Two weeks ago I blogged about amorphous silicon and how that material is well-suited for designing TFTs. Today I’m following up after watching the archived webinarpresented by Nam-Kyun Tak of Silvaco. After clicking on that link you’ll be brought to a brief sign-up page and then can watch the archived webinar in your… Read More
Electronic Design Automation
HLS Tools Coming into Limelight!
For about a decade I am looking forward to seeing more of system level design and verification including high level synthesis (HLS), virtual prototyping, and system modeling etc. to come in the main stream of SoC design. Although the progress has been slow, I see it accelerating as more and more tools address the typical pain points… Read More
Using HAPS-DX for system-level deep trace debug
Debugging an ASIC design in an FPGA-based prototyping system can be a lot like disciplining a puppy. If you happen to be there at the exact moment the transgression occurs and understand what led up to that moment, administering an effective correction might be possible.
Catching RTL in the act requires the right tools. Faults in… Read More
Is Your Washing Machine a Connected Thing?
In fact the question could be about your watch, thermostat or other smart appliance, as soon as the “thing” relies on one or more sensors to function. In this case, we are close to call this thing an IoT (or SmarCoT), we just need to add WiFi, BTLE, ZigBee connectivity. Sensors are ubiquitous, integrated into smartphone, automotive,… Read More
Simulation and Analysis of Power and Thermal Management Policies
Earlier this month I blogged about Power Management Policies for Android Devices, so this blog is part two in the series and delves into the details of using ESL-level tools for simulation and analysis. The motivation behind all of this is to optimize a power management system during the early design phase, instead of waiting until… Read More
Make Semiconductor IP Reuse Successful?
As I have mentioned before, Apple has changed the way we live on many different levels (iPod, iTunes, iPhone, iPad, etc…) and the Apple Ax SoC series is no different. You have to ask yourself how is Apple able to churn out a new industry leading SoC EVERY year? I can assure you design reuse is a big part of that answer.
One of the companies… Read More
Invionics: a New EDA Company is Born
Something happened this morning that doesn’t happen too much any more: a new EDA company came out of stealth mode and announced its product line. The company is Invionics, and they are based in Vancouver BC. The CEO is Brad Quinton who largely funded the company himself, although with some grants from the Canadian government.… Read More
Analyzing Cortex-A53 octa-core on Linux
Octa-core sells smartphones and tablets. 64-bit ARM Cortex-A53 implementations are available from Huawei, MediaTek, Qualcomm, Samsung, and now Marvell, with Rockchip and others on the way. Suddenly, almost everyone planning to run Linux is being asked for octa-core designs.
If it were easy, anyone could do it. Increasing … Read More
Semiconductor IP Make the World Go Round!
Semiconductor IP really does make the life of a semiconductor professional much easier which is why Google brings us so much IP traffic. If you look at the SemiWiki analytics, IP has always been a top draw. In comparison to standard EDA traffic, IP gets about 25% more views per blog on average. Synopsys is not only the leading EDA company… Read More
Complete SoC Debugging & Integration in a Single Cockpit
These days it’s common to expect large digital designs, analog blocks, custom IPs, glue logic, interfaces and interconnects all developed separately, perhaps by different vendors / teams, but integrated together in a single environment forming an SoC. The SoC can have multiple clock domains and can work in multiple modes of … Read More


AI RTL Generation versus AI RTL Verification