Model Variation And Its Impact On Cell Characterization

By Umang Doshi - 05 Nov, 2020 - Comments: 0

EDA (Electronic Design Automation) cell characterization tools have been used extensively to generate models for timing, power and noise at a rapidly growing number of process corners. Today, model variation has become a critical component of cell characterization. Variation can impact circuit timing due to process, voltage, and temperature changes and can lead to timing violations, resulting i... » read more

Power Management And Integration Of IPs In SoCs: Part 2

By Progyna Khondkar - 14 May, 2020 - Comments: 0

Most IP are available as either soft or hard macros. But both pose immense challenges. This is especially so when integrating them into low power designs and conducting power aware (PA) verification, because the majority of IP are self-contained and pre-verified at the block level and they must be preserved in their entirety when integrated or verified in the SoC level. Part one of this two ... » read more

Timing Library LVF Validation For Production Design Flows

By WeiLii Tan - 27 Feb, 2020 - Comments: 3

Variation modeling has evolved over the past several years from a single derating factor that represents on-chip variation (OCV), to Liberty Variation Format (LVF), today’s leading standard format that encapsulates variation information in timing libraries (.libs). LVF data is considered a requirement for advanced process nodes 22nm and below. At the smallest process nodes such as 7nm and ... » read more

Power Modeling Standard Released

By Brian Bailey - 14 Aug, 2019 - Comments: 0

Power is becoming a more important aspect of semiconductor design, but without an industry standard for power models, adoption is likely to be slow and fragmented. That is why Si2 and the IEEE decided to do something about it. Back in 2014, the IEEE expanded its interest in power standards with the creation of two new groups IEEE P2415 - Standard for Unified Hardware Abstraction and Layer fo... » read more

Improving Library Characterization Quality And Runtime With Machine Learning

By Megan Marsh - 25 Oct, 2018 - Comments: 0

By Megan Marsh and Wei-Lii Tan Today’s semiconductor applications, ranging from advanced sensory applications, IoT, edge computing devices, high performance computing, to dedicated A.I. chips, are constantly pushing the boundaries of attainable power, performance, and area (PPA) metrics. The race to design and ship these innovative devices has resulted in a focused, time-to-market-driven e... » read more

Next-Generation Liberty Verification And Debugging

By WeiLii Tan - 27 Sep, 2018 - Comments: 1

Accurate library characterization is a crucial step for modern chip design and verification. For full-chip designs with billions of transistors, timing sign-off through simulation is unfeasible due to run-time and memory constraints. Instead, a scalable methodology using static timing analysis (STA) is required. This methodology uses the Liberty file to encapsulate library characteristics such ... » read more

Power-Aware Intent And Structural Verification Of Low-Power Designs

By Progyna Khondkar - 12 Apr, 2018 - Comments: 0

In Part 1 of this series on power aware (PA) verification, we examined the foundations and verification features of PA static checks. In Part 2, we will discuss the features of the static verification library and describe best static verification practices. Library for Static Verifications Cell-level and pin-level attributes from Liberty are mandatorily required for accurate PA-Static verif... » read more

Get To Know The Gate-Level Power Aware Simulation

By Progyna Khondkar - 28 Sep, 2017 - Comments: 1

The post-synthesis gate-level netlist (GL-netlist) based PA simulation input requirements are mostly the same as RTL simulation. However, the design under verification here is the GL-netlist from synthesis, so logic gates from standard, MV and Macro cell Liberty libraries are already inserted or instantiated in the design. Hence power aware simulation (PA-SIM) at post-synthesis also requires Li... » read more

Libraries: Standardization and Requirements For Power-Aware Dynamic Simulation

By Progyna Khondkar - 08 Jun, 2017 - Comments: 0

INTRODUCTION Multivoltage (MV) based power-aware (PA) design verification and implementation methodologies requires special power management attributes in libraries for standard, MV and Macro cells for two distinctive reason. The first aspect is to provide power and ground (also bias) supply or PG-pin information, which is mandatory for PA verification. The second reason is to provide a distin... » read more

Knowledge Centers
Entities, people and technologies explored

Shift Left Is The Tip Of The Iceberg

A transformative change is underway for semiconductor design and EDA. New languages, models, and abstractions will need to be created.

by Brian Bailey

Partitioning In The Chiplet Era

Understanding how chiplets interact under different workloads is critical to ensuring signal integrity and optimal performance in heterogeneous designs.

by Ann Mutschler

NAND Flash Targets 1,000 Layers

New techniques go beyond improved deposition and etching, but challenges stack up, too.

by Bryon Moyer

3.5D: The Great Compromise

Pros and cons of a middle-ground chiplet assembly that combines 2.5D and 3D-IC.

by Ed Sperling

AI’s Role In Chip Design Widens, Drawing In New Startups

Focus is on letting engineers do much more with the same or fewer resources — and less drudgery.

by Karen Heyman

What Comes After HBM For Chiplets

The standard for high-bandwidth memory limits design freedom at many levels, but that is required for interoperability. What freedoms can be taken from other functions to make chiplets possible?

by Brian Bailey

Memory Fundamentals For Engineers

eBook: Nearly everything you need to know about memory, including detailed explanations of the different types of memory; how and where these are used today; what's changing, which memories are successful and which ones might be in the future; and the limitations of each memory type.

by The SE Staff

Why Small Fab And Assembly Houses Are Thriving

Megafabs churning out the most advanced processors are not the only game in town.