The Rise of Transaction-Based Emulation

The Rise of Transaction-Based Emulation
by Bernard Murphy on 04-06-2017 at 12:00 pm

One serious challenge to the early promise of accelerating verification through emulation was that, while in theory the emulator could run very fast, options for driving and responding to that fast model were less than ideal. You could use in-circuit emulation (ICE), connecting the emulation to real hardware and allowing you… Read More


One Cellular Technology to Rule Them All

One Cellular Technology to Rule Them All
by Bernard Murphy on 04-04-2017 at 7:00 am

5G, the planned successor to earlier mobile network standards, holds all kinds of promise for new capabilities beyond LTE, but for a while seemed stuck in debate on exactly what the standard should cover. Several problems are apparent. A path to higher bit-rates is complicated because of spectrum shortage and fragmentation (plans… Read More


Caution: Reset Domains Crossing

Caution: Reset Domains Crossing
by Bernard Murphy on 04-01-2017 at 7:00 am

Because you can never have too much to worry about in verification, reset domain crossings (RDCs) are another hazard lying in wait to derail your design. Which hardly seems fair. We like to think of resets as dependable anchors to get us back on track when all else fails, but it seems their dependability is not absolute, especially… Read More


SNUG and Robots

SNUG and Robots
by Bernard Murphy on 03-31-2017 at 7:00 am

I got an invite to the SNUG (Synopsys User Group meeting) keynotes this year. I could only make it to the second keynote but what a treat that was. The speaker was Dr. Peter Stone, professor and chair of CS at UT Austin. He also chaired the inaugural panel for the Stanford 100-year study on AI. This is a guy who knows more about AI than most… Read More


A Formal Feast

A Formal Feast
by Bernard Murphy on 03-29-2017 at 7:00 am

It’s not easy having to deliver one of the last tutorials on the last day of a conference. Synopsys drew that short straw for their tutorial on formal methodologies at DVCon this year. Despite that they delivered an impressive performance, keeping the attention of 60 attendees who said afterwards it was excellent on technical content,… Read More


Virtual Modeling Drives Auto Systems TTM

Virtual Modeling Drives Auto Systems TTM
by Bernard Murphy on 03-27-2017 at 7:00 am

The electronics market for automotive applications is distinguished by multiple factors. This is a very fast growing market – electronics now account for 40% of a car’s cost, up from 20% just 10 years ago. New technologies are gaining acceptance, for greener and safer operation and for a more satisfying consumer experience. Platforms… Read More


ARMing AI/ML

ARMing AI/ML
by Bernard Murphy on 03-24-2017 at 7:00 am

There is huge momentum building behind AI, machine learning (ML) and deep learning; unsurprisingly ARM has been busy preparing their own contribution to this space. They announced this week a new multi-core micro-architecture called DynamIQ, covering all Cortex-A processors, whose purpose is in their words, “to redefine Read More


Quantum Resistance on the Edge

Quantum Resistance on the Edge
by Bernard Murphy on 03-21-2017 at 7:00 am

I’ve written recently about the trend to move more technology to the edge, to mobile devices certainly but also to IoT edge nodes. This is based particularly on latency, communications access and power considerations. One example is the move of deep reasoning apps to the edge to handle local image and voice recognition which would… Read More


Recipes for Low Power Verification

Recipes for Low Power Verification
by Bernard Murphy on 03-20-2017 at 7:00 am

Synopsys hosted a tutorial on verification for low power design at DVCon this year, including speakers from Samsung, Broadcom, Intel and Synopsys. Verification for low power is a complex and many-faceted topic so this was a very useful update. There is a vast abundance of information in the slides which I can’t hope to summarize… Read More


Aldec Swings for the Fences

Aldec Swings for the Fences
by Bernard Murphy on 03-17-2017 at 7:00 am

In today’s fast-moving technology markets, companies who are prepared to step up to opportunity can break out of traditional bounds to become players in bigger and fast-growing markets. It looks to me like Aldec is putting itself on that path. They have announced an end-to-end hardware/software co-verification solution… Read More