Verification Requirements For 5G To Enable A Perfect Storm Of New Applications


In my role as product management lead, to understand drivers for verification requirements and semiconductor markets I often exchange thoughts with customers what they think the next “killer app” would be. Ten years back, the drivers seemed pretty clear and segmented on a small number of applications, but the outlook today in 2019 is much more diverse. 5G networking seems to be a binding el... » read more

Which Glitch Is Which?


Glitch is a commonly used term in modern vernacular, used to identify unexpected problems in everything from the space race, web site down time, or a crash of your latest mobile phone app. In electronics design glitch has a more specific meaning, referring to unnecessary signal transitions in a combinational circuit. Eliminating this extra switching activity can save power consumption, especial... » read more

Hardware-Software Co-Design Reappears


The core concepts in hardware-software co-design are getting another look, nearly two decades after this approach was first introduced and failed to catch on. What's different this time around is the growing complexity and an emphasis on architectural improvements, as well as device scaling, particularly for AI/ML applications. Software is a critical component, and the more tightly integrate... » read more

Power Is Limiting Machine Learning Deployments


The total amount of power consumed for machine learning tasks is staggering. Until a few years ago we did not have computers powerful enough to run many of the algorithms, but the repurposing of the GPU gave the industry the horsepower that it needed. The problem is that the GPU is not well suited to the task, and most of the power consumed is waste. While machine learning has provided many ... » read more

Taking EDA To The Cloud


By now, virtually everyone knows about the “cloud”—that amorphous delivery of computing services over the Internet. Servers, storage, databases, networking, software, analytics, intelligence, and more are all on offer. Clouds may be private and limited to a single organization (enterprise clouds), be available to many organizations (public cloud), or a combination of both (hybrid cloud). ... » read more

Memory IP: From Cobblestone To Cornerstone


Embedded, on-chip SRAM has been a fundamental building block for custom and standard chips for quite a while. When all this began, there were typically small SRAM blocks of on-chip memory supplemented by off-chip DRAM devices. Those off-chip devices became more sophisticated, with higher performance interfaces (e.g., GDDR6) or new form factors (e.g., HBM2 3D memory stacks). The on-chip memory p... » read more

Hybrid Emulation Takes Center Stage


From mobile to networking to AI applications, system complexity shows no sign of slowing. These designs, which may contain multiple billion gates, must be validated, verified and tested, and it’s no longer possible to just throw the whole thing in a hardware emulator. For some time, emulation, FPGA-based prototyping, and virtual environments such as simulators have given design and verific... » read more

How To Optimize Verification


The rate of improvement in verification tools and methodologies has been nothing short of staggering, but that has created new kinds of problems for verification teams. Over the past 20 years, verification has transformed from a single language (Verilog) and tool (simulator) to utilizing many languages (testbench languages, assertion languages, coverage languages, constraint languages), many... » read more

Optimize MATLAB C/C++ Code For HLS


A common use case for high-level synthesis (HLS) is taking 3rd party generated or legacy C/C++ algorithms and converting the algorithm to a hardware implementation using an HLS compiler. This can present many challenges to the developer since there is little insight or understanding of the underlying code. In a recently published white paper, we examine how SLX FPGA is used to take a MATLAB... » read more

Konica Minolta Proves C++ Level Signoff Possibilities Using Catapult HLS Platform


A team’s ultimate goal is to move verification up to the C++ level in order to minimize the time spent in RTL verification and to achieve C++ signoff. A team at Konica Minolta® has been using the Catapult HLS Platform for many years to dramatically improve their productivity by coding at the C++ level and using the platform to generate RTL. They recently evaluated the high-level verification... » read more

← Older posts Newer posts →