Author's Latest Posts


The Evolving Landscape Of SoC Vulnerabilities And Analog Threats


SoC integrators know that a software-only chip security plan leaves devices open to attack. The more effective way to thwart hackers is to combat both digital and analog threats by incorporating security-focused hardware modules built into the core machine design. This paper describes sources of vulnerabilities to cyber attacks and what infrastructure is needed to secure against them. The So... » read more

Tape Out On Time With Demand Signoff DRC In P&R


Physical characteristics of devices have become progressively more complex even as design companies pack more devices on each die. Combining these characteristics with ever more demanding chip power, performance, and area (PPA) goals not only result in increased resource utilization but also challenge existing tools/flows/techniques. Adding on-demand signoff-quality DRC verification inside P&R ... » read more

Streaming Scan Network


The traditional approach to moving scan test data from chip-level pins to core-level scan channels is under pressure due to the dramatic rise in design size, design complexity, and test adaptation. In the traditional approach to delivering scan test data to cores, each core requires a dedicated connection to chip-level pins, which doesn’t allow for much flexibility, as the dependencies betwee... » read more

Bringing Reset And Power Domains Together


The Unified Power format (UPF) standard enables designers to add power intent for a design. For power management, designers typically partition a design into power domains. Interactions between these power domains are done through various power control logic, like retention logic, isolation logic, and level shifters. Designers need to validate that the power control logic does not introduce new... » read more

Automotive Safety Island


The promise of autonomous vehicles is driving profound changes in the design and testing of automotive semiconductor parts. Automotive ICs, once deployed for simple functions like controlling windows, are now performing complex functions related to advanced driver-assist systems (ADAS) and autonomous driving applications. The processing power required results in very large and complex ICs that ... » read more

Using A System Technology Co-Optimization (STCO) Approach For 2.5/3D Heterogeneous Semiconductor Integration


With the economics of transistor scaling no longer universally applicable, the industry is turning to innovative packaging technologies to support system scaling demands and achieve lower system cost. This has led to the system technology co-optimization (STCO) concept, where a SoC type system is disaggregated, or partitioned, into smaller modules (also known as chiplets) that can be asynchrono... » read more

Primary, Anonymous, or What?


Top level primary I/Os remain mysterious in the verification world, specifically when you consider UPF-based low power designs. In real silicon, they are usually driven by off-chip supplies; however, verification complications are multifold for RTL and gate level simulations of them. This paper studies the “simulation-impacting” features of design top IOs and the effect of each feature on v... » read more

Orchestrating An Efficient ISO 26262 Fault Campaign


The primary objective of a fault campaign is to understand whether the safety architecture sufficiently prevents random failures from violating ISO 26262 safety requirements for both commercial and passenger automobiles. To complete fault injection, faults are injected and propagated in the design to validate the functional correctness of the safety mechanisms and to classify each fault. Fault ... » read more

MaxLinear And Calibre RealTime Digital


MaxLinear implemented the Calibre RealTime Digital interface for fast, iterative, signoff DRC checking and fixing during floorplanning and placement. They not only reduce the total of batch DRC iterations, but also eliminate potential late-stage issues during final physical verification signoff that are exponentially harder to fix. Adopting the Calibre RealTime Digital interface enabled MaxLine... » read more

Machine Learning At The Edge


Moving machine learning to the edge has critical requirements on power and performance. Using off-the-shelf solutions is not practical. CPUs are too slow, GPUs/TPUs are expensive and consume too much power, and even generic machine learning accelerators can be overbuilt and are not optimal for power. In this paper, learn about creating new power/memory efficient hardware architectures to meet n... » read more

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