Executive Committee Members You Need To Know…


Time is the only critic without ambition. – John Steinbeck Like many things, DAC looks decidedly different depending on where you sit, and how you experience it. As an attendee, it’s mostly a few days at the start of every summer where you can sample some of the best technical content on the design of circuits and systems, plus get the chance to network and have some fun with a worldwide... » read more

The Week In Review: Design


M&A Synopsys added to its software integrity and security business with the acquisition of services company Cigital and its 2015 spinout focused on tools, Codiscope. Cigital specializes in professional and managed services for identifying, remediating and preventing vulnerabilities in software applications. Terms of the deal were not disclosed. Tools Mentor Graphics rolled out a new pl... » read more

#54DAC: A New Beginning


I’ve been attending DAC as an exhibitor since 1992, and serving on the executive committee since 2012. I am thrilled to serve as General Chair for the 54th iteration of this grand conference. (And no it’s not too early to think about DAC. The call for contributions is open now.) Through the years I have seen some big industry changes, most driven by the increasingly powerful tools and autom... » read more

The Week In Review: Design


Numbers EDA and IP sales increased 5.6% in Q2 to $2.013 billion, up from $1.907 billion in the same period in 2015, according to the most recent Electronic System Design Alliance numbers. Asia/Pacific revenue increased 10.9% to $608.1 million; Japan increased 15.7% to $211.4 million. The Americas increased 4.4% to $908.4 million. IP Cadence launched the latest generation of its Xtensa ... » read more

What’s Next For UVM?


The infrastructure for much of the chip verification being done today is looking dated and limited in scope. Design has migrated to new methodologies, standards and tools that are being introduced to deal with heterogeneous integration, more customization, and increased complexity. Verification methodologies started appearing soon after the release of SystemVerilog. Initially they were inten... » read more

No More Easy IP Money


The semiconductor intellectual property ([getkc id="43" kc_name="IP"]) industry is two decades old, but questions are still being asked about what's wrong with it and what needs to be fixed. Normally these kinds of issues are reserved for fast-moving, young industries, not one that is the backbone of semiconductors. Design reuse has become an indispensable part of the design of nearly all el... » read more

Balancing Emulation And FPGA-Based Prototyping For Software Development


This year’s Design Automation Conference (DAC) has just finished and confirmed some of the trends I discussed in my last blog, “The Top Five Trends in Verification to Watch For at DAC 2016”, specifically when it comes to the set of connected engines, or “COVE” as Jim Hogan dubbed it. The Cadence Theater at DAC is always a good opportunity to listen to hands-on customer experiences, an... » read more

The Week In Review: Design


Tools & IP Synopsys uncorked PHY and Controller IP for PCI Express 4.0 architecture, which the company says reduces latency by up to 20% and area by 15% compared to the previous implementation. The IP supports lane margining to assess performance variation tolerance. PLDA announced a PCIe 4.0 development platform, and provides a PCIe 3.0-x8 (upstream) to PCIe 4.0-x4 (downstream) Integ... » read more

Why IP Subsystems And Why Now?


At the recently concluded DAC 2016 conference in Austin, Texas, I had the opportunity to participate in a tutorial on IP Subsystems on Wednesday the 8th. Also participating were Marco Brambilla, Director of Engineering at Synapse Design and Drew Wingard, CTO at Sonics. The reality today is that device complexity in many applications has risen to levels that require increasing amounts of disc... » read more

Decoding The Brain


At the Design Automation Conference this year, Lou Scheffer, principal scientist for the Howard Hughes Medical Institute, gave a visionary talk entitled Learning from Life: Biologically Inspired Electronic Design. Scheffer is an IC design guy who came through Stanford and Caltech and worked for HP and [getentity id="22032" e_name="Cadence"] before switching to the medical field eight years a... » read more

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