Almost all large projects these days are distributed across multiple geographic locations. As the world rotates underneath the sun, the focus of activity moves too: Europe, US, China, India, back to Europe. For this to work effectively requires a collaborative platform designed for multi-site design efforts, a platform that… Read More





Virtual Reality is Ready to Rocket
Virtual Reality (VR) is such a hot technology concept right now that the topic has made the cover of Time, Wired and Forbes magazines this year, along with countless online articles. What really captured my attention was that moment in 2014 when Facebook acquired VR startup Oculus for $2B, yes that is billions of dollars. The last… Read More
Never Imagined So Easy Class-based Testbench Debugging
When it comes to debugging a design testbench organized in object-oriented style with objects, component hierarchies, macros, transactions and so on, it becomes an onerous, tasteless, and thankless task for RTL verification engineers who generally lag in software expertise. Moreover, class-based debugging tools have lagged… Read More
Is 7nm Coming to the TSMC OIP Ecosystem Forum?
This is the 5[SUP]th[/SUP] TSMC Open Innovation Platform Ecosystem Forum and it is not to be missed. Please note that the location has moved from the San Jose Convention Center to the Santa Clara Convention Center which is literally right across the street from the new Levi’s Stadium. If you haven’t been to the new stadium you really… Read More
ClioSoft SOS v7.0: Faster, Smarter and Stronger
System-on-chips (SoCs) are now everywhere, whether they are processors, microcontrollers or FPGAs, and what matters more these days is how quickly these large and complex chips adapt to the specific needs of the OEM application or the “system.” So time-to-market window is shrinking, and conversely, the use of … Read More
Just One Month to SEMICON Taiwan
SEMICON Taiwan is the first week of September in the Taipei Nangang Exhibition Center. To be precise it is September 2nd to 4th. Last year there over 26,000 people attended. This year it is the 20th anniversary show. SEMICON Taiwan attracts the world’s leading technology companies who design, develop, manufacture, and supply … Read More
Foolproof Your IP before it Stumbles in Higher-up Design
SoC designs are increasingly becoming assemblies of a large number of IP blocks. A well integrated assembly can lead to a successful PPA (Power, Performance and Area) optimized design. However, it is equally important that each IP block is optimized, robust, and integrable in the design. The complexity of an IP and its integration… Read More
How to prevent execution surprises for Cortex-M7 MCU?
ARM Cortex-A series processor core (A57, A53) are well known in the high performance market segments, like Application Processor for smartphone, Set-Top-Box or networking. If you look at the electronic market you realize that multiple applications are cost sensitive and doesn’t need such high performance processor core. … Read More
Ultra-low Voltage: Is Your Slack Really Positive? Are You Sure?
During synthesis and static timing the main figure of merit is “slack”. If a signal arrives with time to spare before it is needed (often measured against the setup time before a clock changes at a register) then the slack is positive. Positive slack is generally a good thing, although it can indicate over-design if … Read More
CEVA in More than 6 Billion Chips!
One of the IP companies that I track is CEVA, the largest licensor of DSP cores. CEVA is the fifth largest IP company behind ARM, Synopsys, Imagination Technologies, and Cadence (Lattice acquired Silicon Image). CEVA is actually a combination of companies which started with the DSP Group and Parthus Technologies in 2002 and RiveriasWaves… Read More
Facing the Quantum Nature of EUV Lithography