Dominating FPGA clock domains and CDCs

Dominating FPGA clock domains and CDCs
by Don Dingee on 09-26-2014 at 7:00 am

Multiple clock domains in FPGAs have simplified some aspects of designs, allowing effective partitioning of logic. As FPGA architectures get more flexible in how clock domains, regions, or networks are available, the probability of signals crossing clock domains has gone way up.… Read More


Hardware/Software Debug

Hardware/Software Debug
by Paul McLellan on 05-04-2014 at 10:59 pm

One of the big challenges with modern SoCs is that they have a complex software component as well as the hardware itself being complex. Some aspects of the hardware can be debugged independently of the software and vice versa, but often it is not immediately clear whether the source of a problem is hardware, software or some interaction… Read More


Synopsys Announces Verification Compiler

Synopsys Announces Verification Compiler
by Paul McLellan on 03-04-2014 at 8:00 am

Integration is often an underrated attribute of good tools, compared to raw performance and technology. But these days integration is differentiation (try telling that to your calculus teacher). Today at DVCon Synopsys announced Verification Compiler which integrates pretty much all of Synopsys’s verification technologies… Read More


Develop A Complete System Prototype Using Vista VP

Develop A Complete System Prototype Using Vista VP
by Pawan Fangaria on 09-22-2013 at 6:00 pm

Yes, it means complete hardware and software integration, debugging, verification, optimization of performance and power and all other operational aspects of an electronic system in semiconductor design. In modern SoCs, several IPs, RTL blocks, software modules, firmware and so on sit together on a single chip, hence making… Read More


What’s in your network processor?

What’s in your network processor?
by Don Dingee on 09-19-2013 at 8:00 pm

Recently, one of those very restrained press releases – in this case, Mentor Graphics and Imagination Technologiesextending their partnership for MIPS software support– crossed my desk with about 10% of the story. The 90% of this story I want to focus on is why Mentor is putting energy into this partnership… Read More


Analysis of HLS Results Made Easier

Analysis of HLS Results Made Easier
by Randy Smith on 07-10-2013 at 4:30 pm

In a recent article I discussed how easy it was to debug SystemC source code as shown in a video published on YouTube by Forte Design Systems. I also commented on the usefulness of the well-produced Forte video series. Today, I am reviewing another video in that series on analyzing high-level synthesis (HLS) results.

Cynthesizer… Read More


Easy SystemC Debugging

Easy SystemC Debugging
by Randy Smith on 07-03-2013 at 7:00 pm

Electronic system design has been slowly migrating to higher level languages such as SystemC for more than a decade now. SystemC is an open source C++ library that has emerged as a standard for high-level design and system modeling. Writing code in SystemC has several advantages which I won’t elaborate on in this article, though… Read More


DAC: Calypto Insight Presentation

DAC: Calypto Insight Presentation
by Paul McLellan on 05-01-2013 at 5:39 pm

DAC has several “Insight Presentations” on Wednesday June 5th. Bryan Bowyer from Calypto will be presenting from 2-4pm that day (don’t know where, the DAC website doesn’t have a room number specified yet). The topic is Reducing Design and Debug Time with Synthesizable TLM. TLM, of course, stands for… Read More


Imera Virtual Fabric

Imera Virtual Fabric
by Paul McLellan on 01-10-2012 at 6:00 am

Virtual fabric sounds like something that would be good for making the emperor’s new clothes. I talked today to Les Spruiell of Imera to find out what it really is.

Anyone who has worked as either a designer or as an EDA engineer has had the problem of a customer who has a problem but can’t send you the design since it is (a)… Read More


Formal Verification for Post-silicon Debug

Formal Verification for Post-silicon Debug
by Paul McLellan on 08-23-2011 at 5:52 pm

OK, let’s face it, when you think of post-silicon debug then formal verification is not the first thing that springs to mind. But once a design has been manufactured, debugging can be very expensive. As then-CEO of MIPS John Bourgoin said at DesignCon 2006, “Finding bugs in model testing is the least expensive and most desired… Read More