HLS – Major Improvement through Generations

HLS – Major Improvement through Generations
by Pawan Fangaria on 12-02-2014 at 6:30 pm

I am a believer of continuous improvement in anything we do; it’s pleasant to see rapid innovation in technology these days, especially in semiconductor space – technology, design, tools, methodologies… Imagine a 100K gates up to 1M gates design running at a few hundred MHz frequency and at technology node in the range of .18 to … Read More


Cadence Acquires Forte

Cadence Acquires Forte
by Paul McLellan on 02-05-2014 at 4:46 pm


Cadence today announced that it is acquiring Forte Design Systems. Forte was the earliest of the high-level synthesis (HLS) companies. There were earlier products. Synopsys had Behavioral Compiler and Cadence had a product whose name I forget (Visual Architect?), but both products were too early and were canceled. Cadence … Read More


What Applications Implement Best with High Level Synthesis?

What Applications Implement Best with High Level Synthesis?
by Daniel Payne on 07-26-2013 at 3:12 pm

RTL coding using languages like Verilog and VHDL have been around since the 1980’s and for almost as long a time we’ve been hearing about High Level Synthesis, or HLS that allows an SoC designer to code above the RTL level where you code at the algorithm level. The most popular HLS languages today are C, C++ and SystemC.… Read More


Configurable System IP from a Tool Provider

Configurable System IP from a Tool Provider
by Randy Smith on 07-18-2013 at 11:00 pm

While I have previously blogged on Forte’s Cynthesizer Workbench’s Interface Generator, I want to take another look from a different perspective. Watching the tool and IP together in action through public videos provided by Forte it struck me as odd what I did not consider earlier, on what should have been obvious to me – Forte is… 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


Interview with Forte CTO John Sanguinetti on Cynthesizer 5

Interview with Forte CTO John Sanguinetti on Cynthesizer 5
by Randy Smith on 05-26-2013 at 12:00 pm

Recently, Forte Design Systems announced the release of a new core engine to their popular high-level synthesis tool offering. It is a large undertaking, so I asked John Sanguinetti, Forte’s CTO, to answer some questions about that development effort.

Q. How long has it been since the last major upgrade of the CynthesizerRead More


Forte Rises

Forte Rises
by Randy Smith on 04-23-2013 at 3:00 am

Over the past few months there has been a bit of back-and-forth concerning the 2012 market data indicating that Forte Designs Systems had taken over the top spot (by revenue) in the high-level synthesis (HLS) market (see stories hereand here). Having worked in this segment for Synfora as VP of Marketing, and as a consultant to AutoESL,… Read More


Atrenta, Forte and Jasper LOVE DAC

Atrenta, Forte and Jasper LOVE DAC
by Paul McLellan on 04-16-2013 at 8:20 pm

I LOVE DAC is back. This year the sponsors are Atrenta, Jasper and Forte (hey, all semiwiki subscribers). The way it works is that you register on the DAC website here and you get a free three-day exhibit pass. In addition to everything going on in the exhibit hall, including the pavilion panels held there, the pass also gives access… Read More