You could be forgiven for thinking of hearing aids as the low end of tech, targeted to a relatively small and elderly audience. Commercials seem unaware of advances in mobile consumer audio, and white-haired actors reinforce the intended audience. On the other hand, the World Health Organization has determined that at least 6%… Read More
Electronic Design Automation
Webinar: When Failure in Silicon Is Not an Option
If the thought of a silicon respin keeps you awake at night, you’re not alone. Re-fabricating a chip can cost tens of millions of dollars. An unplanned respin also risks a delay in getting a product to market, which adds tremendous costs in terms of lost business.
Undoubtedly, adding to your sleep loss is the recent rise in respins.… Read More
Maximizing 3DIC Design Productivity with 3DBlox: A Look at TSMC’s Progress and Innovations in 2024
At the 2024 TSMC OIP Ecosystem Forum, one of the technical talks by TSMC focused on maximizing 3DIC design productivity and rightfully so. With rapid advancements in semiconductor technology, 3DICs have become the next frontier in improving chip performance, energy efficiency, and density. TSMC’s focus on streamlining the… Read More
The Immensity of Software Development and the Challenges of Debugging (Part 3 of 4)
Part 3 of this 4-part series analyzes methods and tools involved in debugging software at different layers of the software stack.
Software debugging involves identifying and resolving issues ranging from functional misbehaviors to crashes. The essential requirement for validating software programs is the ability to monitor… Read More
SystemVerilog Functional Coverage for Real Datatypes
Functional coverage acts as a guide to direct verification resources by identifying the tested and untested portions of a design. Functional coverage is a user-defined metric that assesses the extent to which the design specification, as listed by the test plan’s features, has been used. It can be used to estimate the presence… Read More
Synopsys and TSMC Pave the Path for Trillion-Transistor AI and Multi-Die Chip Design
Synopsys made significant announcements during the recent TSMC OIP Ecosystem Forum, showcasing a range of cutting-edge solutions designed to address the growing complexities in semiconductor design. With a strong emphasis on enabling next-generation chip architectures, Synopsys introduced both new technologies and … Read More
Is AI-Based RTL Generation Ready for Prime Time?
In semiconductor design there has been much fascination around the idea of using large language models (LLMs) for RTL generation; CoPilot provides one example. Based on a Google Scholar scan, a little over 100 papers were published in 2023, jumping to 310 papers in 2024. This is not surprising. If it works, automating design creation… Read More
Automating Reset Domain Crossing (RDC) Verification with Advanced Data Analytics
The complexity of System-on-Chip (SoC) designs continues to rise at an accelerated rate, with design complexity doubling approximately every two years. This increasing complexity makes verification a more difficult and time-consuming task for design engineers. Among the key verification challenges is managing reset domain… Read More
The Immensity of Software Development and the Challenges of Debugging Series (Part 2 of 4)
Part 2 of this 4-part series reviews the role of virtual prototypes as stand-alone tools and their use in hybrid emulation for early software validation, a practice known as the “shift-left” methodology. It assesses the differences among these approaches, focusing on their pros and cons.
Safety Grading in DNNs. Innovation in Verification
How do you measure safety for a DNN? There is no obvious way to screen for a subset of safety-critical nodes in the systolic array at the heart of DNNs. 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.… Read More
AI Semiconductor Market