Altera’s Use of Virtual Platforms

Altera’s Use of Virtual Platforms
by Paul McLellan on 10-11-2012 at 9:00 pm

Altera have been making use of Synopsys’s virtual platform technology to accelerate the time to volume by letting software development proceed in parallel with semiconductor development so that the software development does not need to wait until availability of hardware.

In the past, creating the virtual platform … Read More


The Protocol Processing Dataplane

The Protocol Processing Dataplane
by Paul McLellan on 10-11-2012 at 8:48 pm

At the Linley processor conference this week, Chris Rowen, the CTO of Tensilica presented on the protocol processing dataplane. That sounds superficially like he is talking about networking but in fact true protocol processing is just part of adding powerful compute features to the dataplane. Other applications are video, … Read More


ARM in Networking/Communications

ARM in Networking/Communications
by Paul McLellan on 10-11-2012 at 7:15 pm

I was at the Linley Processor Conference yesterday. There are two of these each year, one focused on mobile and this one, focused on networking and communications (so routers, base-stations and the like). You probably know that ARM is pretty dominant in mobile handsets (and Intel is trying to get a toe-hold although I’m skeptical… Read More


Tensilica Ships 2 Billionth Core

Tensilica Ships 2 Billionth Core
by Paul McLellan on 10-10-2012 at 7:00 am

It was in June of last year that Tensilica announced that they (or rather their licensees) had shipped one billion cores. Now they have just announced that they have shipped two billion cores. They are shipping at a run-rate of 800 million cores per year, which is 50% higher than June last year. If business continues to grow they will… Read More


ICCAD: 30 years

ICCAD: 30 years
by Paul McLellan on 10-09-2012 at 9:00 pm

ICCAD is November 5th to 8th in the Hilton San Jose (downtown).

It is very off topic, but if you are British then November 5th is the rough equivalent of July 4th when there are fireworks displays all over the country. Britain is one of very few countries that transitioned from some sort of autocracy to a democracy without having a revolution.… Read More


How Big is Mobile? Twice as many people use mobile phones than use a toothbrush

How Big is Mobile? Twice as many people use mobile phones than use a toothbrush
by Paul McLellan on 10-09-2012 at 3:47 pm

How big is mobile? Well, sometime early next year (or maybe even in the Christmas surge) there will be more mobile phones than people. Technically that is subscribers, so some of those “phones” are actually spare SIM-cards in international travelers’ pockets. But even so that is an incredible statistic. Also,… Read More


Soft IP Quality Standards

Soft IP Quality Standards
by Paul McLellan on 10-09-2012 at 1:08 pm

As SoC design has transformed from being about writing RTL and more towards IP assembly, the issue of IP quality has become increasingly important. In 2011 TSMC and Atrenta launched the soft IP qualification program. Since then, 13 partners have joined the program.

IP quality is multi-faceted but at the most basic level, an IP block… Read More


Apache Dimensions of Electronic Design Seminars

Apache Dimensions of Electronic Design Seminars
by Paul McLellan on 10-07-2012 at 1:17 pm

Coming up are ANSYS/Apache seminars on Dimensions of Electronic Design. Watch the video where Arvind Shanmugavel gives some details about why you should attend. Probably most readers are in Silicon Valley, and the seminar here is on 18th at the Hyatt (next to Santa Clara convention center).

The seminars are free to qualified attendees.… Read More


A Brief History of RTDA

A Brief History of RTDA
by Paul McLellan on 10-05-2012 at 7:06 am

Andrea Casotto, the CEO of RTDA, started the company in Alameda in 1995, initially by himself, to market the FlowTracer software technology.

The early version of the technology was created as part of his PhD thesis at UC Berkeley, when Andrea sought automated ways to help engineering students who were having problems using EDA … Read More


Dimensions of Electronic Design Seminars

Dimensions of Electronic Design Seminars
by Paul McLellan on 10-02-2012 at 6:37 pm

ANSYS and Apache are putting on a new series of seminars about designing future electronic systems. These are only getting more complex, of course, cramming more and more functionality into smaller portable devices with good battery life (and not getting too hot), integrating multiple antennas into a single platform, and TSV-based… Read More