Optimizing Emulator Utilization


The growing pressures of market schedules, design complexity and the ever-increasing amount of embedded software in today’s SoCs has put verification in the hot-seat. Now that new emulation tools can link hardware and software verification, SoC designers are turning to emulation more than ever before to debug embedded software. The standard method for debugging software with an emulator is wi... » read more

Optimizing Testbench Acceleration Performance


Part 3 in a series of papers that demystify the performance of SystemVerilog and UVM testbenches when using an emulator for the purpose of hardware-assisted testbench acceleration. In these three papers, architectural and modeling requirements are described, followed by a recommended systematic approach for maximizing overall testbench acceleration speed-up and achieving your ultimate performan... » read more

Blog Review: Aug. 10


Is the end near for FinFETs? Applied's Mike Chudzik digs into the impact of rising parasitic resistance and parasitic capacitance and the challenges of scaling to 5nm. Cadence's Paul McLellan checks out the method UC Berkeley is using to build RISC-V processors. Mentor's Colin Walls warns that in C even the simplest things, like the declaration of variables, have pitfalls for the unwary. ... » read more

Is Security A Priority?


Ask any two executives in the semiconductor industry about security threats and there is a good chance you will get two totally different answers. The disturbing part is they both may be right. In markets where there is no physical danger to people, security always has been viewed a risk versus profit equation. At conferences over the past year, numerous executives have touted the Transport... » read more

Engineering Challenges Of ADAS


Advanced driver assistance systems (ADAS) have made tremendous strides in the past decade. The technology is part of the larger thrust to improve safety of cars, which cause over a million deaths per year around the world. Fortunately, fatal crashes have been on a steady decline for decades even as automobile usage has gone up. This is due in large part to safety-related technologies, including... » read more

Gaps Emerge In Test Flows


Gaps are showing up in test flows as chipmakers add more analog content and push into more safety-critical applications, exposing more points at which designs need to be tested as well as weaknesses in current tools and methodologies. The cornerstone of the [getkc id="76" kc_name="IoT"], and connected devices such as self-driving cars, is a heavy reliance on [getkc id="187" kc_name="sensors"... » read more

The Higher Cost Of Automotive


A revolution is occurring under the hoods of vehicles today, as the automotive industry continues to add sophistication via electronics to vehicles at a pace never seen before. But because of the automotive ecosystem’s tiered structure, system companies, IP and embedded software developers and tools vendors must invest more just to participate. Robert Bates, chief safety officer in [getent... » read more

STMicroelectronics Successfully Designs Automotive Circuits


Widely-adopted by the automotive IC industry, the Bipolar, CMOS, DMOS (BCD) technology for intelligent power applications invented by STMicroelectronics has benefited automotive IC designers and their consumers for over a decade. The BCD technology (Figure 1) has required innovative techniques to ensure that automotive ICs can stand up to the harsh environments and high reliability requirements... » read more

Blog Review: Aug. 3


Mentor's Andrew Macleod presents three hours of highlights from this year's IESF automotive conference in Detroit with topics from making cars more affordable to reaching an efficiency of 54.5 MPG. Cadence's Paul McLellan checks out the state of the smartphone landscape now that consolidation in the market seems to be complete at the Linley Mobile Conference. Synopsys' Eric Huang consider... » read more

Mixed-signal/Low-power Design


Semiconductor Engineering sat down to discuss mixed-signal/low-power IC design with Phil Matthews, director of engineering at Silicon Labs; Yanning Lu, director of analog IC design at Ambiq Micro; Krishna Balachandran, director of low power solutions marketing at [getentity id="22032" comment="Cadence"]; Geoffrey Ying, director of product marketing, AMS Group, [getentity id="22035" e_name="Syno... » read more

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