In a complex world of SoCs with multi-million gates and IPs from several heterogeneous sources, verification of a complete semiconductor design has become extremely difficult, and it’s not enough. In order to ascertain the right intent of the design throughout the design cycle, debugging at various stages of the design cycle… Read More
Electronic Design Automation
Cadence Acquires Jasper
Cadence announced today that it is acquiring Jasper Design Automation for $170M in an all-cash offer. Jasper has $24M in cash so it is really an acquisition for around $145M. i think that is around 4X revenue but I only know rumors about Jasper’s revenue numbers.
All the big 3 already have their own formal technology but the … Read More
Can the NSA Get Into Your Chip?
At DVCon Lawrence Loh and Viktor Markus Purri gave a tutorial on Formally Verifying Security Aspects of SoC Designs. Lawrence is the direector of WW application engineering and Markus is an FAE who specializes in security verification.
I’m not going to attempt to summarize an entire half-day tutorial in under 1000 words,… Read More
International Workshop on Logic and Synthesis
There are always a number of other events that are colocated with DAC. One this year is the 23rd International Workshop on Logic and Synthesis (IWLS) that is held the weekend before DAC on May 30th and June 1st. Strictly speaking it is not colocated since it is in the Galleria Park Hotel on Sutter Street a few blocks away whereas DAC itself… Read More
EUV Slips a Year Per Year…Or More
I was at EDPS in Monterey the last couple of days. It is one of the most interesting conferences to attend. Go next year since you already missed it this year. It is not big but the quality of the content is high. Historically the dinner in the middle is in the Monterey Yacht Club and there is a keynote speech. A few years ago it was me but this… Read More
Power and Thermal Simulation in ESL Verification Flows
At the recent DVcon there was a keen focus on design verification and validation. Much of the attention is on Logic/circuit design verification, UVM, and IP verification. At the system level functional verification has improved to comprehend complex hardware and software interaction using Virtual Platforms/SystemC and Transaction… Read More
Signoff Accurate Timing Analysis at Improved Run-time & Capacity
The semiconductor design sizes, these days, can easily be of the order of several hundred millions of cells, adding into the complexity of verification. Amid ever growing design sizes, it’s a must that the timing verification is done accurately. Normally Static Timing Analysis (STA) is done to check whether all clocks and signals… Read More
Does Processor IP still get the Lion’s share in 2013?
I think that the answer is pretty obvious, but the interesting point is to figure out which processor type, and which part of revenues, up-front license or royalties? One of my customers, let’s call him Mr. X, ask me to clarify this point. Mr. X has bought the excellent report from Gartner “Market Share: Semiconductor Design Intellectual… Read More
Customization can add extraordinary power to your tool
In EDA arena we often find companies providing customization platforms along with the tools they offer to their customers. I admire such companies because they equip the end users of a tool to extend its functionality as they like according to their environment, thus increasing the designer productivity significantly. And I’m… Read More
Will IoT Drive the Next Semiconductor Revolution?
To further my quest to comprehend the latest trends in the semiconductor industry continues, I spent the morning with SEMI at the “The Silicon Valley Breakfast Forum: Internet of Things (IoT) – Driving the Microelectronics Revolution” seminar. I’m a big fan of the breakfast seminar concept. I’m up early anyway and it is … Read More


TSMC Formally Sues Ex-SVP Over Alleged Transfer of Trade Secrets to Intel