800x100 Efficient and Robust Memory Verification (2)

Kathryn Kranen Interview in San Jose Mercury News

Kathryn Kranen Interview in San Jose Mercury News
by Paul McLellan on 03-07-2012 at 1:22 pm

There is an interview in the San Jose Mercury News with Kathryn Kranen, Jasper’s CEO. Of course the Mercury is a general newspaper and can’t expect most of its readership to have a clue what EDA is, never mind formal verification. It’s a similar problem to the one we all have when we try and explain to our families… Read More


Clock Domain Crossing (CDC): Survey Says

Clock Domain Crossing (CDC): Survey Says
by Paul McLellan on 03-06-2012 at 11:30 pm

I had no idea that there was a clock domain crossing (CDC) linkedIn group but indeed there is. Richard Brabant has set up a survey to see which tools people are using.


The graph is somewhat confusing since, for example, Cadence Conformal is currently at zero but has a significant looking bar. But far and away the market leader (in this… Read More


IC Custom IP Blocks – EM and IR Drop Effects

IC Custom IP Blocks – EM and IR Drop Effects
by Daniel Payne on 03-06-2012 at 5:33 pm

Designing custom IP blocks is a challenge at the transistor-level and I wanted to learn what the recommended methodology and EDA tool flow was at Synopsys. They have a webinar that you can register for and it takes 30 minutes to learn what they have to say, or you can read a White Paper. If you cannot spare that much time, then my summary… Read More


Test Synopsys offensive in VIP and try the quiz

Test Synopsys offensive in VIP and try the quiz
by Eric Esteve on 03-06-2012 at 11:33 am

I have recently blogged about Synopsys offensive in the Verification IP market. Did Synopsys again launched a new product, or announced a new acquisition? This would be a serious topic to blog, but today’s blog is closer to gaming than market analysis. Sometimes it’s good to have fun, even if the topic is serious! In fact, Synopsys… Read More


Designing ARM Powered High Performance SoCs on 28nm and 20nm!

Designing ARM Powered High Performance SoCs on 28nm and 20nm!
by Daniel Nenni on 03-06-2012 at 9:17 am


Last week I had an interesting meeting with GLOBALFOUNDRIES executives Kevin Meyer and Mojy Chian. It certainly seems that GFI has turned a corner! I will be in Dresden next week for DATE 2012 and will also visit the GFI Fab there. 28nm and 20nm are on track so expect an aggressive implementation plan from GFI this year.… Read More


OpenAccess DB – Productivity and Beyond!

OpenAccess DB – Productivity and Beyond!
by Pawan Fangaria on 03-05-2012 at 10:00 pm

As I have been watching the developments in EDA and Semiconductor industry, it is apparent that we remain fragmented unless pushed to adopt a common standard mostly due to business reasons. Foundries are dictating on the rules to be followed by designs, thereby EDA tools incorporating them. Also, design companies needed to work… Read More


Not me. Who owns IP quality?

Not me. Who owns IP quality?
by Paul McLellan on 03-05-2012 at 4:32 pm

Now that the dominant approach to building an SoC is to get IP from a number of sources and assemble it into a chip, the issue of IP quality is more and more critical. A chip won’t work if the IP doesn’t work, but it is quite difficult to verify this because the SoC design team is not intimately familiar with the IP blocks since… Read More


Atrenta/TSMC Soft-IP Alliance: 10 companies make the grade

Atrenta/TSMC Soft-IP Alliance: 10 companies make the grade
by Paul McLellan on 03-05-2012 at 7:30 am

Last May, Atrenta and TSMC announced the Soft-IP Alliance Program which uses SpyGlass and a subset of its GuideWare reference methodology to implement TSMC’s IP quality assessment program. TSMC requires all soft-IP providers to reach a minimum level of completeness before their IP is listed on TSMC online. Since TSMC … Read More


Verdi’s 3rd Symphony

Verdi’s 3rd Symphony
by Paul McLellan on 03-05-2012 at 7:00 am

The first version of the debug platform Verdi (then called Debussy) dates back to 1996 over 15 years ago. The second version was released in 2002. And now SpringSoft is releasing the 3rd version Verdi[SUP]3[/SUP]which is a completely new generation. A tool environment like Verdi seems to need to be completely refreshed about every… Read More