You could be forgiven for thinking of hearing aids as the low end of tech, targeted to a relatively small and elderly audience. Commercials seem unaware of advances in mobile consumer audio, and white-haired actors reinforce the intended audience. On the other hand, the World Health Organization has determined that at least 6%… Read More
In semiconductor design there has been much fascination around the idea of using large language models (LLMs) for RTL generation; CoPilot provides one example. Based on a Google Scholar scan, a little over 100 papers were published in 2023, jumping to 310 papers in 2024. This is not surprising. If it works, automating design creation… Read More
How do you measure safety for a DNN? There is no obvious way to screen for a subset of safety-critical nodes in the systolic array at the heart of DNNs. Paul Cunningham (GM, Verification at Cadence), Raúl Camposano (Silicon Catalyst, entrepreneur, former Synopsys CTO and now Silvaco CTO) and I continue our series on research ideas.… Read More
Even for experienced technologists some technologies can seem almost indistinguishable from magic. One example is the bird’s eye camera view available on your car’s infotainment screen. This view appears to be taken from a camera hovering tens of feet above your car. As an aid to parallel parking, it’s a brilliant invention; … Read More
I posted a blog on this topic a year ago. Now the Bluetooth Sig has (just) ratified the standard it is timely to provide a reminder on what this new capability can offer. Channel Sounding introduced in Bluetooth Core specification version 6.0 is a method to significantly increase the accuracy of Bluetooth-based distance measurements,… Read More
Despite NoCs being finely tuned in legacy subsystems, when subsystems are connected in larger designs or even across multi-die structures, differing traffic policies and system-level delays between NoCs can introduce new opportunities for deadlocks, livelocks and other hazards. Paul Cunningham (GM, Verification at Cadence),… Read More
Logic equivalence checking (LEC) is an automated process to verify that modified versions of a design evolving through implementation remain logically equivalent to the functionally signed-off RTL. This becomes important when accounting for retiming optimizations and for necessary implementation-stage ECOs which must… Read More
An explosion in multiplier types/combinations lacking well-established C reference models for equivalence checking is prompting a closer look at theorem proving methods for verification. Paul Cunningham (GM, Verification at Cadence), Raúl Camposano (Silicon Catalyst, entrepreneur, former Synopsys CTO and now Silvaco… Read More
I generally like to start my blogs with an application-centric viewpoint; what end-application is going to become faster, lower power or whatever because of this innovation? But sometimes an announcement defies such an easy classification because it is broadly useful. That’s the case for a recent release from Quadric, based… Read More
An under-appreciated but critical component in signing off the final stage of chip design for manufacture is timing closure – aligning accurate timing based on final physical implementation with the product specification. Between advanced manufacturing processes and growing design sizes, the most important factors determining… Read More
