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Brian Bailey

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Brian Bailey is Technology Editor/EDA for Semiconductor Engineering.

Author's Latest Posts

A New Breed Of EDA Required
By Brian Bailey - 23 Jun, 2022 - Comments: 1

While doing research for one of my stories this month, a couple of people basically said that applying methodologies of the past to the designs of today can be problematic because there are fundamental differences in the architectures and workloads. While I completely agree, I don't think these statements go far enough. Designs of today generally have one of everything — one CPU, one accel... » read more

Why Hardware-Dependent Software Is So Critical
By Brian Bailey - 23 Jun, 2022 - Comments: 0

Hardware and software are two sides of the same coin, but they often live in different worlds. In the past, hardware and software rarely were designed together, and many companies and products failed because the total solution was unable to deliver. The big question is whether the industry has learned anything since then. At the very least, there is widespread recognition that hardware-depen... » read more

Can Analog Make A Comeback?
By Brian Bailey - 09 Jun, 2022 - Comments: 3

We live in an analog world dominated by digital processing, but that could change. Domain specificity, and the desire for greater levels of optimization, may provide analog compute with some significant advantages — and the possibility of a comeback. For the last four decades, the advantages of digital scaling and flexibility have pushed the dividing line between analog and digital closer ... » read more

IP Industry Transformation
By Brian Bailey - 09 Jun, 2022 - Comments: 0

The design IP industry is developing an assortment of new options and licensing schemes that could affect everything from how semiconductor companies collaborate to how ICs are designed, packaged, and brought to market. The IP market already has witnessed a sweeping shift from a "design once, use everywhere" approach, to an "architect once, customize everywhere" model, in which IP is highly ... » read more

AI-Powered Verification
By Brian Bailey - 01 Jun, 2022 - Comments: 1

With functional verification consuming more time and effort than design, the chip industry is looking at every possible way to make the verification process more effective and more efficient. Artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning (ML) are being tested to see how big an impact they can have. While there is progress, it still appears to be just touching the periphery of the problem... » read more

How To Optimize A Processor
By Brian Bailey - 26 May, 2022 - Comments: 0

Optimizing any system is a multi-layered problem, but when it involves a processor there are at least three levels to consider. Architects must be capable of thinking across these boundaries because the role of each of the layers must be both understood and balanced. The first level of potential optimization is at the system level. For example, how does data come in and out of the processing... » read more

Is AI Improving A Broken Process?
By Brian Bailey - 26 May, 2022 - Comments: 0

Verification is fundamentally comparing two models, each derived independently, to find out if there are any different behaviors expressed between the two models. One of those models represents the intended design, and the other is part of the testbench. In an ideal flow, the design model would be derived from the specification, and each stage of the design process would be adding other deta... » read more

The Challenge Of Optimizing Chip Architectures For Workloads
By Brian Bailey - 12 May, 2022 - Comments: 1

It isn't possible to optimize a workload running on a system just by looking at hardware or software separately. They need to be developed together and intricately intertwined, an engineering feat that also requires bridging two worlds with have a long history of operating independently. In the early days of computing, hardware and software were designed and built by completely separate team... » read more

The Industrial Revolution Is Over
By Brian Bailey - 28 Apr, 2022 - Comments: 0

One of the greatest impacts of the industrial revolution was that better communication allowed for greater specialization, and with that came better economics. There have been multiple waves of the industrial revolution, each triggered by some improvement in communications. The first wave was all about trains — raw materials and finished goods could be quickly and cheaply moved between cit... » read more

Choosing Which Tasks To Optimize In Chips
By Brian Bailey - 28 Apr, 2022 - Comments: 0

The optimization of one or more tasks is an important aspect of every SoC created, but with so many options now on the table it is often unclear which is best. Just a few years ago, most people were happy to buy processors from the likes of Intel, AMD and Nvidia, and IP cores from Arm. Some even wanted the extensibility that came from IP cores like Tensilica and ARC. Then, in 2018, John Henn... » read more

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