Connecting System-Level Flows To Implementation Tools


By Ann Steffora Mutschler With the complexity explosion occurring in SoC design today, there is a relentless force to push design decisions further up in terms of abstraction. Resolving issues at the gate level is not possible any more because there just isn’t enough time or resources. Further, the resulting design may not even be competitive because optimization at the gate level can leave ... » read more

Tailoring IP, Tools And Flows


By Ann Steffora Mutschler As SoC and system complexity rises continually and software drives much more in a system, specific vertical application areas will require tailored IP and tool flows to allow designers to meet time-to-market demands. Today, many systems are designed around a platform, which contains most of the STAR IP—processors, GPUs, memory controllers, interconnects, memory s... » read more

IP Integration Creates Challenges For Power


By Ann Steffora Mutschler Managing power when integrating IP is becoming a critical issue at advanced process nodes—and the problem is getting worse. For starters, static power leakage that occurs when the transistors are “off” gets worse at each node. On top of that, multiple states to minimize dynamic power leakage have pushed complexity even further. Throw in third-party IP from m... » read more

Remaking The Design Landscape


By Ed Sperling Every now and then a new trend comes along in the semiconductor design world, often because an old tool doesn’t work well anymore or because a new one is achieving critical mass. Lithography moved to immersion when the wavelength couldn’t be refracted far enough anymore. Designers at the advanced end of Moore’s Law began using tools like high-level synthesis and Transa... » read more

Making Connections


By Ed Sperling The world is still full of engineers who can build fast interconnects to things like PCI Express or USB 2.0 who can create complex schematics for determining the connections between a processor core, memory, logic and various IP blocks on a piece of silicon. But over the next several years, many of those engineers will have to figure out new ways to make a living. The numbe... » read more

To Bus Or Not To Bus, That Is The Question


By Ann Steffora Mutschler When you hear the words, “block interface,” your ears may not perk up, but as system architects well understand, making the right choice between a bus or non-bus interface on an SoC is absolutely critical to design’s success in terms of power efficiency, reusability and performance. How many of the problems in new chip designs have to do with the interconne... » read more

NoC Your SoCs Off


By Ed Sperling The network on a chip (NoC) approach is gaining ground as an essential part of a system on a chip (SoC), providing the same kind of time-to-market advantage that well-tested intellectual property blocks provide. This follows almost eight years of hype about NoCs potential with little to show for it. Times have changed and there appear to be two main drivers, one technological a... » read more

The Quest For Faster Data Throughput On A Chip


By Ed Sperling As with all network topologies, the general rule is the faster the better. Jack Browne, VP of sales and marketing at Sonics, said his customers are asking for higher-speed interconnects. “Right now we’re at 300MHz,” he said. “They want to more than double that in the very near future and eventually get to 1GHz.” Getting to that speed is no simple ... » read more

Making A Multicore System Work


Making all the pieces work together in a multicore system requires a deep understanding of the technology, lots of different layers of synthesis, and some incredibly complex testing strategies.   System-Level Design sat down with James Aldis, system on chip architect for Texas Instruments wireless business unit; Charles Janac, president and CEO of Arteris, Drew Wingard, CTO of Sonics, and ... » read more

Making A Multicore System Work


If you think designing a single-core system is hard, designing multicore systems is multiple times harder. Connecting all the pieces together and making them work properly, if not together, is one of the hardest tasks design engineers and architects will ever face. System-Level Design tracked down some of the experts in this field and sat them down around a table to discuss what’s going... » read more

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