Whether it is the stock market or the semiconductor market, the name of the game is yield. In semiconductors, yield has to do with minimizing scrap costs in all phases of manufacturing. This means squeezing as many good dies from a wafer as well as maximizing the number of good assembled/packaged chips that pass system level testing.… Read More
Electronic Design Automation
Configurable Processors. The Why and How
Configurable processors are hot now, in no small part thanks to RISC-V. Which is an ISA rather than a processor, but let’s not quibble. Arm followed with configurability in Cortex-X. Both were considerably preceded (a couple of decades) by Synopsys ARC® RISC CPUs and CEVA DSPs. Each stressed configurability as a differentiator… Read More
Architectural Planning of 3D IC
Before chiplets arrived, it seemed like designing an electronic system was a bit simpler, as a system on chip (SoC) methodology was well understood, and each SoC was mounted inside a package, then the packages for each component were interconnected on a printed circuit board (PCB). The emerging trend to design a 3D IC using chiplets… Read More
SoC Design Closure Just Got Smarter
Near the end of any large SoC design project, the RTL code is nearly finished, floorplanning has been done, place and route has a first-pass, static timing has started, but the timing and power goals aren’t met. So, iteration loops continue on blocks and full-chip for weeks or even months. It could take a design team 5-7 days… Read More
Your Symmetric Layouts show Mismatches in SPICE Simulations. What’s going on?
This Diakopto paper discusses for the first time, a new effect – a false electrical mismatch in post-layout simulations for perfectly symmetric nets. This effect is caused by the difference in distributions of parasitic coupling capacitors over the nodes of parasitic resistor networks, even for symmetric nets. This, in turn,… Read More
Pushing Acceleration to the Edge
As more AI applications turn to edge computing to reduce latencies, the need for more computational performance at the edge continues to increase. However, commodity compute engines don’t have enough compute power or are too power-hungry to meet the needs of edge systems. Thus, when designing AI accelerators for the edge, Joe… Read More
Why Use PADS Professional Premium for Electronic Design
My IC design career started just a few years before PADS got started in 1985 with a DOS-based tool for PCB design. A lot has changed since then, as PADS was acquired by Mentor Graphics in 2001, and continued to grow under Siemens EDA, now with four versions to choose from, where the top version is called PADS Professional Premium:
- PADS
Are EDA companies failing System PCB customers?
Electronic Design Automation (EDA) is a critical industry which enables the development of electronic systems. Traditionally, EDA has been bifurcated into two distinctive market segments: Semiconductor and Systems (PCB). If one were to look at the EDA industry in the early 1970’s, one would find significant capabilities… Read More
Machine Learning Applications in Simulation
Machine learning (ML) is finding its way into many of the tools in silicon design flows, to shorten run times and improve the quality of results. Logic simulation seemed an obvious target for ML, though resisted apparent benefits for a while. I suspect this was because we all assumed the obvious application should be to use ML to refine… Read More
Bespoke Silicon Requires Bespoke EDA
When I first heard the term ‘bespoke silicon,’ I had to get my dictionary out. Well versed in the silicon domain, I did not know what bespoke meant. It turns out to be a rather old-fashioned term for tailor made and seems to be very much British English. The word dates from 1583 and is the past participle of bespeak, according… Read More
Should Intel be Split in Half?