Understanding UVM Coverage For RISC-V Processor Designs


Attempting to achieve complete RISC-V verification requires multiple methodologies employing a wide range of relevant tools, including: • Coverage driven simulation based on UVM constrained random methods and compliant with the Universal Verification Methodology (UVM) standard • Static and formal property verification • Equivalence checking • Emulation and FPGA based verific... » read more

Week In Review: Design, Low Power


Design & IP Arm launched the Neoverse Compute Subsystems (CSS), pre-integrated and validated configurations of Arm Neoverse platform IP, at this week's Hot Chips conference. CSS helps streamline SoC designs for data centers and is optimized for an advanced 5nm process. The first generation of CSS (Neoverse CSS N2) is based on Arm’s Neoverse N2 platform. Core count is configurable (24 to ... » read more

Formally Modeling A Security Monitor For Virtual Machine-Based Confidential Computing Systems (IBM)


A technical paper titled “Towards a Formally Verified Security Monitor for VM-based Confidential Computing” was published by researchers at IBM Research and IBM T.J. Watson Research Center. Abstract: "Confidential computing is a key technology for isolating high-assurance applications from the large amounts of untrusted code typical in modern systems. Existing confidential computing syste... » read more

Optimizing IC Designs For Real-World Use Cases


Semiconductor systems are becoming more focused on power, performance, and area for the primary scenarios they are likely to see in real-world applications, but increasingly at the expense of secondary tasks. This is happening at all levels of abstraction and all stages of the design flow. At the highest level, processors are being optimized to run a given set of software. RISC-V is one of t... » read more

RISC-V Customization Gets A Standing Ovation


Processor vendors have always tried to create a large software ecosystem around their products, because it creates stickiness and it naturally “locks-in” large numbers of customers who have invested in the creation of dedicated software. This effect is growing over time as the quantity of software is ever increasing per product: we could talk about more than 100 million lines of code in a c... » read more

Formal Processor Model Providing Provably Secure Speculation For The Constant-Time Policy


A new technical paper titled "ProSpeCT: Provably Secure Speculation for the Constant-Time Policy" was published by researchers at imec-DistriNet, KU Leuven, CEA, and INRIA. This paper was included at the recent 32nd USENIX Security Symposium. Abstract: "We propose ProSpeCT, a generic formal processor model providing provably secure speculation for the constant-time policy. For constant-tim... » read more

EDA Tool To Detect SW-HW Vulnerabilities Ensuring Data Confidentiality In A RISC-V Architecture


A technical paper titled “SoftFlow: Automated HW-SW Confidentiality Verification for Embedded Processors” was published by researchers at RWTH Aachen University, Robert Bosch, and Newcastle University. Abstract: "Despite its ever-increasing impact, security is not considered as a design objective in commercial electronic design automation (EDA) tools. This results in vulnerabilities being... » read more

Specialization Vs. Generalization In Processors


Academia has been looking at specialization for many years, but solutions were rejected because general-purpose solutions were advancing fast enough to keep up with most application requirements. That is no longer the case. The introduction and support of the RISC-V processor architecture has attracted a lot of attention, but whether that is the right direction for the majority of modern comput... » read more

A RISC-V Capability Architecture Orchestrating Compiler, Architecture, And System Designs For Full Memory Safety (Georgia Tech, Arm Research)


A technical paper titled “RV-CURE: A RISC-V Capability Architecture for Full Memory Safety” was published by researchers at Georgia Institute of Technology and Arm Research. Abstract: "Despite decades of efforts to resolve, memory safety violations are still persistent and problematic in modern systems. Various defense mechanisms have been proposed, but their deployment in real systems re... » read more

A Safety Island For Safe Use of HPC Devices For Safety-Critical Systems with RISC-V


A technical paper titled “Envisioning a Safety Island to Enable HPC Devices in Safety-Critical Domains” was published by researchers at Barcelona Supercomputing Center and Intel. Abstract: "HPC (High Performance Computing) devices increasingly become the only alternative to deliver the performance needed in safety-critical autonomous systems (e.g., autonomous cars, unmanned planes) du... » read more

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