Shifting Left Using Model-Based Engineering


As heterogenous integration increases design complexity and forces engineers out of long-standing silos, model-based systems engineering (MBSE) is becoming essential for improving quality and reducing failures in the field. While it may seem like a new buzzword, MBSE's principles date back to the 1990s. In essence, it's a process of building models that enable early decisions, which pays off... » read more

The Next Incarnation Of EDA


The EDA industry has incrementally addressed issues as they arise in the design of electronic systems, but is there about to be a disruption? Academia is certainly seeing that as a possibility, but not all of them see it happening for the same reason. The academic community questioned the future of EDA at the recent Design Automation Conference. Rather than EDA as we know it going away, they... » read more

Hardware-Software Co-Design Reappears


The core concepts in hardware-software co-design are getting another look, nearly two decades after this approach was first introduced and failed to catch on. What's different this time around is the growing complexity and an emphasis on architectural improvements, as well as device scaling, particularly for AI/ML applications. Software is a critical component, and the more tightly integrate... » read more

ROI Not There Yet For SysML


At some point down the road in the realm of system-level design, the Systems Modeling Language (SysML) dialect of the Unified Modeling Language (UML) standard may drive into semiconductor design. So far, however, a return on investment has not been established for its use. SysML is defined as a general-purpose visual modeling language for systems engineering applications, and it supports the... » read more

The Next Level Of Abstraction For System Design


Recently there have been a lot of discussions again about the next level of design abstraction for chip design. Are we there yet? Will we ever get there? Is it SystemC? UML/SysML perhaps? I am taking the approach of simply claiming victory: Over the last 20 years we have moved up beyond RTL in various areas—just in a fragmented way. However, the human limitations on our capacity for processin... » read more