Blog Review: Sept. 1


Arm's Fernando Garcia Redondo, Pranay Prabhat, and Mudit Bhargava continue their exploration of MRAM simulation by explaining stochasticity experiments and a characterization framework that focuses on the MRAM behavior statistical analysis. Siemens EDA's Neil Johnson shows how performance profiling can be used to identify testbench code that could slow down simulation and when to start using i... » read more

AppSec Risk: The Dangers And How to Manage Them


As software continues to deliver more features than ever before, its quality and security are increasingly crucial to the success of every organization. Building secure software makes business sense for a variety of reasons, including diminishing financial liability and improving competitive advantage. Keeping track of every software vulnerability, however, is taxing and time-consuming—and... » read more

Analyzing Electro-Photonic Systems


The design and analysis of electro-optical systems is pushing tools into the complex multi-physics domain, making it challenging to create models that execute at reasonable cost — especially when they include thermal impacts. The lack of models and standards also is slowing the progression of the technology. Still the advantages are worth it to those willing to make the investment. Trad... » read more

Week In Review: Design, Low Power


The UK's Competition and Markets Authority is raising new challenges for Nvidia's proposed acquisition of Arm, suggesting in a new report that an in-depth Phase 2 investigation into the deal is warranted on competition grounds. Andrea Coscelli, chief executive of the CMA, said, “We’re concerned that Nvidia controlling Arm could create real problems for Nvidia's rivals by limiting their acce... » read more

New Approaches For Processor Architectures


Processor vendors are starting to emphasize microarchitectural improvements and data movement over process node scaling, setting the stage for much bigger performance gains in devices that narrowly target what end users are trying to accomplish. The changes are a recognition that domain specificity, and the ability to adjust or adapt designs to unique workloads, are now the best way to impro... » read more

Modeling Chips From Atoms To Systems


Complexity in hardware design is spilling over to other disciplines, including software, manufacturing, and new materials, creating issues for how to model more data at multiple abstraction levels. Challenges are growing around which abstraction level to use for a particular stage of the design, when to use it, and which data to include. Those decisions are becoming more difficult at each ne... » read more

Four Requirements To Improve Chip Design Debug


Debug has always been a painful and unavoidable part of semiconductor design and, despite many technological advances, it remains one of the dominant tasks in chip development. At one time, most bugs were detected and diagnosed on actual devices in the bring-up lab, where both visibility and controllability are severely limited. It is certainly true that debugging the results from pre-silicon t... » read more

Steering The Semiconductor Industry


Progress in semiconductors has been one of the most successful engineering feats, and the industry has ridden an exponential curve longer than anything else in history. It is also a highly conservative industry that has pushed away many disruptive changes in favor of small incremental changes that minimize risk. There have been significant changes over the decades, and they often required a ... » read more

Blog Review: Aug. 25


Arm's Fernando Garcia Redondo, Pranay Prabhat, and Mudit Bhargava introduce an open source framework and compact model for the simulation, characterization, and analysis of MRAM magnetic tunnel junctions. Siemens EDA's Chris Spear continues the tutorial on SystemVerilog class variables with a look at how to use the $cast() system task to copy between base and derived class variables. Syno... » read more

RTL Architect: Parallel RTL Exploration With Unparalleled Accuracy


Increasing chip complexity and restrictive advanced node rules have made it harder for implementation tools to achieve PPA targets and node entitlements via last-mile optimizations. RTL Architect enables designers to "shift-left" and predict the implementation impact of their RTL. RTL designers, SoC integrators, and IP developers have embraced this fast, predictive technology to give them new i... » read more

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