How Cache Coherency Impacts Power, Performance


As discussed in part one, one of the reasons cache coherency is becoming more important is the shared common memory resource in designs today. Various agents in the design want to access the data the fastest they can, putting pressure on the CPU complex to manage all of the requests. Until a generation ago, it was okay for the CPU to control that memory and have access to it, as well as be t... » read more

Leading Chip Maker Rolls Out SoC For Automotive Market With NetSpeed Gemini


There is tremendous growth in the automotive IC market due to the trend towards electric or hybrid cars and applications for enhanced safety. However, the technical challenges of implementing today's connected car and the autonomous vehicles of the future are daunting. To read more, click here. » read more

Verification Engine Disconnects


Moving verification data seamlessly between emulation, simulation, FPGA prototyping and formal verification engines may be possible on paper, but it is proving more difficult to implement in the real world. [getkc id="10" kc_name="Verification"] still consumes the most time and money in the design process. And while the amount of time spent on verification in complex designs has held relativ... » read more

GPUs Power Ahead


GPUs, long a sideshow for CPUs, are suddenly the rising stars of the processor world. They are a first choice in everything from artificial intelligence systems to automotive ADAS applications and deep learning systems powered by [getkc id="261" kc_name="convolutional neural network"]. And they are still the mainstays of high-performance computing, gaming and scientific computation, to name ... » read more

From Game Theory To The Unified Theory of Coherency


Adam Smith said that the best result comes from everyone in the group doing what is best for himself. But he’s only half right because the best result would come from everyone in the group doing what is best for himself and the group. If you are wondering where you might have heard this before, it was Russell Crowe playing John Nash in the movie “A Beautiful Mind.” John Nash was an Ame... » read more

Electrical-Mechanical Tool Flow Revisited


For many years, the design tool industry has entertained the idea of combining both electrical and mechanical design into a single user experience, with a single database as a foundation. Major tool vendors, at least on the electrical side, have taken the matter seriously and confirm that activities towards a single flow have been considered, particularly as the [getkc id="7" kc_name="EDA"] ... » read more

Top Mobile OEM Uses NetSpeed to Boost Its Next Gen Application Processor


The smartphone segment is certainly the most competitive market for chip makers today and the yearly product launch cadence puts a lot of pressure on the application processor design cycle. End-users expect to benefit from higher image definition, better sound quality, ever faster and more complex applications which push the limits of application processor performance in terms of higher frequen... » read more

The Week In Review: Design


Tools Mentor Graphics uncorked the latest version of its Catapult high-level synthesis platform, adding a formal-based C Property Checker tool to automatically identify and formally prove hard-to-find issues like uninitialized memory, divide by 0, and array bounds errors in the users' HLS C++/SystemC model. IP ARM unveiled the Cortex-A73 and Mali-G71 processors. According to ARM, the g... » read more

The Mightier Microcontroller


Microcontrollers are becoming more complex, more powerful, and significantly more useful, but those improvements come with strings attached. While it's relatively straightforward to develop multi-core microcontroller (MCU) hardware with advanced power management features, it's much more difficult to write software for these chips because memory is limited. CPUs can use on-chip memory such as... » read more

Do Single-Vendor Flows Make Sense Yet?


For many years in the EDA industry, there has been talk of a complete design tool flow from a single vendor, and each of the main EDA players is capable of offering one. But whether they actually do — or should — is an interesting discussion. There are obvious pros and cons on the technical side. But it is the business and marketing issues that are really at the crux of the debate today.... » read more

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