Starting Point Is Changing For Designs


The starting point for semiconductor designs is shifting. What used to be a fairly straightforward exercise of choosing a processor based on power or performance, followed by how much on-chip versus off-chip memory is required, has become much more complicated. This is partly due to an emphasis on application-specific hardware and software solutions for markets that either never existed befo... » read more

Blog Review: Oct. 4


Synopsys' Prishkrit Abrol digs into how USB Type-C Alternate Mode allows MHL, DisplayPort, HDMI, and Thunderbolt over cable. Mentor's Paul Morrison dives into how hardware emulation can help verify the complexities of new storage devices. Cadence's Madhavi Rao listens in as Somshubhro Pal Choudhury of Bharat Innovations describes the IoT stack, hype cycle, and why it's happening now. R... » read more

System Bits: Oct. 3


Polariton graphs In a development that a team of researchers from the UK and Russia say could eventually surpass the capabilities of even the most powerful supercomputers, a type of ‘magic dust’ — which combines light and matter — can be used to solve complex problems. Hailing from the University of Cambridge, University of Southampton and Cardiff University in the UK and the Skolk... » read more

Getting A Standard Right The First Time


The development of standards is a tricky balance, especially when going into areas that are nascent. The [getentity id="22863" e_name="Portable Stimulus Standard"] (PSS), being developed within [getentity id="22028" e_name="Accellera"] is one of those. This could be the most important standard since [gettech id="31017" comment="Verilog"] and [gettech id="31040" comment="VHDL"]. And if there ... » read more

Generically Reusable IP No One Uses


I can’t tell you how many times this line has jumped into my mind over the last couple decades, probably because I lost count sometime in 1998... Manager: “...why do they put a guarantee on the box then?” Tommy: “‘Cause they know all they sold you was a guaranteed piece of s***.” That’s an exchange from the movie Tommy Boy, a classic from my university days. Tommy Callaha... » read more

Prototypes Proliferate


Hardware prototyping and [getkc id="30" kc_name="emulation"] have been two sides of the same coin ever since the [gettech id="31071" comment="FPGA"] became a commercial success. Early emulators were all built from FPGAs, and most were used in-circuit, much like prototypes are today. More recently, emulation has become a major piece of the [getkc id="10" kc_name="verification"] flow, to the poin... » read more

The Week In Review: Design


M&A Imagination will sell its MIPS business to Tallwood, a California-based venture capital firm, for $65m in cash. The sale is expected to close in October. The rest of Imagination is slated to be sold to Canyon Bridge for £550 million in cash (~$740 million), a deal dependent on the MIPS sale. The Chinese-backed investment firm has featured recently in the news for its attempted purchas... » read more

Thinking Much Bigger


For the better part of the past decade the focus has been on integrating an increasing number of smaller components on a piece of silicon. It's time to start thinking much bigger. While there is still plenty of work to be done building more powerful processors, or networks of connected processors on a chip or in a package, new opportunities are opening up in markets such as automotive, medic... » read more

System Design And Verification Challenges: Are They On- Or Off-Chip?


What are the next natural items for mobile devices to be integrated? From 2002 to today, previously separate items (like GPS, cameras and keyboards) have been integrated into the phone. They caused a frenzy of integration within systems on chips. Now we have the Internet of Things (IoT) adding a trillion devices to the picture. Which ones are to be integrated, if any? What does all this mean fo... » read more

Get To Know The Gate-Level Power Aware Simulation


The post-synthesis gate-level netlist (GL-netlist) based PA simulation input requirements are mostly the same as RTL simulation. However, the design under verification here is the GL-netlist from synthesis, so logic gates from standard, MV and Macro cell Liberty libraries are already inserted or instantiated in the design. Hence power aware simulation (PA-SIM) at post-synthesis also requires Li... » read more

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