The Week In Review: Design


Tools Aldec released the latest version of its Riviera-PRO verification platform, adding QEMU Bridge to enable hardware/software co-simulation of designs intended to run on SoC FPGAs. Other features include improved performance when using code containing many inline randomized calls and up to 29% faster simulation speed of UVM. Pulsic added new features to its Unity Bus Planner for planning... » read more

Trimming Waste In Chips


Extra circuitry costs money, reduces performance and increases power consumption. But how much can really be trimmed? When people are asked that question they either get defensive or they see it as an opportunity to show the advantages of their architecture, design process or IP. The same holds true for IP suppliers. Others point out that the whole concept of waste is somewhat strange, becau... » read more

The Week In Review: Design


Tools Ansys updated its simulation suite, improving the speed of PCB and electronic package simulation as well as integrating its embedded systems tool with its failure analysis capabilities. Other updates include a new visual ray tracing capability to aid in antenna placement, improved modeling of the quality of wireless links in the presence of electromagnetic interference and RF interferenc... » read more

RISC-V Pros And Cons


Simpler, faster, lower-power hardware with a free, open, simple instruction set architecture? While it sounds too good to be true, efforts are underway to do just that with RISC-V, the instruction-set architecture (ISA) developed by UC Berkeley engineers and now administered by a foundation. It has been known for some time that with [getkc id="74" comment="Moore's Law"] not offering the same... » read more

The Week In Review: Design


Deals Kilopass extended its deal with ICScape, which makes a Parallel SPICE simulator, for eNVM IP at advanced finFET nodes. Kilopass has been working with ICScape for the past couple of years as part of its qualification methodology. IP Silvaco released three MIPI I3C sensor controller IP cores. Developed with NXP to push adoption of I3C, the new products are an Advanced Slave core wi... » read more

The Week In Review: Design


Numbers Mentor Graphics released Q3 financial results. Revenue was $322.5 million, compared with $290.5 million in the same period in 2015, an increase of 11%. Net income was $41.8 million versus $13.9 million in 2015, an increase of 201%. The company noted that emulation revenue also was up 100%. Deals Mobileye selected Synopsys' Z01X functional safety verification solution to meet I... » read more

Is HW Or SW Running the Show?


In the past, hardware was designed and then passed over to the software team for them to add their contribution to the product. This worked when the amount of software content was small and the practice did not significantly contribute to product delays. Over time, the software content grew and today it is generally accepted that software accounts for more product expense than hardware, takes l... » read more

Integration Or Segregation


In the Electronics Butterfly Effect story, the observation was made that the electronics industry has gone non-linear, no longer supported by incremental density and cost-reducing improvements that Moore’s Law promised with each new node. Those incremental changes, over several decades, have meant that design and architecture have followed a predictable path with very few new ideas coming in ... » read more

Newer posts →