The Growing Verification Challenge


As complexity continues to mount in designing SoCs, so does the challenge of verifying them within the same time window and using the same compute and engineering resources. Chipmakers aren’t always successful at this. In many cases they have to put more engineers on the verification and debug at the tail end of a design to get it out the door on or close to schedule. In many cases that al... » read more

The Road Ahead For 2014: Tools


In the third and final part of this predictions series we see the natural conclusion of market shifts that are driving changes in semiconductors, and which in turn drive the tools and IP needed to create those systems. To be expected, the changes fall into a few areas: New tools, techniques and changes required for smaller geometries; A migration to higher-levels of abstraction and the... » read more

Ticket to Ride


Welcome to the newly named eSilicon blog. We’ll discuss topics of general interest related to the semiconductor industry here. Our blog title does however take us off the hook to have complete, rational and defensible points of view at all times. Let’s begin… Do you like a roller coaster ride? Some do and some, well, get sick at the thought. I’m here to tell you that if you’re invo... » read more

How To Speed Up Verification


Software requirements have changed the tapeout process in today’s SoCs so much that it isn’t uncommon to hear a design can’t be released because Android hasn’t booted. “It’s one of those things where you really understand that what used to be classic hardware verification that said ‘the chip is done’ is heavily impacted by if it actually does software things,” noted Frank S... » read more

Localized, System-Level Protocol Checks and Coverage Closure Using Veloce


Broadcom recently developed a unified, scalable, verification methodology based on the Veloce emulation platform. In order to test this new environment, they ran a test case, which proved that they can take assertions, compile them into Veloce, and verify that they fire accurately. In so doing, they were able to provide proof of concept for their primary goal: the creation of an internal flow t... » read more

Blog Review: Jan. 29


ARM’s Ellie Stone returns from the Mobile Games Forum in London with some insights about where the future competition will come from. No. 4 on her list is the big surprise. Cadence’s Brian Fuller has unearthed an old black & white AT&T video that makes you wonder how they created wire. So that’s what happens when you heat a semiconductor with a Bunsen burner. What’s the real val... » read more

Experts At The Table: Yield And Reliability Issues With Integrating IP


Semiconductor Engineering sat down to discuss the impact of integrating IP in complex SoCs with Juan Rey, senior director of engineering at Mentor Graphics; Kevin Yee, product marketing director for Cadence’s SoC Realization Group; and Mike Gianfagna, vice president of marketing at eSilicon. What follows are excerpts of that conversation. SE: As an industry we’ve got a pretty good grasp ... » read more

A Perspective On Open Process Specification


It is the job of the Process Design Kit (PDK) engineers to deliver a high-quality PDK that properly represents the process requirements and constraints and supports the design flows used by their customers. The PDK engineer takes multiple inputs describing the process and the devices and circuitry in the process and generates the output in the form of OpenAccess technology libraries (techDB), d... » read more

The Week In Review: System-Level Design


India's reliance on technology has created a huge demand for software in the country. IDC expects the market for enterprise software in India to grow 19%, and the market for collaborative applications to grow 13.5%. Growth is continuing across all business markets, turning India into a huge consumer of software rather than just a creator. The enterprise software market in India is dominated by ... » read more

The Road Ahead for 2014: Semiconductors


Last week, Semiconductor Engineering examined the 2014 predictions from several thought leaders in the industry and published those predictions that related to general market trends. Many of those predictions require some advances in semiconductor technologies and fabrications capabilities. It is those predictions that will be examined in this part, followed next week by the predictions related... » read more

← Older posts Newer posts →