The CDNLive Keynotes

The CDNLive Keynotes
by Bernard Murphy on 04-25-2017 at 7:00 am

I’m developing a taste for user-group meetings. In my (fairly) recently assumed role as a member of the media, I’m only allowed into the keynotes, but from what I have seen, vendors work hard to make these fresh and compelling each year through big-bang product updates and industry/academic leaders talking about their work in bleeding-edge… Read More


Webinar: Getting to Formal Coverage

Webinar: Getting to Formal Coverage
by Bernard Murphy on 04-20-2017 at 10:00 am

Facing rapidly growing challenges in getting to respectable coverage, designers have been turning more and more to formal verification, not just to plug gaps but increasingly to take over verification of significant components of the testplan. Which is great, but at the end of the day any approach to verification must be measured… Read More


Virtual Reality

Virtual Reality
by Bernard Murphy on 04-20-2017 at 7:00 am

In the world of hardware emulators, virtualization is a hot and sometimes contentious topic. It’s hot because emulators are expensive, creating a lot of pressure to maximize return on that investment through multi-user sharing and 24×7 operation. And of course in this cloud-centric world it doesn’t hurt to promote cloud-like… Read More


An Ultra-Low Voltage CPU

An Ultra-Low Voltage CPU
by Bernard Murphy on 04-18-2017 at 7:00 am

A continuing challenge for large scale deployment of IoT devices is the need to minimize service/cost by extending battery life to decades. At these lifetimes, devices become effectively disposable (OK – a new recycling challenge) and maintenance may amount to no more than replacing a dead unit with a new unit. Getting to these… Read More


IP Traffic Control

IP Traffic Control
by Bernard Murphy on 04-14-2017 at 7:00 am

From an engineering point of view, IP is all about functionality, PPA, fitness for use and track record. From a business/management point of view there are other factors, just as critical, that relate less to what the IP is and more to its correct management and business obligations. The problems have different flavors depending… Read More


Synchronizing Collaboration

Synchronizing Collaboration
by Bernard Murphy on 04-12-2017 at 7:00 am

Much though some of us might wish otherwise, distributed development teams are here to stay. Modern SoC design requires strength and depth in expertise in too many domains to effectively source from one site; competitive multi-national businesses have learned they can very effectively leverage remote sites by building centers… Read More


The Rise of Transaction-Based Emulation

The Rise of Transaction-Based Emulation
by Bernard Murphy on 04-06-2017 at 12:00 pm

One serious challenge to the early promise of accelerating verification through emulation was that, while in theory the emulator could run very fast, options for driving and responding to that fast model were less than ideal. You could use in-circuit emulation (ICE), connecting the emulation to real hardware and allowing you… Read More


One Cellular Technology to Rule Them All

One Cellular Technology to Rule Them All
by Bernard Murphy on 04-04-2017 at 7:00 am

5G, the planned successor to earlier mobile network standards, holds all kinds of promise for new capabilities beyond LTE, but for a while seemed stuck in debate on exactly what the standard should cover. Several problems are apparent. A path to higher bit-rates is complicated because of spectrum shortage and fragmentation (plans… Read More


Caution: Reset Domains Crossing

Caution: Reset Domains Crossing
by Bernard Murphy on 04-01-2017 at 7:00 am

Because you can never have too much to worry about in verification, reset domain crossings (RDCs) are another hazard lying in wait to derail your design. Which hardly seems fair. We like to think of resets as dependable anchors to get us back on track when all else fails, but it seems their dependability is not absolute, especially… Read More


SNUG and Robots

SNUG and Robots
by Bernard Murphy on 03-31-2017 at 7:00 am

I got an invite to the SNUG (Synopsys User Group meeting) keynotes this year. I could only make it to the second keynote but what a treat that was. The speaker was Dr. Peter Stone, professor and chair of CS at UT Austin. He also chaired the inaugural panel for the Stanford 100-year study on AI. This is a guy who knows more about AI than most… Read More