New Embedded FPGA Compiler Maximizes IP Implementation Efficiency


When designing IP for system-on-chip (SoC) and application-specific integrated circuit (ASIC) implementations, IP designers strive for perfection. Optimal engineering often yields the smallest die area, thereby reducing both cost and power consumption while maximizing performance. Similarly, when incorporating embedded FPGA (eFPGA) IP into a SoC, designers prioritize these critical factors. ... » read more

Coding And Debugging RISC-V


As monolithic device scaling continues to wind down and evolve toward increasingly heterogeneous designs, it has created an inflection point for chip architects to create customized cores that are much more energy efficient and faster than off-the-shelf processors. Zdeněk Přikryl, CTO of Codasip, talks about where RISC-V fits into this picture, using a modular ISA and custom instruction layer... » read more

Compiler-Driven Performance Boosts For GPNPUs


The GNU C Compiler – GCC – was first released in 1987. 36 years ago. Several version streams are still actively being developed and enhanced, with GCC13 being the most advanced, and a GCC v10.5 released in early July this year. You might think that with 36 years of refinement by thousands of contributors that penultimate performance has been achieved. All that could be discovered has bee... » read more

Compiler Optimization Made Easy


In a previous blog post, we discussed the benefits of using automation to maximize the performance of a system. One use case I mentioned was compiler flag mining, and the fact that performance is available beyond the standard optimization flags provided by most compilers. Getting to this untapped performance is a difficult problem to solve, but fortunately there is an easy way. A universe of o... » read more

Agile HW Design: Fully Automatic Equivalence Checking Workflow


A new technical paper titled "An Equivalence Checking Framework for Agile Hardware Design" was published by researchers at Portland State University and Intel. Abstract "Agile hardware design enables designers to produce new design iterations efficiently. Equivalence checking is critical in ensuring that a new design iteration conforms to its specification. In this paper, we introduce an eq... » read more

Why Hardware-Dependent Software Is So Critical


Hardware and software are two sides of the same coin, but they often live in different worlds. In the past, hardware and software rarely were designed together, and many companies and products failed because the total solution was unable to deliver. The big question is whether the industry has learned anything since then. At the very least, there is widespread recognition that hardware-depen... » read more

ML Focus Shifting Toward Software


New machine-learning (ML) architectures continue to garner a huge amount of attention as the race continues to provide the most effective acceleration architectures for the cloud and the edge, but attention is starting to shift from the hardware to the software tools. The big question now is whether a software abstraction eventually will win out over hardware details in determining who the f... » read more

Firmware Skills Shortage


Good hardware without good software is a waste of silicon, but with so many new processors and accelerator architectures being created, and so many new skills required, companies are finding it hard to hire enough engineers with low-level software expertise to satisfy the demand. Writing compilers, mappers and optimization software does not have the same level of pizazz as developing new AI ... » read more

The Problem With Benchmarks


Benchmarks long have been used to compare products, but what makes a good benchmark and who should be trusted with their creation? The answer to those questions is more difficult than it may appear on the surface, and some benchmarks are being used in surprising ways. Everyone loves a simple, clear benchmark, but that is only possible when the selection criteria are equally simple. Unfortuna... » read more

Faster Inferencing At The Edge


Cheng Wang, senior vice president of engineering at Flex Logix, talks about inferencing at the edge, what are some of the main considerations in designing and choosing an inferencing chip, why programmability and modularity are important, and how hardware-software co-design with algorithms can improve performance and power. » read more

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