The advantages of prototyping a hardware design on a FPGA platform are widely recognized, for software development, debug and regression in particular while the ultimate ASIC hardware is still in development. And if your design will fit into a single FPGA, this is not an especially challenging task (as long as you know your way … Read More
Author: Bernard Murphy
A Delicate Choice – Emulation versus Prototyping
Hardware-assisted verification has been with us (commercially) for around 20 years and at this point is clearly mainstream. But during this evolution it split into at least two forms (emulation and prototyping), robbing us of a simple choice – to hardware-assist or not to hardware-assist (that is the question). Which in turn … Read More
Embedding FPGA IP
The appeal of embedding an FPGA IP in an ASIC design is undeniable. For much of your design, you want all the advantages of ASIC: up to GHz performance, down to mW power (with active power management), all with very high levels of integration with a broad range of internal and 3[SUP]rd[/SUP]-party IP (analog/RF, sensor fusion, image/voice… Read More
Virtual Prototyping With Connection to Assembly
Virtual prototyping has become popular both as a way to accelerate software development and to establish a contract between system/software development teams and hardware development and verification. System companies with their tight vertical integration lean naturally to executable contracts to streamline communication… Read More
Analysis and Signoff for Restructuring
For the devices we build today, design and implementation are unavoidably entangled. Design for low-power, test, reuse and optimized layout are no longer possible without taking implementation factors into account in design, and vice-versa. But design teams can’t afford to iterate indefinitely between these phases, so they… Read More
A Functional Safety Primer for FPGA – the White Paper
Following up on their webinar on functional safety in FPGA-based designs, Synopsys have now published a white paper expanding on some of those topics. For those who didn’t get a chance to see the webinar this blog follows the white paper flow and is similar but not identical to my webinar blog, particularly around differences between… Read More
Big Data and Power Integrity: Drilling Down
I’ve written before about how Ansys applies big data analytics and elastic compute in support of power integrity and other types of analysis. A good example of the need follows this reasoning: Advanced designs today require advanced semiconductor processes – 16nm and below. Designs at these processes run at low voltages, much… Read More
Smart Speakers: The Next Big Thing, Right Now
There are many “next big thing” possibilities these days in tech but mostly behind the scenes; few are front and center for us as consumers. That is until smart speakers started taking off, led by Amazon Echo/Dot and Google Home. The intriguing thing about this technology is our ability to control stuff without needing to type/tap/click… Read More
Prototyping GPUs, Step by Step
FPGA-based prototyping has provided a major advance in verification and validation for complex hardware/software systems but even its most fervent proponents would admit that setup is not exactly push-button. It’s not uncommon to hear of weeks to setup a prototype or of the prototype finally being ready after you tape-out. … Read More
Webinar: Fast-Track to Riviera-PRO
Whether you’re right out of college, starting on your first design, a burn-and-churn designer thinking there must be a better way or an ASIC designer wanting to do a little prototyping, this webinar may be for you. It’s a fast start on using the Aldec Riviera-PRO platform for verification setup, run and debug, and more. There are … Read More
More Headwinds – CHIPS Act Chop? – Chip Equip Re-Shore? Orders Canceled & Fab Delay