Inside UVM

By Vatsal Choksi - 26 Oct, 2017 - Comments: 0

We have all been witnesses to the rapid improvements of the iPhone processor chip every year. With the iPhone 8 featuring the newest A11 Bionic at 10 nm FinFET with 4.3 billion transistors, I can’t personally fathom the amount of the verification effort needed for this type of SoC - the required manpower and time to get the job done is absolutely mind-boggling. Thankfully, we have several pre... » read more

Dealing With Deadlocks

By Ann Mutschler - 26 Oct, 2017 - Comments: 1

Deadlocks are becoming increasingly problematic as designs becoming more complex and heterogeneous. Rather than just integrating IP, the challenge is understanding all of the possible interactions and dependencies. That affects the choice of IP, how it is implemented in a design, and how it is verified. And it adds a whole bunch of unknowns into an already complex formula for return on inves... » read more

Starting Point Is Changing For Designs

By Ed Sperling - 04 Oct, 2017 - Comments: 0

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

By Jesse Allen - 04 Oct, 2017 - Comments: 0

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

Prototypes Proliferate

By Brian Bailey - 02 Oct, 2017 - Comments: 0

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

Finite State Machine Synthesis In Programmable Circuits

By Radek Nawrot - 28 Sep, 2017 - Comments: 0

Well, summer has been and gone; and for most of us it was a time to relax and reflect on our working practices. What can we do to achieve better results? And what can we do to break out of the routine of working on so many revisions? For me, one of my summer break ponderings was thinking back on a trick I learned while working with my colleagues at the Silesian University of Technology. C... » read more

Synthesis Of Energy-Efficient FSMs Implemented In PLD Circuits

By Aldec - 27 Sep, 2017 - Comments: 0

The paper presents an outline of a simple synthesis method of energy-efficient FSMs. The idea consists in using local clock gating to selectively block the clock signal, if no transition of a state of a memory element is required. The research was dedicated to logic circuits using Programmable Logic Devices as the implementation platform, but the conclusions can be applied to any synchronous ci... » read more

Blog Review: Sept. 20

By Jesse Allen - 20 Sep, 2017 - Comments: 0

Mentor's Jeff Miller warns that MEMS accelerometers are vulnerable to takeover using specially constructed sound waves, as demonstrated in a new paper. Synopsys' Pooja Gupta and Srinivas Vijayaragavan explain some major technology updates in SAS 24G with a look at Binary primitives, Extended Binary primitives and primitive parameters. Cadence's Paul McLellan shares highlights from TSMC's ... » read more

The Week In Review: Design

By Jesse Allen - 15 Sep, 2017 - Comments: 0

Tools Cadence unveiled a new equivalence checking tool which features a massively parallel architecture capable of scaling to 100s of CPUs and adaptive proof technology that analyzes each partition and determines the optimal formal algorithm. According to the company, the Conformal Smart Logic Equivalence Checker provides an average of 4X runtime improvement with the same resources over the pr... » read more

Blog Review: Sept. 13

By Jesse Allen - 13 Sep, 2017 - Comments: 0

Mentor's Andrew Macleod points to some important things to consider when beginning an automotive IC project and why differentiation, not commoditization, should be the goal. Synopsys' Amit Paunikar examines the architecture changes that make LPDDR4 faster while consuming less power. Cadence's Paul McLellan shares highlights from CDNLive Boston, from the latest in silicon photonics to how ... » read more

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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

Key Technologies To Extend EUV To 14 Angstroms

Alongside high-NA EUV will be better-performing photoresists, reduced roughness using passivation and etch, and lateral etching to reduce tip-to-tip dimensions.

by Laura Peters

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

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