Connecting Emulated Designs To Real PCIe Devices


These days verification teams no longer question whether hardware assisted verification should be used in their projects. Rather, they ask at which stage they should start using it. Contemporary System-on-Chip (SoC) designs are already sufficiently complex to make HDL simulation a bottleneck during verification, without even mentioning hardware-software co-verification or firmware and softwa... » read more

What’s So Important About Processor Extensibility?


While the ability to extend a processor is nothing new, market dynamics are forcing a growing percentage of the industry to consider it a necessary part of their product innovation. From small IoT functions to massive data centers and artificial intelligence, the need to create an optimized processing platform is often the only way to get more performance or lower power out of the silicon area ... » read more

FPGA Prototyping Complexity Rising


Multi-FPGA prototyping of ASIC and SoC designs allows verification teams to achieve the highest clock rates among emulation techniques, but setting up the design for prototyping is complicated and challenging. This is where machine learning and other new approaches are beginning to help. The underlying problem is that designs are becoming so large and complex that they have to be partitioned... » read more

Week In Review: Auto, Security, Pervasive Computing


Automotive Imagination Technologies and BAIC Capital have formed an automotive joint venture to create a new automotive fabless semiconductor company focused on China as a client. The JV will be headquartered in the Zhongguancun Integrated Circuit Design Park in Beijing, China, with Bravo Lee serving as CEO. The JV will license IP and software from Imagination to create automotive-grade SoCs. ... » read more

Week In Review: Design, Low Power


Tools & IP Ansys' RedHawk-SC multiphysics signoff software was certified for all TSMC advanced process technologies, including N16, N12, N7, N6 and N5. The certification includes extraction, power integrity and reliability, signal electromigration (EM) and thermal reliability analysis and statistical EM budgeting analysis. Aldec launched a new FPGA accelerator board for high performance... » read more

Practical Processor Verification


Custom processors are making a resurgence, spurred on by the early success of the RISC-V ISA and the ecosystem that is rapidly building around it. But this shift is amid questions about whether processor verification has become a lost art. Years ago custom processors were common. But as the market consolidated around a handful of companies, so did the tools and expertise needed to develop th... » read more

Developing 4K Video Projects With FPGAs


Achieving higher resolution is a never-ending race for camera, TV and display manufacturers. After the emergence of 4K ultra high definition (Ultra HD) imaging in the market, it became the main standard for today’s multimedia products. 4K Ultra HD brings us bigger screens which give an immersive feeling. With this standard, the pixilation problem was solved in the big screens. 4K consumers ar... » read more

Week In Review: Design, Low Power


MaxLinear will acquire Intel's Home Gateway Platform Division. MaxLinear, a provider of RF, analog, and mixed-signal ICs, will buy the Home Gateway Platform Division for an all-cash, asset transaction valued at $150 million. The division comprises Wi-Fi Access Points, Ethernet and Home Gateway SoC products deployed across operator and retail markets. The deal is expected to close in the third q... » read more

Week In Review: Auto, Security, Pervasive Computing


COVID-19/Medical Mentor's parent company Siemens is making its Additive Manufacturing (AM) Network, along with its 3D printers, available to the global medical community. MEMS is at the forefront of SARS-CoV-2 testing, writes Alissa M. Fitzgerald, founder of AMFitzgerald in a blog on SEMI.org. Fitzgerald points out a MEMS silicon PCR chip, developed by Northrup et. al. at Lawrence Livermore... » read more

Medical, Industrial & Aerospace IC Design Changes


Medical, industrial and aerospace chips are becoming much more complex as more intelligence is added into these devices, forcing design teams to begin leveraging tools and methodologies that typically have been used only at the leading-edge nodes for commercial applications. But as with automotive, the needs of these systems are changing quickly. In addition to strict quality, safety and sec... » read more

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