Selectively automating non-critical aspects of custom IC design allows engineers to focus on precision-crafting their designs. Cadence circuit design solutions enable fast and accurate entry of design concepts, which includes managing design intent in a way that flows naturally in the schematic. Using this advanced, parasitic-aware… Read More
Electronic Design Automation
Jasper Customer Videos
Increasingly at DAC and other shows, EDA companies such as Jasper are having their customers present their experiences with the products. Everyone has seen marketing people present wonderful visions of the future that turn out not to materialize. But a customer speaking about their own experiences has a credibility that an EDA… Read More
MemCon Returns
Back before Denali was acquired by Cadence they used to run an annual conference called MemCon. Since Denali was the Switzerland of EDA, friend of everyone and enemy of none, there would be presentations from other memory IP companies and from major EDA companies. For example, in 2010, Bruggeman, then CMO of Cadence, gave the opening… Read More
How Many Licenses Do You Buy?
An informal survey of RTDA customers reveals that larger companies tend to buy licenses based on peak usage while smaller companies do not have that luxury and have to settle for fewer licenses than they would ideally have and optimize the mix of licenses that they can afford given their budget. Larger companies get better prices… Read More
Libraries Make a Power Difference in SoC Design
At Intel we used to hand-craft every single transistor size to eek out the ultimate in IC performance for DRAM and graphic chips. Today, there are many libraries that you can choose from for an SoC design in order to reach your power, speed and area trade-offs. I’m going to attend a Synopsys webinar on August 2nd to learn more … Read More
Shorter, better and easier PCIe and NVM Express Verification flow with advanced technologies
We have talked about Cadence subsystem IP strategy, illustrated by NVM Express subsystem IP, in a previous blog. What we said was that “A subsystem IP based approach will also speed up the software development and validation phase: if the IP provider is able to propose the right tools, like the associated Verification IP (VIP), … Read More
It Takes a Village: Mentor and ARM Team Up on Test
Benjamin Franklin, “I didn’t fail the test, I just found 100 ways to do it wrong.” I was reminded of this line during a joint Mentor-ARM seminar yesterday about testing ARM cores and memories. The complexity of testing modern SoC designs at advanced nodes, with multiple integrated ARM cores and other IP, opens up plenty of room for… Read More
How Do You Extract 3D IC Structures?
The press has been buzzing about 3D everything for the past few years, so when it comes to IC design it’s a fair question to ask how would you actually extract 3D IC structures for use by analysis tools like a circuit simulator. I read a white paper by Christen Decoin and Vassilis Kourkoulos of Mentor Graphics this week and became… Read More
EDAC Announces EDA up 6.3% in Q1 versus 2011
EDAC announced that EDA industry revenue increased 6.3% for Q1 2012 to $1536.9M compared to a year ago. Sequentially it declined, as it normally does from Q4 to Q1, by 9.6%. Every category except services increased revenue and every region increased revenue except for Japan. The full report is available by subscription, of course.… Read More
Design-to-Silicon Platform Workshops!
Have you seen the latest design rule manuals? At 28nm and 20nm design sign-off is no longer just DRC and LVS. These basic components of physical verification are being augmented by an expansive set of yield analysis and critical feature identification capabilities, as well as layout enhancements, printability, and performance… Read More
Flynn Was Right: How a 2003 Warning Foretold Today’s Architectural Pivot