SpyGlass DFT ADV accelerates test closure – Xilinx and Synopsys webinar

SpyGlass DFT ADV accelerates test closure – Xilinx and Synopsys webinar
by Bernard Murphy on 04-26-2016 at 12:00 pm

Fed up with ECOing your way out of test problems? You might want to register for this webinar.When you’re building monster SoC FPGAs, you have all the same problems you have with any other SoC. That includes getting to very high test coverage as quickly as you can with a design targeted to the most advanced processes. We’re not just … Read More


Quantum Code-Cracking Takes Another Hit: Lattice-based Cryptography

Quantum Code-Cracking Takes Another Hit: Lattice-based Cryptography
by Bernard Murphy on 04-24-2016 at 12:00 pm

Public-key crypto-systems rely these days on approaches founded in mathematical methods which are provably hard to crack. The easiest to understand requires factorization of a key based on the product of two large prime numbers. Much has been made recently of the ability of quantum computers to crack this style of encryption.… Read More


Digital Design Trends – A Cadence Perspective

Digital Design Trends – A Cadence Perspective
by Bernard Murphy on 04-21-2016 at 7:00 am

I talked with Paul Cunningham (VP front-end digital R&D) at CDNLive recently to get a Cadence perspective on digital design trends. He sees needs from traditional semiconductor companies evolving as usual, with disruption here and there from consolidation. But on the system side there is explosion in demand – for wearables,… Read More


More on the Practical Uses of Automation

More on the Practical Uses of Automation
by Bernard Murphy on 04-18-2016 at 12:00 pm

There’s a good article in the March issue of the Communications of the ACM which follows a theme I commented in my “One, Two Many” post. But the CACM article has a better title: “Automation should be like Iron Man, not Ultron”.

For anyone who hasn’t seen the movies, Iron Man is a man (Tony Stark)… Read More


A CIA Perspective on Privacy and Security

A CIA Perspective on Privacy and Security
by Bernard Murphy on 04-15-2016 at 7:00 am

It may seem odd to look to the CIA for viewpoints in this area but in in many ways they are just as concerned as we are. After all, in aggregate, widespread identity theft and hacking both internally and by foreign nationals, theft, electronic ransom and other illicit acts are as much a threat to the security of the country as they are … Read More


SystemC and Adam’s Law

SystemC and Adam’s Law
by Bernard Murphy on 03-24-2016 at 7:00 am

At DVCon I sat in on a series of talks on using higher-level abstraction for design, then met Adam Sherer to get his perspective on progress in bringing SystemC to the masses (Adam runs simulation-based verification products at Cadence and organized the earlier session). I have to admit I have been a SystemC skeptic (pace Gary Smith)… Read More


One, Two, Many – Why You May Not Be Replaced By A Robot

One, Two, Many – Why You May Not Be Replaced By A Robot
by Bernard Murphy on 03-20-2016 at 4:00 pm

Some aboriginal tribes in Australia see little value in counting and are believed to discriminate only between “one”, “two” and “many”. This is not through lack of intelligence; beyond two they simply lose interest in the details. We can smile and feel superior but I suspect we are not much better when it comes to predicting our technology… Read More


VC Apps Tutorial at DVCon 2016

VC Apps Tutorial at DVCon 2016
by Bernard Murphy on 03-17-2016 at 7:00 am

We might wish that all our design automation needs could be handled by pre-packaged vendor tool features available at the push of a button, but that never was and never will be the case. In the language of crass commercialism, there may be no broad market for those features, even though you consider that analysis absolutely essential.… Read More


Software-Driven Verification and Portable Stimulus

Software-Driven Verification and Portable Stimulus
by Bernard Murphy on 03-15-2016 at 12:00 pm

I was at every single lunch at DVCon, not because the food was that great (it wasn’t bad) but because the topics were all interesting. The Wednesday lunch, hosted by Cadence, was a panel on software-driven verification and portable stimulus, moderated by Frank Schirrmeister (a different role for Frank – he’s usually a panel member… Read More


Verdi Update and NVIDIA on Verification Compiler

Verdi Update and NVIDIA on Verification Compiler
by Bernard Murphy on 03-11-2016 at 12:00 pm

Synopsys hosted a lunch session on Thursday of DVCon. Michael Sanie of Synopsys opened the session, with a look back at the last DVCon where he had talked about Verification Compiler (VC) and extending the platform to Verification Continuum, which adds emulation and FPGA-based prototyping (HAPS – there was a very cool HAPS demo… Read More