Design Reuse Vs. Abstraction

By Ann Mutschler - 05 Jul, 2018 - Comments: 1

Chip designers have been constantly searching for a hardware description language abstraction level higher than RTL for a few decades. But not everyone is moving in that direction, and there appear to be enough options available through design reuse to forestall that shift for many chipmakers. Pushing to new levels of abstraction is frequent topic of discussion in the design world, particula... » read more

Searching For A System Abstraction

By Brian Bailey - 28 Jun, 2018 - Comments: 3

Without abstraction, advances in semiconductor design would have stalled decades ago and circuits would remain about the same size as analog blocks. No new abstractions have emerged since the 1990s that have found widespread adoption. The slack was taken up by IP and reuse, but IP blocks are becoming larger and more complex. Verification by isolation is no longer a viable strategy at the system... » read more

Debug Becomes A Bigger Problem

By Brian Bailey - 11 Feb, 2016 - Comments: 3

The EDA industry has invested enormous amounts of time and energy on the verification process, including new languages, new tools, new class libraries, new methodologies. But the one part of the cycle that defines that type of automation is debug. Development teams are spending half of their time in the debug process and the problem is growing. Part of the reason is that design and debug are... » read more

Micro-Architectural Exploration for Low Power Design

By Abhishek Ranjan - 14 Jan, 2016 - Comments: 0

In the first part of this series, we had discussed the need to perform power optimizations and exploration at higher levels of abstractions where the potential to reduce the power consumption is highest. We presented the need for making coarser changes at higher level of abstractions to exploit full power saving potential. In the second part, we discussed some very potent micro-architectural te... » read more

How To Model Cars

By Ann Mutschler - 03 Dec, 2015 - Comments: 1

The most technologically advanced and comprehensive consumer product in the world today is not the smartphone. It's the automobile. This is easier to see once the hood is up and you can take a peek around. Today’s cars contain sophisticated motion systems, crash safety systems, climate control systems, driver assistance, and infotainment, to name a few. In semiconductor design, one of the ... » read more

ROI Not There Yet For SysML

By Ann Mutschler - 24 Sep, 2015 - Comments: 3

At some point down the road in the realm of system-level design, the Systems Modeling Language (SysML) dialect of the Unified Modeling Language (UML) standard may drive into semiconductor design. So far, however, a return on investment has not been established for its use. SysML is defined as a general-purpose visual modeling language for systems engineering applications, and it supports the... » read more

The Next Level Of Abstraction For System Design

By Frank Schirrmeister - 24 Sep, 2015 - Comments: 1

Recently there have been a lot of discussions again about the next level of design abstraction for chip design. Are we there yet? Will we ever get there? Is it SystemC? UML/SysML perhaps? I am taking the approach of simply claiming victory: Over the last 20 years we have moved up beyond RTL in various areas—just in a fragmented way. However, the human limitations on our capacity for processin... » read more

What ESL Is Really About

By Brian Bailey - 24 Sep, 2015 - Comments: 1

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

What Is ‘Digital’?

By Brian Bailey - 27 Aug, 2015 - Comments: 1

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

Why Implementation Matters To System Design And Software

By Frank Schirrmeister - 27 Aug, 2015 - Comments: 0

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

← Older posts Newer posts →

Knowledge Centers
Entities, people and technologies explored

Shift Left Is The Tip Of The Iceberg

A transformative change is underway for semiconductor design and EDA. New languages, models, and abstractions will need to be created.

by Brian Bailey

Partitioning In The Chiplet Era

Understanding how chiplets interact under different workloads is critical to ensuring signal integrity and optimal performance in heterogeneous designs.

by Ann Mutschler

3.5D: The Great Compromise

Pros and cons of a middle-ground chiplet assembly that combines 2.5D and 3D-IC.

by Ed Sperling

AI’s Role In Chip Design Widens, Drawing In New Startups

Focus is on letting engineers do much more with the same or fewer resources — and less drudgery.

by Karen Heyman

What Comes After HBM For Chiplets

The standard for high-bandwidth memory limits design freedom at many levels, but that is required for interoperability. What freedoms can be taken from other functions to make chiplets possible?

by Brian Bailey

Memory Fundamentals For Engineers

eBook: Nearly everything you need to know about memory, including detailed explanations of the different types of memory; how and where these are used today; what's changing, which memories are successful and which ones might be in the future; and the limitations of each memory type.

by The SE Staff

Why Small Fab And Assembly Houses Are Thriving

Megafabs churning out the most advanced processors are not the only game in town.

by Bryon Moyer

New AI Processors Architectures Balance Speed With Efficiency

Hot Chips 24: Large language models ratchet up pressure for sustainable computing and heterogeneous integration; data management becomes key differentiator.