When you think of the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA), this first thing that comes to mind is the development of the internet. And indeed, if you look at their website’s historic timeline, the development of ARPANET, as it was known at the time, is shown prominently in 1969. Incidentally, I actually used one of … Read More
Electronic Design Automation
IBM and HPE Keynotes at Synopsys Verification Day
I have attended several past Synopsys verification events which I remember as engineering conference room, all-engineer pitches and debates. Effective but aiming for content rather than polish. This year’s event was different. First it was virtual, like most events these days, which certainly made the whole event feel more… Read More
On-Device Tensilica AI Platform For AI SoCs
During his keynote address at the CadenceLIVE 2021 conference, CEO Lip-Bu Tan made some market trend comments. He observed that most of the data nowadays is generated at the edge but only 20% is processed there. He predicted that by 2030, 80% of data is expected to be processed at the edge. And most of this 80% will be processed on edge… Read More
Heterogeneous Package Design Challenges for ADAS
Increasingly complex heterogeneous packaging solutions have proved essential to meeting the rapidly scaling requirements for automotive electronics. Perhaps there is no better example of this than advanced driver-assistance systems (ADAS) that are found in most new cars. In a recent paper published by Siemens EDA, they … Read More
What the Heck is Collaborative Specification?
It’s been quite a while since I talked with Agnisys CEO and founder Anupam Bakshi, when he described their successful first user group meeting. I reached out to him recently to ask what’s new at Agnisys, and his answer was “collaborative specification.” I told him that I wasn’t quite sure what that term meant, and he offered to spend… Read More
Synopsys’ ARC® DSP IP for Low-Power Embedded Applications
On Sep 20th, Synopsys announced an expansion of its DesignWare® ARC® Processor IP portfolio with new 128-bit ARC VPX2 and 256-bit ARC VPX3 DSP Processors targeting low-power embedded SoCs. In 2019, the company had launched a 512-bit ARC VPX5 DSP processor for high-performance signal processing SoCs. Due to the length, format… Read More
An ISA-like Accelerator Abstraction. Innovation in Verification
A processor ISA provides an abstraction against which to verify an implementation. We look here at a paper extending this concept to accelerators, for verification of how these interact with processors and software. Paul Cunningham (GM, Verification at Cadence), Raúl Camposano (Silicon Catalyst, entrepreneur, former Synopsys… Read More
Electromigration and IR Drop Analysis has a New Entrant
My first IR drop analysis was back in the early 1980s at Intel, where I had to manually model the parasitics of the VDD and VSS interconnect for all of the IO cells that our team was designing in a graphics chip, then I ran that netlist in a SPICE simulator using transient analysis, measuring the bounce in VSS and droop in VDD levels as all… Read More
CEO Interview: Maxim Ershov of Diakopto
Maxim is a scientist, engineer, and entrepreneur. His expertise is in physics, mathematics, semiconductor devices, and EDA. Prior to co-founding Diakopto, Maxim worked at Apple’s SEG (Silicon Engineering Group), where he was responsible for parasitic extraction. Before Apple, he was CTO of Silicon Frontline Technology,… Read More
WEBINAR: SkillCAD now supports advanced nodes!
Originally containing a handful of commands to help with common layout tasks, SkillCAD has evolved into the industry standard for analog, RF and mixed signal design for customers using Cadence Virtuoso. With over 85 customers worldwide and over 120 functions including the powerful, patented V-editor, metal routing and pin… Read More
Weebit Nano Moves into the Mainstream with Customer Adoption