Ever wonder why coherent networks are needed beyond server design? The value of cache coherence in a multi-core or many-core server is now well understood. Software developers want to write multi-threaded programs for such systems and expect well-defined behavior when accessing common memory locations. They reasonably expect… Read More
Scalability – A Looming Problem in Safety Analysis
Scalability – A Looming Problem in Safety Analysis
The boundless possibilities of automation in cars and other vehicles have captivated designers to the point that electronic content is now a stronger driver of differentiation than any other factor. It accounts for a substantial fraction of material cost in any of these vehicles.… Read More
Scaling Safety Analysis. Reusability for FMEDA
It is common when a new type of analysis is introduced in almost any domain that it works well enough for a while. Until it begins to struggle with growing problem size, prompting refinements to the methodology to allow continued scaling. We see this routinely in analytics for SoC design, so it should not be a big surprise that safety… Read More
Why Traceability Now? Blame Custom SoC Demand
In the SoC world, we can’t believe our good luck. Every product maker now wants bespoke silicon solutions with the most advanced AI, communications, SLAM, etc. Which is fantastic for business, but this level of demand also drags us into a new level of accountability, especially in requirements traceability. Time was that only … Read More
Assembly Automation. Repair or Replace?
It is difficult to imagine an SoC development team not using some form of automation to assemble their SoCs; the sheer complexity of the assembly task for modern designs is already far beyond hand-crafted top-level RTLs. An increasing number of groups have already opted for solutions based on the IP-XACT integration standard.… Read More
Experimenting for Better Floorplans
There is sometimes an irony in switching to a better solution in design construction or analysis. The new approach is so much better that you want to experiment to further optimize the design. Which then exposes another barrier to enjoying that newfound freedom. SoC design teams often find this when switching from crossbar interconnect… Read More
An Ah-Ha Moment for Testbench Assembly
Sometimes we miss the forest for the trees, and I’m as guilty as anyone else. When we think testbenches, we rightly turn to UVM because that’s the agreed standard, and everyone has been investing their energy in learning UVM. UVM is fine, so why do we need to talk about anything different? That’s the forest and trees thing. We don’t … Read More
Business Considerations in Traceability
Traceability as an emerging debate around hardware is gaining a lot of traction. As a reminder, traceability is the need to support a disciplined ability to trace from initial OEM requirements down through the value chain to implementation support and confirmed verification in software and hardware. Demand for traceability… Read More
Traceability and ISO 26262
Since traceability and its relationship to ISO 26262 may be an unfamiliar topic for many of my readers, I thought it might be useful to spend some time on why this area is important. What is the motivation behind a need for traceability in support of automotive systems development? The classic verification and validation V-diagram… Read More
Physically Aware SoC Assembly
We used to be comfortable with the idea that the worlds of logical design and physical implementation could be largely separated. Toss the logical design over the wall, and the synthesis and P&R teams would take care of the rest. That idea took a bit of a hit when we realized that synthesis had to become physically aware. The synthesis… Read More