Hidden Costs Of Shifting Left


The term "Shift Left" has been used increasingly within the semiconductor development flow to indicate tasks that were once performed sequentially must now be done concurrently. This is usually due to a tightening of dependences between tasks. One such example being talked about today is the need to perform hardware/software integration much earlier in the flow, rather than leaving it as a sequ... » read more

Power Modeling And Analysis


Semiconductor Engineering sat down to discuss power modeling and analysis with [getperson id="11489" p_name="Drew Wingard"], CTO at [getentity id="22605" e_name="Sonics"]; [getperson id="11763" comment="Tobias Bjerregaard"], CEO at [getentity id="22908" e_name="Teklatech"]; Vic Kulkarni, vice president and chief strategy officer at [getentity id="22021" e_name="Ansys"]; Andy Ladd, CEO of Baum; ... » read more

Are You Designing The Right Product?


Development and production of SoCs is becoming more and more complex and expensive. And rightfully so, the semiconductor industry spends billions of dollars on verification efforts. Verification is about checking the design behaves per its specification, a process that is very important and well understood. Still, something can go terribly wrong because having a verified SoC does not guarant... » read more

When Is Verification Complete?


Deciding when verification is done is becoming a much more difficult decision, prompting verification teams to increasingly rely on metrics rather than just the tests listed in the verification plan. This trend has been underway for the past couple of process nodes, but it takes time to spot trends and determine whether they are real or just aberrations. The Wilson Research Group conducts a ... » read more

How Much Verification Is Necessary?


Since the advent of IC design flows, starting with RTL descriptions in languages like Verilog or VHDL, project teams have struggled with how much verification can and should be performed by the original RTL developers. Constrained-random methods based on high-level languages such as [gettech id="31021" t_name="e"] or [gettech id="31023" comment="SystemVerilog"] further cemented the role of t... » read more

Verification And The IoT


Semiconductor Engineering sat down to discuss what impact the IoT will have on the design cycle, with Christopher Lawless, director of external customer acceleration in [getentity id="22846" e_name="Intel"]'s Software Services Group; David Lacey, design and verification technologist at Hewlett Packard Enterprise; Jim Hogan, managing partner at Vista Ventures; Frank Schirrmeister, senior group d... » read more

Chip Test Shifts Left


“Shift left” is a term traditionally applied to software testing, meaning to take action earlier in the V-shaped time line of a project. It has recently been touted in electronic design automation and IC design, verification, and test. “Test early and test often” is the classic maxim of software testing. What if that concept could also be implemented in semiconductor testing, to redu... » read more

Maintaining Power Profiles At 10/7nm


Understanding power consumption in detail is now a must-have of electronic design at 10nm and below, putting more pressure on SoC verification to ensure a device not only works, but meets the power budget. As part of this, the complete system must be run in a realistic manner — at the system-level — when the design and verification teams are looking at the effects of power during hardwar... » read more

Virtual PCIe Delivers A “Shift Left” In Software-Defined Networking Emulation


This paper reviews both SW and UVM Vector Based Verification (VBV) methodologies and Advanced Vector Based Verification (AVBV) that uses Software Defined Networking (SDN) HW to service PCIe transactions to the DUT. When deploying VBV methodologies, using the Veloce Transactor Library (VTL) family of components is most appropriate for UVM, C++ and SDK testbench methodologies. We explore how V... » read more

The Ultimate Shift Left


Floorplanning is becoming much more difficult due to a combination of factors—increased complexity of the power delivery network, lengthening of clock trees, rising levels of communication, and greater connectedness of [getkc id="81" kc_name="SoC"]s coupled with highly constrained routing resources. The goal of floorplanning is to determine optimal placement of blocks on a die. But connect... » read more

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