Using Emulators For Power/Performance Tradeoffs


Emulation is becoming the tool of choice for power and performance tradeoffs, scaling to almost unlimited capacity for complex chips used in data centers, AI/ML systems and smart phones. While emulation has long been viewed as an important but expensive asset for chipmakers trying to verify and debug chips, it is now viewed as an essential component for design optimization and analysis much ... » read more

Embedded Multicore: Enablement Of Heterogeneous OSes And Mixed Criticality Systems


The implementation of multicore embedded systems is becoming increasingly common. The decision to realize a design using multiple processors may be influenced by a number of factors; broadly these are technical goals to attain, a time to market to achieve, and target design and production costs. Using multicore in a design requires a number of key decisions, which, as with most embedded systems... » read more

Blog Review: Oct. 9


In a video, Cadence's Tom Hackett continues his introduction to finite element analysis (FEA) and the important role it can play in electronics deign. Mentor's Colin Walls considers dynamic memory allocation in real-time operating systems and the problems of non-deterministic behavior and ill-defined failure modes. Synopsys' Taylor Armerding contends that ethical hackers are a necessary p... » read more

Reducing Costly Flaws In Heterogeneous Designs


The cost of defects is rising as chipmakers begin adding multiple chips into a package, or multiple processor cores and memories on the same die. Put simply, one bad wire can spoil an entire system. Two main issues need to be solved to reduce the number of defects. The first is identifying the actual defect, which becomes more difficult as chips grow larger and more complex, and whenever chi... » read more

The Single Best DFT Move You Can Make


A proven method to simplify a complex problem is to break it into smaller chunks. In the case of today’s large, complex SoCs, this means using hierarchical methods to design the blocks, then combine the results at the top level. While this sounds obvious, it hasn’t always been practical or technologically feasible to perform some tasks, like DFT, at the block level and translate that work s... » read more

Shrinking AV’s 1 Billion Test Miles


There is still no answer to how many miles an autonomous vehicle needs to drive before it's proven safe. But some AV developers and test companies are hoping to ease the burden a bit with automation that makes millions of real and simulated miles of road testing simpler to implement, supported by standards that make it easier to create and trade simulation scenarios. The goal is to reduce th... » read more

Testing Against Changing Standards In Automotive


The infusion of more semiconductor content into cars is raising the bar on reliability and changing the way chips are designed, verified and tested, but it also is raising a lot of questions about whether companies are on the right track at any point in time. Concerns about liability are rampant with autonomous and assisted driving, so standards are being rolled out well in advance of the te... » read more

Hierarchical DFT: Proven Divide-And-Conquer Solution Accelerates DFT Implementation And Reduces Test Costs


Implementation of the most challenging DFT tasks is greatly simplified by the proven and widely-adopted automation available in Tessent products. This whitepaper describes the basic components of an RTL-based hierarchical DFT methodology, the benefits that it provides, and the tool automation that is available through Mentor’s Tessent products. The focus is on the techniques and automation of... » read more

Week In Review: Design, Low Power


Synopsys completed its acquisition of QTronic GmbH, a provider of simulation, test tools, and services for automotive software and systems development. Terms of the deal were not disclosed. Synopsys launched the PrimeECO design closure solution, a signoff-driven solution that the company says achieves signoff closure with zero iterations. The tool includes a machine-learning-driven Hybrid Ti... » read more

Solving The Memory Bottleneck


Chipmakers are scrambling to solve the bottleneck between processor and memory, and they are turning out new designs based on different architectures at a rate no one would have anticipated even several months ago. At issue is how to boost performance in systems, particularly those at the edge, where huge amounts of data need to be processed locally or regionally. The traditional approach ha... » read more

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