What ESL Is Really About


There has been an almost constant disagreement between the generally held view about what ESL is and my own views on the subject. It is not completely surprising, given that I have spent most of my time as a verification specialist working within the EDA industry. EDA has been driven by design, and all of the largest EDA companies grew out of advances on the design side. [getkc id="10" kc_na... » read more

Getting Paid More


Consolidation is a regular news item in the semiconductor industry, and has been for years, but most of those deals have been relatively small. What's changing is the amount of consolidation involving big companies, fueled partly by a massive M&A fund in China, partly by an arms race in preparation for the IoE, and partly by the kind of thinking that if other companies are doing it, it's dan... » read more

What Is ‘Digital’?


I saw a LinkedIn article with this title a couple of weeks ago and was curious. Do we not know what digital is and do we need to question it? When I read the first line I was very surprised and somewhat confused. Ved Sen, the author said that, “Despite working in the digital space for years, now I was quite stumped a few weeks ago when I was asked to define it.” Why would digital be so d... » read more

Full AMS Design Flow For The IoT


By Nicolas Williams and Jeff Miller The pressure for a new generation of (analog/mixed-signal) AMS design capabilities has been accelerated by the sudden demand for Internet of Things (IoT). These inexpensive devices are used in an expanding array of scenarios on the edge of the network — thus the demand for an AMS design environment that is affordable and easy to use, but powerful enough ... » read more

The Times They Are A-Changin’


Let me start out by saying that I’m not a huge Bob Dylan fan. I’m an American that grew up in the 1960s, so it’s hard to not call some of Dylan’s catalog a soundtrack for your life. The song that I used to title this blog has some special relevance for me and eSilicon. Recently, we’ve heard a lot about changing times, and not-so-good times, when it comes to the worldwide economy and o... » 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

Hardware-Software Co-Design


A famous electronics company recently launched a new TV and web commercial emphasizing the importance of designing hardware and software together. (You can view the video here.) It is interesting to see that we have evolved to a state where a phone maker actually feels compelled to talk about the technical details of how the phone was designed. Rather than focusing on the screen resolution,... » read more

As Moore’s Law Slows, Hedge Your Bets With Design Process Efficiency


Are you dreading the day when Moore’s Law comes to a grinding halt? I’m concerned, but I’m not as fatalistic as some. Here's why: There are plenty of ways to eke out more scalability in the semiconductor design process through greater efficiency. SoC design realities make it imperative to re-evaluate mature semiconductor processes for greater efficiencies that yield lower costs, higher... » read more

Developing High-Reliability FPGAs For DO-254


You have been developing FPGAs for a long time, and you know your designs from top to bottom. You know every interface protocol, configuration and optimization. You can visualize your timing diagram like you can visualize your upcoming vacation in Hawaii. You can manually write down your memory mapping accurately while under oath. You can pinpoint all CDC paths and emulate metastability in your... » read more

The Next Big Things


Progress in electronics has always been about combining more functions into devices and making access to information more convenient. This is what drove the PC revolution in the 1980s, when centralized data was made available on desktops, and it's what drove the notebook PC revolution in the 1990s as computers became untethered from the desktop, as long as you could find an Ethernet connecti... » read more

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