Improving Emulation Throughput For Multi-Project SoC Designs


As design sizes grow, so, too, does the verification effort. Indeed, verification has become the biggest challenge in SoC development, representing a majority share of the development cost, both for hardware itself and for verification at the hardware/software interface. And today, it’s not uncommon for companies to have distributed teams working on multiple SoC designs in parallel. In some c... » read more

Gaps In Performance, Power Coverage


The semiconductor industry always has used metrics to define progress, and in areas such as functional verification significant advances have been made. But so far, no effective metrics have been developed for power, performance, or other system-level concerns, which basically means that design teams have to run blind. On the plus side, the industry has migrated from the use of code coverage... » read more

Abstraction: Necessary But Evil


Abstraction allows aspects of a design to be described in an executable form much earlier in the flow. But some abstractions are breaking down, and an increasing amount of lower-level information has to be brought upstream in order to provide estimates that are close enough to reality so informed decisions can be made. The value of abstractions in design cannot be overstated. High levels of ... » read more

A Word About FPGA-Based Prototyping


With software now driving the main capabilities of embedded devices, prototyping has taken the spotlight in SoC design. This is turning a once-hardware-centric electronics supply chain upside down. To cope with this new reality, companies are embracing both virtual and physical prototyping technologies. Physical prototyping, also known as FPGA-based prototyping, is an important piece of an e... » read more

Property Synthesis Throughout The Design Flow For Application In Formal Verification, Simulation, And Emulation


This white paper describes the JasperGold Property Synthesis Apps, members of a family of interoperable, application-specific formal verification solutions that addresses verification challenges throughout the design flow. The Apps synthesize both behavioral and structural properties — also known as assertions — for use in formal verification, simulation and emulation. They significantly in... » read more

SoC Verification Made Easy With Aldec HES-DVM


As designs grow larger, the time spent verifying a project is growing longer as well. As a solution, some companies are trying to ‘shift-left’ their schedules. Verification via software simulators is not fast enough for large System-on-Chip (SoC) design projects, therefore one option is to use an FPGA emulator to speed up the design process. But what happens when a bug occurs? This document... » read more

Power Estimation: Early Warning System Or False Alarm?


Semiconductor Engineering sat down with a large panel of experts to discuss the state of power estimation and to find out if the current levels of accuracy are sufficient to being able to make informed decisions. Panelists included: Leah Schuth, director of technical marketing in the physical design group at [getentity id="22186" comment="ARM"]; Vic Kulkarni, senior vice president and general m... » read more

Tech Talk: Power Emulation


Jean-Marie Brunet, marketing director for Mentor Graphics' Emulation Division, talks about why hardware-assisted verification is now required for power and where it works best. [youtube vid=Mb63cbjbZ_I] » read more

How To Speed Up Networking Design Verification


The enormous growth of the Internet of things (IoT) has an enormous impact on network providers. After all, without the underlying network infrastructure, there would be no IoT. One consequence has been a significant increase in the number of Ethernet ports on networking devices. Today, Ethernet switches and routers reach 256 ports (by year’s end that number will increase to 1024 ports), a... » read more

Accelerating Networking Products To Market Using Ethernet VirtuaLAB


A larger number of ports, expanding throughput, decreasing latency and overall improvement in security and ease-of-use are making today’s network switches and routers among the largest IC designs ever developed, reaching beyond a half billion gates. Verification of such complex IC designs, before silicon availability, is a daunting task. A fast, accurate, easy-to-use solution, VirtuaLAB bring... » read more

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