EDA Revenue Hit Record High In Q3


EDA and IP revenue increased 8.8% in Q3 2024, dragged down from the double-digit growth of recent quarters by a softening in sales to China, according to the most recent report by SEMI. For more than a decade, China's growth propped up the entire tools industry, reporting consistent double-digit growth growth that reached as high as 40% quarter over quarter. But with ongoing trade restrictio... » read more

Design And Verification Issues In 2024


At the end of each year, I look back over the stories published and those that top the charts in terms of readership. I concentrate on those stories that are about the EDA tools and flows and the factors that are influencing them. These are good indicators of the problems designers and verification teams are facing today, and where they are looking for answers. This year's leading categories... » read more

Improving Verification Performance


Without methodology improvements, verification teams would not be able keep up with the growing complexity and breadth of the tasks assigned to them. Tools alone will not provide the answer. The magnitude of the verification task continues to outpace the tools, forcing design teams to seek out better ways to intermix and utilize the tools that are available. But as verification teams take on... » read more

RISC-V Profiles Help Conformance


Experts At The Table: What's needed to be able to trust that a RISC-V implementation will work as expected across multiple designs using standard OSes. Semiconductor Engineering discussed the issue with John Min, vice president of customer service at Arteris; Zdeněk Přikryl, CTO of Codasip; Neil Hand, director of marketing at Siemens EDA (at the time of this discussion); Frank Schirrmeist... » read more

Addressing Reset Tree Design Challenges For Complex SoCs With Advanced Structural Checks


As SoC designs continue to evolve, the complexity of reset architectures has grown significantly. Traditionally, clock tree synthesis has been a major focus due to timing challenges, but now reset trees demand equal attention. With multiple reset sources, designers must deal with reset trees that can be more intricate than clock trees. Errors within a reset tree can lead to serious issues, incl... » read more

Goal-Driven AI


For many, the long-term dream for AI within EDA is the ability to define a set of goals and tell the computer to go design it for them. A short while later, an optimized design will pop out. All of today's EDA tools will remain hidden, if they even exist at all. You would only be limited by your imagination. But we also know that AI is not to be trusted today, especially when millions of dol... » read more

How To Speed Up LVS Verification


Layout versus schematic (LVS) comparison is a crucial step in integrated circuit (IC) design verification, ensuring that the physical layout of the circuit matches its schematic representation. The primary goal of LVS is to verify the correctness and functionality of the design. Traditionally, LVS comparison is performed during signoff verification, where dedicated tools compare layout and sche... » read more

The Xpedition Flow


Comprehensive approach to designing electronics The complexities of modern PCB design necessitate a comprehensive approach that integrates various aspects of the entire design through manufacturing flow. The ideal design flow requires seamless cooperation and synergy across various domains, including electrical, mechanical, software, systems, test, and manufacturing. Xpedition provides a gr... » read more

RISC-V’s Software Portability Challenge


Experts At The Table: RISC-V provides a platform for customization, but verifying those changes remains challenging. Semiconductor Engineering discussed the issue with John Min, vice president of customer service at Arteris; Zdeněk Přikryl, CTO of Codasip; Neil Hand, director of marketing at Siemens EDA (at the time of this discussion); Frank Schirrmeister, executive director for strategi... » read more

Benchmark and Evaluation Framework For Characterizing LLM Performance In Formal Verification (UC Berkeley, Nvidia)


A new technical paper titled "FVEval: Understanding Language Model Capabilities in Formal Verification of Digital Hardware" was published by researchers at UC Berkeley and NVIDIA. Abstract "The remarkable reasoning and code generation capabilities of large language models (LLMs) have spurred significant interest in applying LLMs to enable task automation in digital chip design. In particula... » read more

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