Systolic arrays, with their ability to highly parallelize matrix operations, are at the heart of many modern AI accelerators. Their regular structure is ideally suited to matrix/matrix multiplication, a repetitive sequence of row-by-column multiply-accumulate operations. But that regular structure is less than ideal … Read More
Tag: bernard murphy
An Illuminating Real Number Modeling Example in Functional Verification
I just read an interesting white paper on functional verification of analog blocks using SV-RNM (SystemVerilog real number modeling). The content is worth the effort to read closely as it elaborates a functional verification flow for RNM matching expectations for digital logic verification, from randomization to functional… Read More
The Next LLM Architecture? Innovation in Verification
LLMs have amazing capabilities but inference run times grow rapidly with the size of the input (prompt) sequence, a significant weakness for some applications in engineering. State space models (SSMs) aim to correct this weakness. Paul Cunningham (GM, Verification at Cadence), Raúl Camposano (Silicon Catalyst, entrepreneur,… Read More
Emerging Growth Opportunity for Women in AI
I was invited to the Fem.AI conference in Menlo Park, the first sponsored by the Cadence Giving Foundation with a goal to promote increased participation of women in the tech sector, especially in AI. Not just for equity, also to grow the number of people entering the tech/AI workforce. There are countless surveys showing that demand… Read More
Advanced Audio Tightens Integration to Implementation
You might think that in the sensing world all the action is in imaging and audio is a backwater. While imaging features continue to evolve, audio innovations may be accelerating even faster to serve multiple emerging demands: active noise cancellation, projecting a sound stage from multiple speakers, 3D audio and ambisonics,… Read More
Mobile LLMs Aren’t Just About Technology. Realistic Use Cases Matter
Arm has been making noise about running large language models (LLMs) on mobile platforms. At first glance that sounds wildly impractical, other than Arm acting as an intermediary between a phone and a cloud-based LLM. However Arm are partnered with Meta to run Llama 3.2 on-device or in the cloud, apparently seamlessly. Running… Read More
Hearing Aids are Embracing Tech, and Cool
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
Is AI-Based RTL Generation Ready for Prime Time?
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
Safety Grading in DNNs. Innovation in Verification
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
Bird’s Eye View Magic: Cadence Tensilica Product Group Pulls Back the Curtain
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