Arm recently provided their annual update on the Neoverse product line, targeting infrastructure from cloud to communication to the edge. Chris Bergey (SVP and GM for infrastructure) led the update, starting with a shock-and-awe pitch on Neoverse deployment. He played up that Arm-based servers are now in every major public … Read More
Author: Bernard Murphy
Load-Managing Verification Hardware Acceleration in the Cloud
There’s a reason the verification hardware accelerator business is growing so impressively. Modern SoCs – now routinely multi-billion gate devices – must be verified/validated against massively demanding test plans, requiring high levels of test coverage. Use cases extend all the way up to firmware, OSes, even application… Read More
Finally, A Serious Attack on Debug Productivity
Verification technologies have progressed in almost all domains over the years. We’re now substantially more productive in creating tests for block, SoC and hybrid software/hardware verification. These tests provide better coverage through randomization and formal modeling. And verification engines are faster – substantially… Read More
Synopsys Vision Processor Inside SiMa.ai Edge ML Platform
SiMa.ai just announced that they achieved first silicon success on their new MLSoC, for AI applications at the edge, using Synopsys’ design, verification, IP and design services solutions. Notably this design includes the Synopsys ARC® EV74 processor (among other IP) for vision processing. SiMa.ai claim their platform, now… Read More
Connecting SystemC to SystemVerilog
Siemens EDA is clearly on a mission to help verifiers get more out of their tools and methodologies. Recently they published a white paper on UVM polymorphism. Now they have followed with a paper on using UVM Connect, re-introducing how to connect between SystemC and SystemVerilog. I’m often mystified by seemingly overlapping… Read More
Coherency in Heterogeneous Designs
Ever wonder why coherent networks are needed beyond server design? The value of cache coherence in a multi-core or many-core server is now well understood. Software developers want to write multi-threaded programs for such systems and expect well-defined behavior when accessing common memory locations. They reasonably expect… Read More
Hazard Detection Using Petri Nets. Innovation in Verification
Modeling and verifying asynchronous systems is a constant challenge. Petri net models may provide an answer. Paul Cunningham (GM, Verification at Cadence), Raúl Camposano (Silicon Catalyst, entrepreneur, former Synopsys CTO and now Silvaco CTO) and I continue our series on research ideas. As always, feedback welcome.
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… Read MoreUVM Polymorphism is Your Friend
Rich Edelman of Siemens EDA recently released a paper on this topic. I’ve known Rich since our days together back in National Semi. And I’ve always been impressed by his ability to make a complex topic more understandable to us lesser mortals. He tackles a tough one in this paper – a complex concept (polymorphism) in a complex domain… Read More
Coverage Analysis in Questa Visualizer
Coverage analysis is how you answer the question “have I tested enough?” You need some way to quantify the completeness of our testing; coverage is how you do that. Right out of the gate this is a bit deceptive. To truly cover a design our tests would need to cover every accessible state and state transition. The complexity of that task… Read More
NoC-Based SoC Design. A Sondrel Perspective
Why are NoCs important in modern SoCs and what are best design practices for using NoC? As always, a great place to start is the perspective of an SoC design organization which depends on pumping out high performance designs. Sondrel is a turnkey ASIC service provider, covering the spectrum from system design to silicon supply. … Read More
More Headwinds – CHIPS Act Chop? – Chip Equip Re-Shore? Orders Canceled & Fab Delay