Billion-Gate Signoff


At last year’s Design and Verification Conference in San Jose, Real Intent had a tutorial session on “Pre-Simulation Verification for RTL Sign-Off.” This was a start of conversation in the industry that we have seen grow through DAC 2013 in Austin, and which is getting louder each day. Verification companies are now talking about crossing the billion-gate threshold and what can be done to... » read more

Routing Closure Challenges At 28nm And Below


As I described in my last article, the gap between router tech files and signoff rule decks at 28 nm and below is generating some serious impacts on tapeout schedules. The mismatch between the router’s simplified tech file and the complex rules that represent the intricate manufacturing requirements at these leading-edge nodes means designs that come from the router “DRC/DFM-clean” will, ... » read more

When Is Verification Done?


Verification is becoming much more difficult at 16nm/14nm, driven by the sheer complexity of SoCs, the fact that there is much more to verify, and the impact of physical effects, which now affect what used to be exclusively the realm of functional verification. The questions these changes raise are daunting, and for many engineers rather unnerving. The whole validation, verification and debu... » read more

The Week in Review: System-Level Design


Cadence unveiled its next-gen power signoff tool, this one based upon parallel execution across multiple processors. The result is 10x speed improvement, according to the company. The signoff solution already is certified for TSMC’s 16nm finFET process for IR drop analysis and EM rule compliance, two of the big concerns with finFETs. Synopsys teamed up with CEVA to improve PPA for CEVA’s... » read more

Reducing The Tapeout Crunch With Signoff Confidence


Crunch time—that last six to eight weeks before tapeout. There’s always too much to do, and too little time. No one wants problems at this stage, because problems mean changes, and changes mean delays. At leading-edge nodes, however, we’re running into some new problems that need new solutions. We all know design rule numbers and complexity are going through the roof as we try to use 1... » read more

Next-Gen Distributed Machine Processing


By Rama Nemalikanti The gate count increase of chip designs, especially for mobile application processor system-on-chips (SoCs), is being closely tracked to help guide the development of supporting design and simulation tools. However, sign-off quality power integrity analysis requires the inclusion of the entire integrated circuit (IC) design, along with its associated package and printed cir... » read more

SoC Power Integrity And Sign-Off For 28nm Designs


A presentation discussing how RedHawk enables physical design weakness identification, automatic repair the source of the supply noise, analyze impact of dynamic voltage drop on timing and jitter, verify power and signal EM, and provide a model of the chip’s PDN for system-level analysis. To view this video tutorial, click here. » read more

Executive Briefing: Prakash Narain


Real Intent CEO Prakash Narain talks with System-Level Design about where are the pain points in verification; different types of signoff; the impact of third-party IP, and can the tools industry keep up with the rising complexity in semiconductor design. [youtube vid=C25VMRDXGAQ] » read more

Experts At The Table: The Growing Signoff Headache


By Ed Sperling Low-Power/High-Performance Engineering sat down to discuss signoff issues with Rob Aitken, an ARM fellow; Sumbal Rafiq, director of engineering at Applied Micro; Ruben Molina, product marketing director for timing signoff at Cadence; Carey Robertson, director of product marketing for Calibre extraction at Mentor Graphics; and Robert Hoogenstryd, director of marketing for design ... » read more

RTL Signoff


Piyush Sancheti, Atrenta's vice president of product marketing, talks with Low-Power/High-Performance Engineering about where the pain points are in design and why RTL signoff has become so important. [youtube vid=8Ra1_VmzW50] » read more

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