An under-appreciated but critical component in signing off the final stage of chip design for manufacture is timing closure – aligning accurate timing based on final physical implementation with the product specification. Between advanced manufacturing processes and growing design sizes, the most important factors determining… Read More
Novelty-Based Methods for Random Test Selection. Innovation in Verification
Coverage improvement effectiveness through randomized testing declines as total coverage improves. Attacking stubborn holes in coverage could be augmented through learned novel test guidance to random test selection. Paul Cunningham (GM, Verification at Cadence), Raúl Camposano (Silicon Catalyst, entrepreneur, former… Read More
Using LLMs for Fault Localization. Innovation in Verification
We have talked about fault localization (root cause analysis) in several reviews. This early-release paper looks at applying LLM technology to the task. Paul Cunningham (GM, Verification at Cadence), Raúl Camposano (Silicon Catalyst, entrepreneur, former Synopsys CTO and now Silvaco CTO) and I continue our series on research… Read More
A Recipe for Performance Optimization in Arm-Based Systems
Around the mid-2000’s the performance component of Moore’s Law started to tail off. That slack was nicely picked up by architecture improvements which continue to march forward but add a new layer of complexity in performance optimization and verification. Nick Heaton (Distinguished Engineer and Verification Architect at… Read More
Anirudh Fireside Chats with Jensen and Cristiano
At CadenceLIVE 2024 Anirudh Devgan (President and CEO of Cadence) hosted two fireside chats, one with Jensen Huang (President and CEO of NVIDIA) and one with Cristiano Amon (President and CEO of Qualcomm). As you would expect both discussions were engaging and enlightening. What follows are my takeaways from those chats.
Anirudh
… Read MoreAnirudh Keynote at CadenceLIVE 2024. Big Advances, Big Goals
The great things about CEO keynotes, at least from larger companies, is that you not only learn about recent advances but you also get a sense of the underlying algorithm for growth. Particularly reinforced when followed by discussions with high profile partner CEOs on their directions and areas of common interest. I saw this recently… Read More
Fault Sim on Multi-Core Arm Platform in China. Innovation in Verification
How much can running on a multi-core (Arm) CPU speed up fault simulation? Paul Cunningham (GM, Verification at Cadence), Raúl Camposano (Silicon Catalyst, entrepreneur, former Synopsys CTO and now Silvaco CTO) and I continue our series on research ideas. As always, feedback welcome.
The Innovation
Cadence Debuts Dynamic Duo III with a Basket of Goodies
I am a fan of product releases which bundle together multiple high-value advances. That approach reduces the frequency of releases (no bad thing) in exchange for more to offer per release, better proven through solid partner validation. The Dynamic Duo III release falls in this class, offering improvements in performance, capacity,… Read More
Fault Simulation for AI Safety. Innovation in Verification
More automotive content 😀
In modern cars, safety is governed as much by AI-based functions as by traditional logic and software. How can these functions be fault-graded for FMEDA analysis? Paul Cunningham (GM, Verification at Cadence), Raúl Camposano (Silicon Catalyst, entrepreneur, former Synopsys CTO and now Silvaco CTO)… Read More
Challenge and Response Automotive Keynote at DVCon
Keynotes commonly provide a one-sided perspective of a domain, either customer-centric or supplier-centric. Kudos therefore to Cadence’s Paul Cunningham for breaking the mold in offering the first half of his keynote to Anthony Hill, a TI fellow, to talk about outstanding challenges he sees in verification for automotive … Read More