How The Productivity Advantages Of High-Level Synthesis Can Improve IP Design, Verification, And Reuse


Engineering teams are under more pressure than ever before—systems on chip (SoCs) are growing more complex and design schedules are increasingly tighter. With its productivity advantages, high-level synthesis (HLS) has long been touted as part of the solution, but its sweet spot has traditionally been limited to datapath-centric blocks. Moreover, design productivity is only one part of ... » read more

Applying Machine Learning to EDA, FPGA Design Automation Tools


A technical paper titled “Application of Machine Learning in FPGA EDA Tool Development” was published by researchers at the University of Texas Dallas. Abstract: "With the recent advances in hardware technologies like advanced CPUs and GPUs and the large availability of open-source libraries, machine learning has penetrated various domains, including Electronics Design Automation (EDA). E... » read more

Advantages, Disadvantages, And Use Cases Of FPGAs


A technical paper titled “Data Processing with FPGAs on Modern Architectures” was published by researchers at ETH Zürich. Abstract: "Trends in hardware, the prevalence of the cloud, and the rise of highly demanding applications have ushered an era of specialization that is quickly changing the way data is processed at scale. These changes are likely to continue and accelerate in the next... » read more

Using Formal Verification To Optimize HLS-Produced Circuits (ETH Zurich)


A new technical paper titled "Eliminating Excessive Dynamism of Dataflow Circuits Using Model Checking" was published by researchers at ETH Zurich. Abstract "Recent HLS efforts explore the generation of dynamically scheduled, dataflow circuits from high-level code; their ability to adapt the schedule at runtime to particular data and control outcomes promises superior performance to standar... » read more

A Full-Stack Domain-Specific Overlay Generation Framework Verified On FPGA


A new technical paper titled "OverGen: Improving FPGA Usability through Domain-specific Overlay Generation" by researchers at UCLA and Chinese Academy of Sciences. "Our essential idea is to develop a hardware generation framework targeting a highly-customizable overlay, so that the abstraction gap can be lowered by tuning the design instance to applications of interest. We leverage and ext... » read more

The End Of Closed EDA


In a previous life, I was a technologist for a large EDA company. One of my primary responsibilities in that position involved talking to a lot of customers to identify their pain points, and what new tools we could develop that would ease their problems. You would think that would be an easy task, but it certainly was not the case. For example, if you ask a developer what their biggest frus... » read more

Designing for FPGA Accelerators


This research paper titled "High-Level Synthesis Hardware Design for FPGA-based Accelerators: Models, Methodologies, and Frameworks" was published by researchers at Università degli Studi di Trieste (Italy), Universidad Nacional de San Luis (Argentina), and the Abdus Salam International Centre for Theoretical Physics (Italy). According to the paper's abstract, "This paper presents a survey ... » read more

Customizing Processors


The design, verification, and implementation of a processor is the core competence of some companies, but others just want to whip up a small processor as quickly and cheaply as possible. What tools and options exist? Processors range from very small, simple cores that are deeply embedded into products to those operating at the highest possible clock speeds and throughputs in data centers. I... » read more

Heterogeneous Redundant Circuit Design Approaches for FPGAs


New research paper titled "Evaluation of Directive-based Heterogeneous Redundant Design Approaches for Functional Safety Systems on FPGAs" from researchers at Nagasaki University. Abstract (Partial) "In this paper, we present and evaluates two heterogeneous redundant circuit design approaches for FPGAs: a resource-level approach and strategy-level approach. The resource-level approach foc... » read more

Toward Democratized IC Design And Customized Computing


Integrated circuit (IC) design is often considered a “black art,” restricted to only those with advanced degrees or years of training in electrical engineering. Given that the semiconductor industry is struggling to expand its workforce, IC design must be rendered more accessible. The benefit of customized computing General-purpose computers are widely used, but their performance improv... » read more

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