Cadence Tensilica Spins Next Upgrade to LX Architecture

Cadence Tensilica Spins Next Upgrade to LX Architecture
by Bernard Murphy on 09-21-2023 at 6:00 am

Xtensa LX8 processor

When considering SoC architectures it is easy to become trapped in simple narratives. These assume the center of compute revolves around a central core or core cluster, typically Arm, more recently perhaps a RISC-V option. Throw in an accelerator or two and the rest is detail. But for today’s competitive products that view is a … Read More


Inference Efficiency in Performance, Power, Area, Scalability

Inference Efficiency in Performance, Power, Area, Scalability
by Bernard Murphy on 09-19-2023 at 6:00 am

AI graphic

Support for AI at the edge has prompted a good deal of innovation in accelerators, initially in CNNs, evolving to DNNs and RNNs (convolutional neural nets, deep neural nets, and recurrent neural nets). Most recently, the transformer technology behind the craze in large language models is proving to have important relevance at… Read More


Chiplets and IP and the Trust Problem

Chiplets and IP and the Trust Problem
by Bernard Murphy on 09-12-2023 at 6:00 am

Trust min

Perforce recently hosted a webinar on “IP Lifecycle Management for Chiplet-Based SoCs”, presented by Simon Butler, the GM for the Methodics IPLM BU. The central theme was trust, for IPs as much as chiplets. How can an IP/chiplet consumer trust that what they receive has not been compromised somewhere in the value chain from initial… Read More


Mixed Signal Verification is Growing in Importance

Mixed Signal Verification is Growing in Importance
by Bernard Murphy on 09-07-2023 at 6:00 am

Mixed signal min

I have historically avoided mixed signal topics, assuming they decouple from digital and can be left to the experts. That simple view no longer holds water. Analog and digital are becoming more closely linked through control loops and datapaths, requiring a careful balancing act in verification between performance, accuracy… Read More


Fitting GPT into Edge Devices, Why and How

Fitting GPT into Edge Devices, Why and How
by Bernard Murphy on 09-05-2023 at 6:00 am

It is tempting to think that everything GPT-related is just chasing the publicity bandwagon and that articles on the topic, especially with evidently impossible claims (as in this case), are simply clickbait. In fact, there are practical reasons for hosting at least a subset of these large language models (LLMs) on edge devices… Read More


Anomaly Detection Through ML. Innovation in Verification

Anomaly Detection Through ML. Innovation in Verification
by Bernard Murphy on 08-31-2023 at 6:00 am

Assertion based verification only catches problems for which you have written assertions. Is there a complementary approach to find problems you haven’t considered – the unknown unknowns? Paul Cunningham (Senior VP/GM, Verification at Cadence), Raúl Camposano (Silicon Catalyst, entrepreneur, former Synopsys CTO and now… Read More


Arm Inches Up the Infrastructure Value Chain

Arm Inches Up the Infrastructure Value Chain
by Bernard Murphy on 08-30-2023 at 6:00 am

Arm just revealed at HotChips their compute subsystems (CSS) direction led by CSS N2. The intent behind CSS is to provide pre-integrated, optimized and validated subsystems to accelerate time to market for infrastructure system builders. Think HPC servers, wireless infrastructure, big edge systems for industry, city, enterprise… Read More


Bluetooth Based Positioning, More Accurate, More Reliable, Safer

Bluetooth Based Positioning, More Accurate, More Reliable, Safer
by Bernard Murphy on 08-22-2023 at 6:00 am

Using Bluetooth for positioning is a topic I have touched on before, for location services, keyless entry, and asset tracking among other applications. Earlier implementations depended on measures of received signal strength and angle-of-arrival / angle-of-departure, but these have limited accuracy in environments with… Read More


How Do You Future-Proof Security?

How Do You Future-Proof Security?
by Bernard Murphy on 08-17-2023 at 6:00 am

Secure IC applications min

If you are designing electronics to go into a satellite or a military drone, it better have a useful lifetime of 15-20 years or more. Ditto for the grid or other critical infrastructure, your car, medical devices, anything where we demand absolute reliability. Reliability also requires countermeasures against hacking by anyone… Read More


A New Verification Conference Coming to Austin

A New Verification Conference Coming to Austin
by Bernard Murphy on 08-15-2023 at 6:00 am

Actually not so new, just new to us in the US. Verification Futures is already well established as a Tessolve event with a 10-year track record in the UK. This year they are bringing the conference to Austin on September 14th (REGISTER HERE).

While DVCon is an ever-popular event for sharing verification ideas, it isn’t always accessible… Read More