Open-Source Verification

By Brian Bailey - 30 Jul, 2020 - Comments: 1

Ask different people what open-source verification means and you will get a host of different answers. They range from the verification of open-source hardware, to providing an open-source verification infrastructure, to providing open-source stream generators or reference models, to open-source simulators and formal verification engines. Verification is about reducing risk. "Verification is... » read more

Formal Verification Of Floating-Point Hardware With Assertion-Based VIP

By OneSpin Solutions - 29 Jul, 2020 - Comments: 2

Hardware for integer or fixed-point arithmetic is relatively simple to design, at least at the register-transfer level. If the range of values and precision that can be represented with these formats is not sufficient for the target application, floating-point hardware might be required. Unfortunately, floating-point units are complex to design, and notoriously challenging to verify. Since the ... » read more

Chip Security Needs A New Language

By Sven Beyer - 26 Aug, 2019 - Comments: 0

By Sven Beyer and Sergio Marchese Safety- and security-critical systems, such as connected autonomous vehicles, require high-integrity integrated circuits (ICs). Functional correctness and safety are necessary to establish IC integrity, but not sufficient. Security is another critical pillar of IC integrity. Systems and products using ICs with security vulnerabilities ultimately undermine th... » read more

Complete Formal Verification of RISC V Processor IPs for Trojan-Free Trusted ICs

By OneSpin Solutions - 26 Jun, 2019 - Comments: 0

RISC-V processor IPs are increasingly being integrated into system-on-chip designs for a variety of applications. However, there is still a lack of dedicated functional verification solutions supporting high-integrity, trusted integrated circuits. This paper examines an efficient, novel, formal-based RISC-V processor verification methodology. The RISC-V ISA is formalized in a set of Operational... » read more

ASIC/IC Trends With A Focus On Factors Of Silicon Success

By Harry Foster - 09 May, 2019 - Comments: 0

“The more you know, the more you know you don't know.” ― Aristotle, 4th C. BC When Aristotle uttered this humble aphorism, he wasn’t telling us to throw up our hands and not bother with learning. He was encouraging us to continue digging deeper, to get answers and ask questions of those answers — that the thrills and rewards of study are truly without end. This is a big part of ou... » read more

Fibonacci And Honey Bees Have Something In Common: A Sweet Spot For Formal

By Sergio Marchese - 28 Mar, 2019 - Comments: 0

Time flies and the OneSpin’s Holiday Puzzle tradition has reached its third year. In December 2016, OneSpin challenged engineers everywhere to solve the Einstein riddle using assertions and a formal verification tool. In December 2017, the challenge was to model the hardest Sudoku in the world using assertions and find a solution with a formal tool. In addition, participants had to prove that... » read more

Updated UVM Cookbook Supports IEEE 1800.2 Standard And Emulation

By Tom Fitzpatrick - 09 Aug, 2018 - Comments: 0

I’m happy to announce that we at Mentor have just released a fully-updated version of our popular UVM Cookbook, which is available online here. Cookbook Overview Diagram The Universal Verification Methodology (UVM) is a standard library of SystemVerilog classes that supports a modular, reusable testbench architecture for constrained-random functional verification. Meanwhile, Mentor’... » read more

Agile Standards

By Brian Bailey - 08 Aug, 2018 - Comments: 0

Semiconductor Engineering sat down with Lu Dai, chairman for Accellera and senior director of engineering at Qualcomm, to discuss what's changing in standards development. What follows are excerpts of that conversation. SE: Accellera has had a great first half of the year. Dai: Yes, we are only half way through the year and yet we got Portable Stimulus Standard (PSS) out, the SystemC CCI ... » read more

Three Steps To Low Power Coverage Closure

By Awashesh Kumar - 18 Jun, 2018 - Comments: 0

By Awashesh Kumar and Madhur Bhargava Low-power design and verification is becoming more complex. Yet it is critical that all power elements are verified, and it is even more important to verify the complex interactions between these elements at a high abstraction level. However, power-aware coverage closure is difficult to attain and complex by nature. Existing low-power coverage methodo... » read more

Commoditizing Constraints

By Brian Bailey - 24 May, 2018 - Comments: 2

Preparing articles for Semiconductor Engineering involves talking to a lot of people and then trying to fit their statements together in a way that is logical and fair. Sometimes a subject will come up in one of these calls that is not really on topic, but is still interesting. One such incident happened this week while doing research for the Verification 3.0 article. The topic was constrain... » read more

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Knowledge Centers
Entities, people and technologies explored

Shift Left Is The Tip Of The Iceberg

A transformative change is underway for semiconductor design and EDA. New languages, models, and abstractions will need to be created.

by Brian Bailey

Partitioning In The Chiplet Era

Understanding how chiplets interact under different workloads is critical to ensuring signal integrity and optimal performance in heterogeneous designs.

by Ann Mutschler

3.5D: The Great Compromise

Pros and cons of a middle-ground chiplet assembly that combines 2.5D and 3D-IC.

by Ed Sperling

AI’s Role In Chip Design Widens, Drawing In New Startups

Focus is on letting engineers do much more with the same or fewer resources — and less drudgery.

by Karen Heyman

Key Technologies To Extend EUV To 14 Angstroms

Alongside high-NA EUV will be better-performing photoresists, reduced roughness using passivation and etch, and lateral etching to reduce tip-to-tip dimensions.

by Laura Peters

What Comes After HBM For Chiplets

The standard for high-bandwidth memory limits design freedom at many levels, but that is required for interoperability. What freedoms can be taken from other functions to make chiplets possible?

by Brian Bailey

Memory Fundamentals For Engineers

eBook: Nearly everything you need to know about memory, including detailed explanations of the different types of memory; how and where these are used today; what's changing, which memories are successful and which ones might be in the future; and the limitations of each memory type.

by The SE Staff

Why Small Fab And Assembly Houses Are Thriving

Megafabs churning out the most advanced processors are not the only game in town.

by Bryon Moyer

tag: SystemVerilog