Incremental Design Breakdown


For the past two decades, most designs have been incremental in nature. They heavily leveraged IP used in previous designs, and that IP often was developed by third parties. But there are growing problems with that methodology, especially at advanced nodes where back-end issues and the impact of 'shift left' are reducing the savings from reuse. The value of IP reuse has been well established... » read more

Dealing With ECOs In Complex Designs


Namsuk Oh, R&D principal engineer at Synopsys, talks about the impact of more corners and engineering change orders, how that needs to be addressed in the flow to close timing, and how dependencies can complicate any changes that are required. » read more

Re-Coloring ECO Changes With Calibre Multi-Patterning


Engineering change orders (ECOs) can wreak havoc on multi-patterning (MP) coloring (and time to market) if not dealt with quickly and efficiently. Design teams working on MP designs need a complete ECO enablement solution, before recoloring issues consume resources and destroy schedules. The Calibre Multi-Patterning tool provides smart, automated support for recoloring designs after ECO impleme... » read more

ECOs and Multi-Patterning: It Can Be Done


By David Abercrombie and Alex Pearson A lot has been written and discussed about how to decompose (color) layouts for advanced process nodes that require multi­patterning (MP). However, one topic that has been sorely ignored is how to efficiently make changes to designs that are already colored, or even taped out and processed. We tend to act like all designs work out the first time through... » read more

The Week In Review: June 21


By Ed Sperling Mentor Graphics rolled out emulation-ready verification IP for MIPI camera and display-based protocols. The VIP enables stimuli generated by UVM and SystemC-based environments and applies them to a design under test (DUT) running in the emulator. Synopsys introduced a tool for implementing and verifying functional engineering change orders, including matching, visualization ... » read more

Engineering Change Orders Revisited


By Ed Sperling The perennial nightmare of the marketing head reporting that a customer will buy a design—but only if it fits into a specific power envelope or has better performance or I/O—is all too familiar to engineering teams. In theory, using more third-party IP should help alleviate this problem because the IP can be changed out relatively easily. The reality, though, is that it�... » read more