of this two ... » read more

UPF 1.0, UPF 2.0, UPF 2.1, UPF 3.0, And Now UPF 3.1


UPF is the fastest evolving IEEE standard, and UPF 3.1 is a major milestone in its evolution. This paper provides an in-depth analysis and relevant examples of all the new features introduced in UPF 3.1 along with semantic differences with earlier versions. It also highlights migration challenges to help users migrate from existing power formats to UPF 3.1. To read more, click here. » read more

Power Management And Integration Of IPs In SoCs: Part 1


IPs – whether in the form of soft or hard macros – are the epicenter of today’s SoC designs. Integration of IP with low power designs and conducting power aware (PA) verification are always complex and cumbersome. Because most of these IPs are self-contained, pre-verified at the block level, and must be preserved in their totality when integrated or verified at the SoC level. Until UPF... » read more

Power Challenges In ML Processors


The design of artificial intelligence (AI) chips or machine learning (ML) systems requires that designers and architects use every trick in the book and then learn some new ones if they are to be successful. Call it style, call it architecture, there are some designs that are just better than others. When it comes to power, there are plenty of ways that small changes can make large differences.... » read more

Three Steps To Faster Low Power Coverage Using UPF 3.0 Information Models


Controlling power has its costs. The added power elements and their interactions make verification of low-power designs much more difficult and the engineer’s job overwhelmingly complex and tedious. Early versions of the Unified Power Format (UPF) provided some relief, but lacked provisions for a standardized methodology for low-power coverage. Ad hoc approaches are error prone and highly ... » read more

Static Verification Of Low Power Designs


Are there any chips designed today that don’t have limitations on their power consumption? For smartphones and tablets, increasing the time between charges is a clear product differentiator and a frequent design goal. Power consumption is also an issue for Internet-of-Things (IoT) devices, many of which are in inaccessible locations where battery replacement or recharge is difficult. Even com... » read more

Power Complexity On The Rise


New chip architectures and custom applications are adding significant challenges to chip design and verification, and the problems are becoming much more complex as low power is added into the mix. Power always has been a consideration in design, but in the past it typically involved different power domains that were either on, off, or in some level of sleep mode. As hardware architectures s... » read more

Rapid Evolution For Verification Plans


Verification plans are rapidly evolving from mechanisms to track verification progress into multi-faceted coordination vehicles for several teams with disparate goals, using complex resource management spread across multiple abstractions and tools. New system demands from industries such as automotive are forcing tighter integration of those plans with requirements management and product lif... » read more

Extending Portable Stimulus


It has been a year since Accellera's Portable Test and Stimulus Specification became a standard. Semiconductor Engineering sat down to discuss the impact it has had, and the future direction of it, with Larry Melling, product management director for Cadence; Tom Fitzpatrick, strategic verification architect for Mentor, a Siemens Business; Tom Anderson, technical marketing consultant for OneSpin... » read more

Shift Left Power-Aware Static Verification


Next-generation SoCs with advanced graphics, computing, machine learning (ML) and artificial intelligence (AI) capabilities are posing new unseen challenges in Low Power Verification. These techniques can introduce critical bugs into a design, especially when the power-management infrastructure interacts with signals that cross clock or reset domains. This can create additional clock-domain cro... » read more

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