Power seems to be on everyone’s mind these days. Hyperscale data centers worry about operating costs unless power is optimized. The AI accelerators in the Edge can’t be effective without optimized power. Advanced 2.5 and 3D packages simply can’t remove the heat unless power is optimized. And then there’s all those gadgets we … Read More
Electronic Design Automation
CEO Interview: Dr. Chouki Aktouf of Defacto
“For more than 18 years, we never stopped innovating at Defacto. We are aware of EDA Mantra “Innovate or Die!”. Innovation is in our DNA, and we never stopped adding new automated capabilities to the SoC design community to help facing complexity and cost challenges, which increase every year.”
Before founding Defacto… Read More
Mentor Offers Next Generation DFT with Streaming Scan Network
Design for test (DFT) requires a lot of up-front planning that can be difficult to alter if testing needs or performance differ from initial expectations. Hierarchical methodologies help in many ways including making it easier to reduce on chip resources such as the number of test signals. Also, hierarchical test allows for speed-ups… Read More
Aldec Adds Simulation Acceleration for Microchip FPGAs
Despite the fact that FPGA based systems make it easy to add ‘hardware in the loop’ for verification, the benefits of HDL and gate level simulation are critical for finding and eliminating issues and bugs. The problem is that software simulators can require enormous amounts of time to run full simulations over sufficient time intervals… Read More
Embedded Systems Development Flow
Earlier this year. as part of my coverage of the virtual Design Automation Conference (DAC), I interviewed Agnisys CEO and founder Anupam Bakshi. He talked about the new products they introduced at the show and filled me in on the history of the company and his own background. Recently, Anupam presented the webinar “System Development… Read More
Creating Workflows for HCL Compass Just Got Easier
Workflows allow the world to function. The orderly process of sequencing tasks and automating handoffs creates tremendous potential for efficiency and error avoidance. As they say, time is money and workflows can save a lot of time. The principle applies in all kinds of industries. If you design chips for a living, you’re very … Read More
Verification IP for Systems? It’s Not What You Think.
When I think of verification IP (VIP), I think of something closely tied to a protocol standard – AMBA, MIPI or DDR for example. Something that will generate traffic and run protocol compliance checks, to verify correct operation of an IP or as a model to use in SoC verification. What would a VIP for systems be? Systems support multiple… Read More
The Gold Standard for Electromagnetic Analysis
Ansys HFSS has been the world’s trusted gold standard for electromagnetic analysis for many years. As chip designs get bigger and more complex many users report that they’re extremely happy with the gold standard accuracy of HFSS but wish it would run faster. Fortunately Ansys has introduced many capabilities to HFSS over the… Read More
Verifying PCIe 5.0 with PLDA, Avery and Aldec
Mike Gianfagna, a fellow SemiWiki blogger and a one-time colleague at Atrenta shared a useful piece of marketing advice. If your company is not the biggest fish in the pond and you want to appear more significant, team up with other companies to put on an event, say a webinar. Pick your partners so that you can jointly offer a larger,… Read More
SkillCAD Adds Powerful Editing Commands to Virtuoso
Despite the large role of place and route in IC design, there will always be a need for custom layout design. This is particularly true in radio frequency (RF), power management (PM) and power amplifier (PA) circuits, among others. Cadence Virtuoso is by far the leading tool for creating these custom designs. Virtuoso has a sophisticated… Read More
Moving Beyond RTL at #62DAC