Leveraging Virtual Prototypes For Hybrid Emulation


As highlighted in many of my blog posts, virtual prototyping has really established itself as the key methodology to shift left software development by decoupling the dependency of software development from hardware availability. The success of the “Better Software. Faster!” book illustrates the wide spread interest in the methodology. The success of virtual prototypes also has led users... » read more

Extending Power Analysis To The Emulation of Complex SoCs


Using hardware emulation to estimate SoC power consumption delivers significant value. Emulators are capable of long runs on large designs, making it practical to emulate an RTOS boot sequence or graphics processing of multiple frames. Estimating power consumption of these advanced functions executing across the complete SoC provides valuable insight into the chip’s power draw and its impact ... » read more

When To Virtualize, When To Stay In The Real World


Virtualization is all the craze these days. People have virtual personas on LinkedIn, Facebook and Match. I sent my daughter to a Minecraft camp at Stanford where she built virtual worlds while learning programming. Virtualization also plays an important role in chip development, especially when it comes to representing the system environment. There is, however, some crass misinformation out th... » read more

Making Software Better


Gauging the energy efficiency of software is a difficult task. There are many types of software, from embedded code all the way up to software that controls various modes of operation to downloaded applications. Some software interacts with other software, while other software works independently. And some works better on one SoC configuration than another, or on one iteration of an operating s... » read more

The Agony Of Hardware-Assisted Development Choices


“When defining a product, if you haven’t upset at least one part of the organization, then the product is probably ill defined and tries to address too many things!” That’s what one of my mentors taught me early on in my career as product manager. Ever since then I have been interested in portfolio management. The most recent announcement that we made on the Protium Rapid Prototyping Pl... » read more

New Uses For Emulation


Semiconductor Engineering sat down to discuss the changing emulation landscape with Jim Kenney, director of marketing for emulation at Mentor Graphics; Tom Borgstrom, director of the verification group at Synopsys; Frank Schirrmeister, group director of product marketing for the System Development Suite at Cadence; Gary Smith, chief analyst at Gary Smith EDA; and Lauro Rizzatti, a verification ... » read more

New Uses For Emulation


Semiconductor Engineering sat down to discuss the changing emulation landscape with Jim Kenney, director of marketing for emulation at Mentor Graphics; Tom Borgstrom, director of the verification group at Synopsys; Frank Schirrmeister, group director of product marketing for the System Development Suite at Cadence; Gary Smith, chief analyst at Gary Smith EDA; and Lauro Rizzatti, a verification ... » read more

New Uses For Emulation


Semiconductor Engineering sat down to discuss the changing emulation landscape with Jim Kenney, director of marketing for emulation at Mentor Graphics; Tom Borgstrom, director of the verification group at Synopsys; Frank Schirrmeister, group director of product marketing for the System Development Suite at Cadence; Gary Smith, chief analyst at Gary Smith EDA; and Lauro Rizzatti, a verification ... » read more

Executive Insight: Wally Rhines


Semiconductor Engineering sat down with Wally Rhines, chairman and CEO of Mentor Graphics, to discuss what is required for EDA to grow, key areas of opportunity for EDA growth and going against the grain. The interview is part of an ongoing series of in-depth interviews with top executives from all segments of the industry. SE: What keeps you awake at night? Rhines: Actually nothing keeps... » read more

Localized, System-Level Protocol Checks And Coverage Closure


Broadcom recently developed a unified, scalable, verification methodology based on the Veloce emulation platform. In order to test this new environment, they ran a test case, which proved that they can take assertions, compile them into Veloce, and verify that they fire accurately. In so doing, they were able to provide proof of concept for their primary goal: the creation of an internal flow t... » read more

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