Retimers Replacing Redrivers As Signal Speeds Increase


Retimers are undergoing a renaissance as new PHY protocols prove too demanding for redrivers. Redrivers and retimers both have been used to extend wired signal reach over the years. But redrivers have dominated this space due to their relative simplicity and lower cost. That balance is beginning to change. “A retimer represents three things no one wants in their system — area, cost, a... » read more

Blog Review: July 7


Cadence's Sangeeta Soni provides a primer on the PIPE SerDes architecture and some of the changes that can introduce verification challenges for SerDes compliant PHY and MAC devices. Siemens EDA's Chris Spear demystifies the $cast() method in SystemVerilog, which checks values at runtime rather than compile time, and gives some examples of when it is useful. Synopsys' Chris Clark warns th... » read more

Cell Library Verification Using Symbolic Simulation


Standard cell libraries have been a mainstay of chip design for many decades since the inception of logic synthesis and composition methodologies. Cell library IP typically contains Verilog models describing the cell functionality, schematic derived transistor level netlists, place and route views, physical layout views, post-layout extracted netlists as well as characterized timing and power m... » read more

Optimize Physical Verification Cost Of Ownership With Elastic CPU Management


For physical verification, advanced process technology nodes create implementation challenges. Design sizes have gotten larger and required rules from foundries have become more numerous in count (thousands) and more complex (hundreds of discrete steps). For these reasons, physical verification tools have been able to span these jobs not only across multiple CPUs on a single physical compute ho... » read more

Achieving CDC Signoff On Multi Billion Gate Designs With Hierarchical CDC Flow


For the last few decades, the System-on-Chip (SoC) design size has dramatically increased and more complexity has been introduced to deliver the desired functionality. A typical SoC can have many complex IPs operating at different clock frequencies, which can stress the verification cycle. Generally, design and verification teams are spending an increasing amount of time to ensure that the SoC ... » read more

IC Data Hot Potato: Who Owns And Manages It?


Modern inspection, metrology, and test equipment produces a flood of data during the manufacturing and testing of semiconductors. Now the question is what to do with all of that data. Image resolutions in inspection and metrology have been improving for some time to deal with increased density and smaller features, creating a downstream effect that has largely gone unmanaged. Higher resoluti... » read more

Week In Review: Design, Low Power


Tools Imperas and Valtrix inked a multi-year distribution and support agreement that makes Imperas simulation technology and RISC-V reference models available pre-integrated within Valtrix STING for RISC-V processor verification. The combined solution covers the full RISC-V specification for user, privilege, and debug modes, including all ratified standard extensions, and the near ratified (st... » read more

Week In Review: Auto, Security, Pervasive Computing


Security The U.S. government agencies put out a warning that Russian military has been using a Kubernetes cluster to attempt distributed and anonymized brute force access against hundreds of government and private sector targets worldwide. Department of Homeland Security (DHS)’s Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA), the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI), the National S... » read more

New Design Approaches For Automotive


The push toward increasing autonomy in automotive is driving new approaches in electronics development. Instead of designing individual components, the focus now is on modeling in context. The ultimate goal is to create an executable specification based on industry-accepted standards, with enough flexibility to be able to customize that spec for different customers. This is a difficult engin... » read more

Making Autonomous Driver Chips Safe From The Top Down


It’s easy to think of electronics applications in which the chips must be ultra-safe: nuclear power plants, aircraft, weapons systems, and implanted medical devices. Autonomous vehicles, capable of self-driving with only the electronics in control, are rapidly emerging to join this list. These vehicles must be “safe” in all the usual colloquial ways, but they also must meet a very specifi... » read more

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