Complete Transistor Level Electrical Checks With Formal Analysis


Nothing is worse for a design team than a chip that fails to work in the bringup lab. Electrical problems are historically a major cause of such failures. Power leaks, power-ground DC paths, missing level shifters, and design flaws such as high fanout lead to unexpected power consumption, incorrect functionality, and even total meltdown. Designers learned years ago that pre-silicon electrical c... » read more

Metamodeling Techniques for Formal Verification


A new technical paper titled "Verifying Non-friendly Formal Verification Designs: Can We Start Earlier?" was published by researchers at Universität Kaiserslautern-Landau and Infineon Technologies. Published in DVCon Europe 2024. Abstract "The design of Systems on Chips (SoCs) is becoming more and more complex due to technological advancements. Missed bugs can cause drastic failures in saf... » read more

Modification Of An Existing E-Graph Based RTL Optimization Tool As A Formal Verification Assistant


A technical paper titled “Datapath Verification via Word-Level E-Graph Rewriting” was published by researchers at Intel Corporation and Imperial College London. Abstract: "Formal verification of datapath circuits is challenging as they are subject to intense optimization effort in the design phase. Industrial vendors and design companies deploy equivalence checking against a golden or exi... » 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

Leveraging Symbolic Simulations For IO Verification


IO libraries and interface IPs are an important part of any integrated circuit design that needs to communicate with the outside world or other integrated circuits. Interface IPs are the literal gatekeepers to the flow of logical and electrical information from one IC to another to form today’s complex computer systems, influencing almost every aspect of our lives these days. Interface IPs (e... » read more

The Case For FPGA Equivalence Checking


Formal Equivalence Checking (EC) has become a standard part of the ASIC development flow, replacing almost all gate level simulation with a rigorous consistency check between pre- and post-synthesized code. In the Field Programmable Gate Array (FPGA) space, EC is still a relatively new concept, but is rapidly becoming important given the large devices being employed today. For the largest FP... » read more

AI And ML Applications Require Advanced Datapath Verification


In popular usage, the term “artificial intelligence” (AI) once conjured up images of robot armies subjugating humans or evil computers outsmarting their users, as in '2001: A Space Odyssey.' In recent years, AI has become a part of daily life for much of the planet’s population. People use voice commands to interact with their smartphones, smart speakers and even TV remote controls. Sophi... » read more

Detecting Electrical Hazards Incurred By Inter-Voltage Domain Crossing In Custom SRAMs


Fast-growing markets, such as 5G, biotechnology, AI, and automotive, are driving a new wave of low-power semiconductor design requirements and, hence, more aggressive low-power management techniques are needed. Consequently, even large macros within a chip, such as SRAMs, now feature multiple voltage domains to limit power draw during light-sleep, deep-sleep, and shutdown-low-power modes. These... » read more

A Machine Learning-Based Approach To Formality Equivalence Checking


By Avinash Palepu, Namrata Shekhar and Paula Neeley After a long and hard week, it is Friday night and you are ready to relax and unwind with a glass of wine, a sumptuous dinner and a great movie. You turn on Netflix and you expect that it will not only have plenty of pertinent suggestions for you, but also the most appropriate one based on all the previous movies and shows that you have wat... » read more

Faster Formal Verification Closure For Datapaths In AI Designs


In recent years, many longstanding assumptions about formal verification have been rendered obsolete by ever-improving technology. Applications such as connectivity checking have shown that formal can work on large system-on-chip (SoC) designs, not just small blocks. Standard SystemVerilog Assertions (SVA) have eliminated the need to learn an abstruse mathematical language for each new formal t... » read more

← Older posts