IP Requirements Changing


Twenty years ago the electronics industry became interested in the notion of formalizing re-use through third-party IP. It has turned out to be harder than anyone imagined. In 1996, the Virtual Socket Interface Alliance ([getentity id="22845" comment="VSIA"]) was formed to standardize the development, distribution and licensing of IP. Soon afterward, companies with a couple of people in a ga... » read more

Can IP Integration Be Automated?


What exactly does it mean to automate [getkc id="43" comment="IP"] integration? Ask four people in the industry and you’ll get four different answers. “The key issue is how you can assemble the hardware as quickly as you can out of pre-made pieces of IP,” said Charlie Janac, chairman and CEO of [getentity id="22674" e_name="Arteris"]. To Simon Rance, senior product manager in the ... » read more

ROI Not There Yet For SysML


At some point down the road in the realm of system-level design, the Systems Modeling Language (SysML) dialect of the Unified Modeling Language (UML) standard may drive into semiconductor design. So far, however, a return on investment has not been established for its use. SysML is defined as a general-purpose visual modeling language for systems engineering applications, and it supports the... » read more

Making Hardware Design More Agile


Semiconductor engineering sat down to whether changes are needed in hardware design methodology, with Philip Gutierrez, ASIC/FPGA design manager in [getentity id="22306" comment="IBM"]'s FlashSystems Storage Group; Dennis Brophy, director of strategic business development at [getentity id="22017" e_name="Mentor Graphics"]; Frank Schirrmeister, group director for product marketing of the System ... » read more

Who’s Calling The Shots


As discussed in part one of this report, OEMs are making more of the decisions about what goes into a system design. A large part of this shift involves software, which falls on many plates throughout the ecosystem. Making sure all of the layers of software interoperate and integrate well together is no small feat, and it is growing in complexity at every turn as systems becomes more sophist... » read more

Design By Architect Or Committee?


Everything we do is based on a language. It doesn’t matter if we are talking about design, verification, specification, software or mask data. They all provide a way to communicate intent, and then there are engines that work on the intent to produce something else that is desirable, also based on a language. Over time, the EDA industry has built up a hierarchy of languages from the most deta... » read more

IoT Demands Correct By Construction Assembly


The article Limiters To The Internet Of Things outlined several factors that are slowing the rate of deployment for the [getkc id="76" kc_name="IoT"]. Those limiters are cost, power delivery and storage, standards, security, and the limits of your imagination. This article picks up on a comment made by [getperson id="11244" comment="Chris Rowen"], fellow at [getentity id="22032" e_name="Cadence... » read more

High-Level Gaps Emerge


Semiconductor Engineering sat down to discuss the attributes of a high-level, front-end design flow, and why it is needed at present with Leah Clark, associate technical director for digital video technology at Broadcom; Jon McDonald, technical marketing engineer at Mentor Graphics; Phil Bishop, vice president of the System Level Design System & Verification Group at Cadence; and Bernard Mu... » read more

The Week In Review: Design


Tools Synopsys rolled out a new version of its software technologies for static and formal verification, which it says increases performance by up to five times. Also new are improved debug and low-power verification with native power simulation, and an integrated IP portfolio. Cadence uncorked a new version of its PCB and packaging environment, which it says speeds up timing closure by as ... » read more

2014 Accellera Standards Are Built on Powerful Shoulders


By Adam Sherer Looking out at the fresh snow coating the landscape here in Buffalo, it’s tempting to look toward 2014 and focus only on the fresh and new. However, if I’ve learned anything about this city from the day I arrived here as a freshman EE in 1984, it’s that you don’t bury your foundation. Instead, you recognize it as your greatest strength, the powerful shoulders upon whic... » read more

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