Oh, our semiconductor industry just loves acronyms, and the title of my blog packs three of the most popular acronyms together at once. I attended a webinar hosted by Aldec last week on this topic, “UVM Simulation-based environment for Ibex RISC-V CPU core with Google RISC-V DV“. Verification engineers have been … Read More
Author: Daniel Payne
Making Full Memory IP Robust During Design
Looking at a typical SoC design today it’s likely to contain a massive amount of memory IP, like: RAM, ROM, register files. Keeping memory close to the CPU makes sense for the lowest latency and highest performance metrics, but what about process variations affecting the memory operation? At the recent DAC conference held… Read More
Xilinx Moves from Internal Flow to Commercial Flow for IP Integration
I’ll never forget first learning about Xilinx when they got started back in 1984, because the concept of a Field Programmable Gate Array (FPGA) was so simple and elegant, it was rows and columns of logic gates that a designer could program to perform any logic function, then connect that logic to IO pads to drive other chips … Read More
#57DAC – Panel Discussion of High Level Synthesis
Presenters took a trip down memory lane at DAC this year by having a panel discussion on HLS (High Level Synthesis) spanning from 1974 to 2020, and that time period aligns with when I first graduated from the University of Minnesota in 1978, starting chip design at Intel, then later transitioning into EDA companies by 1986. Marilyn… Read More
SystemC Methodology for Virtual Prototype at DVCon USA
DVCon was the first EDA conference in our industry impacted by the pandemic and travel restrictions in March of this year, and the organizers did a superb job of adjusting the schedule. I was able to review a DVCon tutorial called “Defining a SystemC Methodology for your Company“, given by Swaminathan Ramachandran… Read More
What’s At the Center of Your SoC Design Process?
I love starting a new project from scratch, because there’s that optimistic feeling of having no constraints and being able to creatively express myself and get the job done right this time. For SoC designs today there are teams of engineers and maybe a program manager plus a marketing person that define the features, budget… Read More
Automating the Analysis of Power MOSFET Designs
There’s a world of difference between our smart phones that are battery powered and pack billions of transistors, and power MOSFET devices that can be used in industrial applications, telecom, cloud computing and automotive where they could be run at a few hundred volts and up to 80A of current. I’ve read about one … Read More
High-Level Synthesis and Open Source Software Algorithms
The DVCon conference and exhibition finished up in California just as the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic was ramping up in March, but at least they finished the conference by altering the schedule a bit. Umesh Sisodia, CEO at CircuitSutra Technologies presented at DVCON on the topic, Using High-Level Synthesis to Migrate Open… Read More
Webinar: Real-time In-Chip Monitoring to Boost multi-core AI, ML, DL Systems
During the COVID-19 pandemic I’m using Zoom and attending more webinars to keep updated on semiconductor industry trends, and one huge trend is the importance of AI applied to SoCs. Using more cores to handle ML and DL makes sense, but then how do you keep the chips within their power and reliability limits while at the same … Read More
CEO Interview: Jason Xing of Empyrean Software
It’s been about seven years since Randy Smith last interviewed Jason Xing, the President/CEO of North America for Empyrean Software, so the timing felt good for a fresh update. I’ve been watching Empyrean at DAC for several years now, and have come away impressed with their growth and focus on some difficult IC design… Read More







AI Bubble?