Accelerating Chiplet-Based SoC Design For AI-Defined Vehicles

Today, we are witnessing a paradigm shift towards a more modular design approach that disaggregates SoC functions into various chiplets, each optimized for specific functionalities. Chiplets offer more modularity, which enables product scalability and customization, which is key for AI-defined vehicles, the next generation of software-defined vehicles (SDVs).

Cadence’s Helium Virtual and Hybrid Studio enables virtual prototyping for system on chips (SoCs), allowing Arm automotive customers to “shift left” in their software development process. They gain the benefits of the Arm Zena CSS compute and software compatibility early in the design phase, ensuring a smoother and more efficient development cycle for their software workloads.

Helium Studio works with Cadence’s Palladium Emulation and Protium Prototyping solutions to facilitate early software validation using actual SoC hardware on hybrid platforms as designs progress. Helium Studio also enables development with multiple chiplets for automotive and Scalable Open Architecture for Embedded Edge (SOAFEE)-compliant software workload bring-up.

The Helium platform supports high-performance native execution of software workloads on Arm servers, resulting in improved turnaround time and near-silicon performance of the software workload. This cloud-native execution significantly boosts the productivity of software teams, especially for multi-core software workloads, compared to virtual prototypes based on virtual models of CPUs.

Additionally, Cadence’s Helium hybrid platform enables software-driven verification (with real software workloads and applications) with its Palladium emulation and prototyping Protium platforms. These hardware solutions are renowned for their performance, scalability, and reliability.

Cadence’s Centralized Development Environment (CDE) provides a unified environment for complex software development and systems integration to Arm’s customers.

Designing with automotive-enabled EDA flows and automotive-grade IP solutions

Cadence’s electronic design automation (EDA) flows are integral to the design process for Arm-based silicon. By leveraging these advanced tools, Arm’s customers can successfully create silicon designs based on Arm’s architecture and develop high-quality SoCs that meet stringent automotive standards. The result is a faster time to market, which keeps automotive manufacturers competitive.

Arm Zena CSS, combined with Cadence’s automotive chiplet and IP solutions, are essential for accelerating chiplet-based SoC design. Cadence chiplet and IP solutions are built in accordance with the Arm Chiplet System Architecture (CSA), of which Cadence is a key contributor. They also align with the Automotive Chiplet Program (ACP), a collaborative initiative led by imec, where Arm and Cadence play significant roles. Supporting Arm’s CSA standard is crucial for facilitating widespread industry adoption of these combined solutions.

Cadence’s comprehensive IP portfolio allows customers to quickly integrate automotive-ready IP, including the Universal Chiplet Interconnect Express (UCIe) IP, which enables multi-die chiplet connectivity. The Cadence UCIe IP, which has recently achieved ISO 26262 ASIL-B certification, enables automotive functional safety for chiplets. UCIe IP is just one of many automotive-ready IP offerings from Cadence.

The 4 Cs of chiplets deliver a reusable platform that speeds time to market for new solutions through a cost-efficient, configurable, and customizable platform powered by the Cadence ecosystem.

Building with silicon design and realization services

Cadence’s Silicon Design services and Silicon Realization services play an important role in helping optimize the overall cost of silicon ownership for Arm’s automotive customers. These services ensure seamless system-level integration, enabling customers to achieve high performance and reliability in their automotive applications.

Seamless cloud-to-car compatibility for accelerated software development

Recent trends show a shift towards consolidated zonal architectures, necessary to address the increasing complexity and performance demands of modern software-defined vehicles (SDVs). Arm Zena CSS is at the forefront of this trend, providing the computational power required for AI-powered features in advanced driver assistance systems (ADAS), autonomous driving, and in-vehicle infotainment.

Cadence’s Helium Studio is pivotal in this context, offering virtual prototyping capabilities that allow automotive engineers to test and validate their designs in a virtual environment. This shift-left approach accelerates the development process, enabling faster iterations and reducing the risk of costly design errors.

Cadence’s Helium virtual prototypes, with support for Helium models and debug capabilities on Arm-based servers, enable full embedded software development on virtual platforms, thanks to Arm’s Instruction Set Architecture (ISA) parity. ISA parity occurs when the ISA in the cloud is identical to the one used at the edge, specifically on the actual device or within the vehicle.

Especially for software developers, this is a game changer because any development work that is done in the cloud on Arm Neoverse-based AWS Graviton processors will have almost exactly the same instruction set as automotive applications and vehicles that will be built on the new Arm Cortex-A720AE. Software is built and tested in the cloud, and then deployable at the edge in the vehicle. The toolchains are identical, eliminating the need for cross compilation or different sets of drivers, resulting in an accelerated development process.

Integration with Cadence’s Palladium and Protium platforms for hybrid emulation significantly improves turnaround time for pre/post-OS software stacks, application-level performance, and power analysis for Arm-based automotive designs. This seamless cloud-to-edge compatibility allows customers to develop software on virtual prototypes in Arm cloud/on-premises Arm-based servers and deploy it afterwards on compatible Arm-based edge devices. The Cadence Chiplet solutions for Arm-based designs also align with the SOAFEE initiative, which introduces a new standard for software-defined vehicle chips and interface designs.

Zena CSS customers benefit from a pre-verified virtual prototype platform for booting SOAFEE-compliant OS stacks and automotive applications natively on Arm-based servers.

Arm and Cadence’s longstanding collaboration has produced results, with Cadence receiving silicon in-house for the Cadence System Chiplet that supports the Arm ecosystem. The Arm-based system chiplet reference platform includes processors, system IP, and memory IP within a single package, targeting various applications like ADAS and robotics.

Arm’s customers can now harness the power of Cadence’s Centralized Development Environment (CDE) Platform, designed to facilitate collaborative embedded software engineering through a centrally provisioned automated infrastructure. This platform streamlines development processes, enhancing efficiency and fostering innovation.

Cadence also offers advanced modeling services for virtual system-on-chip (SoCs) and virtual system-of-systems (SoSs). These services enable high-level architectural exploration, optimizing system performance and validating use cases for OEMs and automotive suppliers. By integrating these capabilities, Cadence empowers automotive semiconductor development with precision and reliability.

Optimizing cost of silicon ownership

Cadence’s comprehensive Silicon Design and Silicon Realization services are designed to help optimize the cost of silicon ownership for Arm’s automotive customers. By providing support throughout the design, tapeout, production, and software bring-up phases, Cadence ensures that customers can achieve seamless system-level integration. With deep expertise in hardening Zena CSS for customers’ applications, Cadence Services can provide automotive manufacturers with best-in-class performance for Arm architectures while helping to reduce overall costs and adopting advanced technologies.

Conclusion

Combining Cadence’s advanced solutions with Arm Zena CSS represents a significant step forward in the automotive industry towards chiplet-based design. In addition, this partnership aims to enhance and speed up the development of the next generation of automotive software solutions that can be developed and deployed more rapidly. Learn more about the Cadence – Arm collaboration.