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Innovating Virtualization In Emulation


Last week we officially introduced our next-generation emulator. We used the words “datacenter” and “virtualization” a lot, and it is worthwhile to underline the significance of what just happened in emulation. The new concepts are just as key to emulation as was the invention of virtual memory and memory management units to processors and software development. The concept of virtual... » read more

Requirements For Datacenter-Ready Emulation


It’s time to look at what the latest trends in emulation are and to review some of the key requirements to make it datacenter-ready. Specifically, I will look at virtualization of external interfaces as well as emulation throughput, specifically the allocation of jobs into emulators. One overarching trend in verification lies in the connection of the engines in what Jim Hogan has dubbed t... » read more

The Next Level Of Abstraction For System Design


Recently there have been a lot of discussions again about the next level of design abstraction for chip design. Are we there yet? Will we ever get there? Is it SystemC? UML/SysML perhaps? I am taking the approach of simply claiming victory: Over the last 20 years we have moved up beyond RTL in various areas—just in a fragmented way. However, the human limitations on our capacity for processin... » read more

Why Implementation Matters To System Design And Software


There has been quite some discussion in the recent past how well abstraction really works in enabling system design and verification. As I admitted in “Confessions of an ESL-Aholic” a while back, I have revised my view significantly over the years. While thinking originally of abstraction more as an panacea, it turns out that important decisions and analyses, such as for power and performan... » read more

Top 15 Integrating Points In The Continuum Of Verification Engines


The integration game between the different verification engines, dynamic and static, is in full swing. Jim Hogan talked about the dynamic engines that he dubbed “COVE”, and I recently pointed out a very specific adoption of COVE in my review of some customer examples at DAC 2015 in “Use Model Versatility Is Key for Emulation Returns on Investment”. Here are my top 15 integrating poin... » read more

Towards A Metric To Measure Verification Computing Efficiency


Thinking back about DAC 2015 in San Francisco earlier this month, I am happy that at least some of my predictions came true—there was clearly a trend towards making verification smarter. However, one thing struck me while hearing all the discussions on connecting engines is what Jim Hogan called the continuum of verification engines (COVE)—and what we at Cadence call the system development ... » read more

Toward Smarter Design Automation


In less than two weeks, the EDA industry will convene for its biggest conference of the year, the Design Automation Conference, again in San Francisco. Last year, I “came clean” with a post called “Confessions Of An ESL-Aholic,” pointing out that beyond high-level synthesis, a significant shift towards a more abstract design description than RTL has not yet happened and that a lot of th... » read more

A Fireside Chat With Imagination On Hardware-Assisted Development And Emulation


During one of my trips to Europe I was able to sit down with Colin McKellar, senior director of hardware engineering at Imagination Technologies. He is my main contact for all things verification at Imagination. Imagination’s product challenges include maintaining the level of quality of their IP products within shorter timelines and dealing with integration of their IP into more complex c... » read more

How Health And Auto Requirements Drive IoT Design


One of the fun parts of my job is that I am looking at the requirements of our customer’s customers quite a bit to understand where to focus our efforts on the tool side. As a follow on to my last post “System Design Enabling The Human Intranet,” this month I am looking at the requirements imposed on system design by health and automotive applications as they were discussed at DATE in Gre... » read more

System Design Enabling The Human Intranet


Against the always-impressive backdrop of the French Alps, DATE took place earlier this month in Grenoble. DATE has quietly transformed from a European version of DAC into a very interesting technical conference with some very high-caliber attendees. This year, I had the pleasure to participate as session chair for the design tools section, themed “Designing Electronics for the Internet of Th... » read more

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