A recent educational virtual event with the above title was jointly sponsored by Synopsys and Global Foundries. The objective was to bring awareness to state-of-the-art mixed-signal design practices for automotive circuits. The 2-day event comprised of lectures delivered by engineering professors and doctoral students… Read More
AI and ML for Sanity Regressions
You probably know the value proposition for using AI and ML (machine learning) in simulation regressions. There are lots of knobs you can tweak on a simulator, all there to help you squeeze more seconds, or minutes out of a run. If you know how to use those options. But often it’s easier to talk to your friendly AE, get a reasonable default… Read More
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
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
Reliability Analysis for Mission-Critical IC design
Mission-critical IC design for segments like automotive, aerospace, defense, medical and 5G have more stringent reliability analysis requirements than consumer electronics, and entails running special simulations for the following concerns:
- Electromigration analysis
- IR drop analysis
- MOS aging
- High-sigma Monte Carlo
Why Optimizing 3DIC Designs Calls for a New Approach
The adoption of 3DIC architectures, while not new, is enjoying a surge in popularity as product developers look to their inherent advantages in performance, cost, and the ability to combine heterogeneous technologies and nodes into a single package. As designers struggle to find ways to scale with complexity and density limitations… Read More
Using Machine Learning to Improve EDA Tool Flow Results
Back in 2020 I first learned from Synopsys about how they had engineered a better way to do optimize layouts on digital designs by using machine learning techniques, instead of relying upon manual approaches. The product was named DSO.ai, standing for Design Space Optimization, and it produced a more optimal floor-plan in less… Read More
Expanding Intel’s Foundry Partnerships: A Critical Piece of IDM 2.0
One of the career Intel employees (33+ years) that Pat Gelsinger brought back is Stuart Pann. Stuart is now the Senior Vice President of the Intel Corporate Planning Group. He does not have direct foundry experience but he certainly knows Intel and Pat so it will be interesting to see where this goes.
Stuart recently penned an article… Read More
How Hyperscalers Are Changing the Ethernet Landscape
It’s all about bandwidth these days – fueling hyperscale data centers that support high-performance and cloud computing applications. It’s what enables you to stream a movie on your smart TV while your roommate plays an online game with friends located in different parts of the country. It’s what makes big data analytics run swiftly… Read More
Synopsys’ Complete 800G Ethernet Solutions
If I ask the question, “What has grown 4,000x over the last twenty-five years?”, most people will start throwing names of some stocks. Although various stock markets have had crazy run ups and yes, there is a stock that has grown 2,500x over that period of time, the answer to the 4,000x question is not a stock. What if I modify the question… Read More