Big Shift In Multi-Core Design


Hardware and software engineers have a long history of working independently of each other, but that insular behavior is changing in emerging areas such as AI, machine learning and automotive as the emphasis shifts to the system level. As these new markets consume more semiconductor content, they are having a big impact on the overall design process. The starting point in many of these desig... » read more

Heterogeneous Design Creating Havoc With Firmware Versions


Adding different kinds of processing elements into chips is creating system-level incompatibilities because of sometimes necessary, but usually uncoordinated, firmware updates from multiple vendors. In the past, firmware typically was synchronized with other firmware and the chip was verified and debugged. But this becomes much more difficult when multiple heterogeneous processing elements a... » read more

Week In Review: Design, Low Power


ON Semiconductor will acquire Quantenna Communications for $24.50 per share in an all cash transaction, representing an equity value of approximately $1.07 billion and enterprise value of approximately $936 million. Quantenna, a maker of Wi-Fi chipsets, was founded in 2006 and went public in late 2016. Tools & IP Achronix completed testing and is now demonstrating the 112 Gbps SerDes th... » read more

Auto Reliability At The System Level


Carmakers and chipmakers are approaching autonomous vehicle design from very different perspectives, and while they both talk about safety and reliability as the end goals, they have widely divergent ideas about how to get there. All of this is just beginning to come into focus as carmakers vie for leadership in the autonomous vehicle space, and much of it appears to hinge on the definition ... » read more

The Value Of A Model


Increased talk about the Digital Twin has brought models to the forefront of the discussion. What are the right models for particular applications? What is the correct level of abstraction? Where do the models come from and how are they maintained? How does one value a model? The semiconductor industry has been reluctant to create any model that is not directly used in the development path. ... » read more

Fibonacci And Honey Bees Have Something In Common: A Sweet Spot For Formal


Time flies and the OneSpin’s Holiday Puzzle tradition has reached its third year. In December 2016, OneSpin challenged engineers everywhere to solve the Einstein riddle using assertions and a formal verification tool. In December 2017, the challenge was to model the hardest Sudoku in the world using assertions and find a solution with a formal tool. In addition, participants had to prove that... » read more

Digital Twins For Hardware/Software Co-Development


These days it seems like we could play business bingo when watching presentations at conferences, checking off the most keywords mentioned. Hitting the terms AI, ML, IoT, 5G, and edge computing all together almost guarantees your presentation to be a hit. In recent years, the term “digital twin” has gotten a lot of attention. Recent discussions with Brian Bailey and a paper I wrote for GOMA... » read more

Building Bridges: A New DFT Paradigm


Over the last twenty years, structural testing with scan chains has become pervasive in chip design methodology. Indeed, it’s remarkable to think that most electronic devices we interact with today (think smartphones, laptops, televisions, etc.) contain hundreds to thousands of interconnected scan chains used to verify that the semiconductors were manufactured without defects. Because the imp... » read more

Getting A Complete Picture Of Automotive Software


The automotive industry is currently undergoing a major disruption, usually referred as the shift to automated, connected, electric, and shared vehicles (ACES[1]). Naturally, these changes also have a significant impact on the requirements of the hard- and software architectures of these new vehicles: Service-oriented software architectures used by multiple applications running on generali... » read more

How Qualcomm Got Faster Signoff DRC Convergence


Qualcomm Incorporated designs and markets wireless telecommunications products and services that are the foundational technologies that others build upon, from mobile processors to embedded platforms, Bluetooth products, and cellular modems. In the fast-moving mobile phone market in which Qualcomm competes, companies who can get to market more quickly gain a strong competitive advantage, along ... » read more

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