Why Your NoC Verification Strategy Must Consider Using Formal


By Ashish Darbari and Bing Xue It’d be inconceivable these days to design a modern high-performance SoC without a network-on-chip (NoC) fabric. AI hyperscalers are inherently multi-threaded and rely on using hundreds of processing elements (PEs). Crossbar-based fabric would just not scale. What also changes with the adoption of the NoC is how to handle coherency between PEs. ACE is no long... » read more

Overcoming Bottlenecks In Data Movement


AI is all about data. There is more data to process, store, and move, and more tradeoffs required to do that efficiently and with enough flexibility to handle changes in future workloads. Nandan Nayampally, chief commercial officer at Baya Systems, talks about networks on chip and networks across chip, what the choke points are for data movement, and where and when data coherency makes sense. » read more

NoC Coherency Challenges Balloon With AI SoCs And Chiplets


Key Takeaways Data movement, congestion, and energy efficiency are key determiners of whether compute is usable. Different processors bring various coherency challenges. For example, a cache-coherent NoC for CPUs is expensive and harder to verify than an I/O-coherent NoC for an accelerator. Designers need to balance top-down performance with bottom-up physical engineering to effect... » read more

Accelerating Scalable Computing


By Shivi Arora and Sue Hung Fung As computing demands for HPC, AI/ML, and cloud infrastructure grow, modular architectures are replacing traditional monolithic System-on-Chip (SoC) designs. These legacy designs are increasingly expensive and difficult to scale due to ever-increasing silicon complexity. In response, the industry is embracing chiplet-based System-in-Package (SiP) solutions,... » read more

Chiplet-to-Chiplet Gateway Architecture, A C2C Interface Bridging Two Chiplet Protocols (Peter Grünberg, Jülich Supercomputing Centre)


A new technical paper titled "Modeling Chiplet-to-Chiplet (C2C) Communication for Chiplet-based Co-Design" was published by researchers at Peter Grünberg Institute and Jülich Supercomputing Centre. Abstract "Chiplet-based processor design, which combines small dies called chiplets to form a larger chip, enables scalable designs at economical costs. This trend has received high attention s... » read more

Top Tech Videos Of 2024


In 2024, hot topics included challenges involving chiplets and heterogeneous integration, AI, data management, MCUs, power semis, software-defined vehicles, sensors, adaptive test, yield tracking, safety monitoring, security, and much more. Top 5 most watched videos in 2024: Overlay Optimization In Advanced IC Substrates How To Stop Row Hammer Attacks What’s Changing In DRAM ... » read more

Making Cache Coherent SoC Design Easier with Ncore


As the number and variety of computing elements in SoCs grow, specific application areas require the tight connection of key processing elements through coherency. Ncore Interconnect IP from Arteris makes cache coherent SoC designs easier, saving 100’s of person-years effort per project vs DIY solutions. This white paper discusses the challenges and solutions in designing cache-coherent Sy... » read more

Optimizing Interconnect Topologies For Automotive ADAS Applications


Designing automotive Advanced Driver Assistance Systems (ADAS) applications can be incredibly complex. State-of-the-art ADAS and autonomous driving systems use ‘sensor fusion’ to combine inputs from multiple sources, typically cameras and optionally radar and lidar units to go beyond passive and active safety to automate driving. Vision processing systems combine specialized AI accelerators... » read more

Challenges In RISC-V Verification


Designing a single-core RISC-V processor is relatively easy, but verifying it and debugging it is a different story. And it all becomes more complicated when multiple cores are involved, and when those cores need to be cache-coherent. Ashish Darbari, CEO of Axiomise, talks with Semiconductor Engineering about using assertions and formal verification technology to find bugs and prove coherency i... » read more

Cache Coherency In Heterogeneous Systems


Until recently, coherency was something normally associated with DRAM. But as chip designs become increasingly heterogeneous, incorporating more and different types of compute elements, it becomes harder to maintain coherency in that data without taking a significant hit on performance and power. The basic problem is that not all compute elements fetch and share data at the same speed, and syst... » read more

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