Blog Review: Jan. 24

By Jesse Allen - 24 Jan, 2018 - Comments: 0

Mentor's Rich Edelman shares some tips for debugging complex UVM testbenches containing multiple agents, multiple checkers, and new HDL. Synopsys' Prasad Subudhi K. S. explains the PCIe PIPE 4.4.1 specification and the major improvements since 4.3, including better optimization in data flow and ultra-low power operations. Cadence's Paul McLellan steps back to before the Meltdown and Spect... » read more

Reflection On 2017: Design And EDA

By Brian Bailey - 03 Jan, 2018 - Comments: 0

People love to make predictions, and most of the time they have it easy, but at Semiconductor Engineering, we ask them to look back on the predictions they make each year and to assess how close to the mark they were. We see what they missed and what surprised them. Not everyone accepts our offer to grade themselves, but most have this year. (Part one looked at the predictions associated with s... » read more

Is Verification Falling Behind?

By Brian Bailey - 21 Dec, 2017 - Comments: 1

Every year that [getkc id="74" comment="Moore's Law"] is in effect means that the [getkc id="10" kc_name="verification"] task gets larger and more complex. At one extreme, verification complexity increases at the square of design complexity, but that assumes that every state in the design is usable and unique. On the other hand, verification has not had the luxury that comes with design reuse b... » read more

Which Verification Engine? (Part 2)

By Ed Sperling - 06 Dec, 2017 - Comments: 1

Semiconductor Engineering sat down to discuss the state of verification with Jean-Marie Brunet, senior director of marketing for emulation at [getentity id="22017" e_name="Mentor, a Siemens Business"]; Frank Schirrmeister, senior group director for product management at [getentity id="22032" e_name="Cadence"]; Dave Kelf, vice president of marketing at [getentity id="22395" e_name="OneSpin Solut... » read more

UVM Can Kill You. More News At 11

By Neil Johnson - 04 Dec, 2017 - Comments: 0

Ok. I agree. Not a great title. I don’t like it either. Some pretty aggressive clickbait, I know. But it’s got the quick hit, newsy cliffhanger feel that makes you want to tune in anyway, doesn’t it? I had to go for it. For what it’s worth, it wasn’t my first choice. I wanted to go with “What You Don’t Know About UVM Can Kill You. More News at 11”. Same punch. Still the hi... » read more

Inside UVM

By Vatsal Choksi - 26 Oct, 2017 - Comments: 0

We have all been witnesses to the rapid improvements of the iPhone processor chip every year. With the iPhone 8 featuring the newest A11 Bionic at 10 nm FinFET with 4.3 billion transistors, I can’t personally fathom the amount of the verification effort needed for this type of SoC - the required manpower and time to get the job done is absolutely mind-boggling. Thankfully, we have several pre... » read more

System Coverage Undefined

By Brian Bailey - 28 Sep, 2017 - Comments: 1

When is a design ready to be taped out? That has been one of the toughest questions to confront every design team, and it's the one verification engineers lose sleep over. Exhaustive [getkc id="56" kc_name="coverage"] has not been possible since the 1980s. Several metrics and methodologies have been defined to help answer the question and to raise confidence that important aspects of a block... » read more

Efficient Verification Of Mixed-Signal SerDes IP Using UVM

By Cadence - 27 Sep, 2017 - Comments: 0

Interface IP is an integral part of systems-on-chips (SoC) that include mobile, automotive, or networking applications and are primarily used for transmitting data over a physical medium between a host and device. The mixed-signal nature of the IP makes verification a challenging task, requiring special considerations for digital and analog sections. This paper describes a robust mixed-signal v... » read more

Portable Stimulus Status Report

By Brian Bailey - 24 Aug, 2017 - Comments: 0

The first release of the Portable Stimulus (PS) standard is slated for early next year. If it lives up to its promise, it could be the first new language and abstraction for verification in two decades. [getentity id="22028" e_name="Accellera"] uncorked the PS Early Adopter release at the Design Automation Conference (DAC) in June. The standard has been more than two years in the making by t... » read more

Verification Unification

By Brian Bailey - 03 Jul, 2017 - Comments: 0

Semiconductor Engineering brought together industry luminaries to initiate the discussion about the role that formal technologies will play with the recently released early adopter's draft of Portable Stimulus and how it may help to bring the two execution technologies closer together. Participating in this roundtable are Joe Hupcey, verification product technologist for [getentity id="22017" e... » 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

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