Our previous Blue Pearl post looked at the breadth of contextual visualization capability in the GUI to speed up debug. Two other important aspects of the ASIC & FPGA pre-synthesis workflow are automating analysis with scripts and managing the stream of messages produced. Let’s look at these aspects… Read More
We’ve been saying for a while that it looks like there is a resurgence in design starts for ASICs targeting the IoT. A recent webinar featuring speakers from ARM and Open Silicon (and moderated by Daniel Nenni) affirms this trend, and provides some insight on how these designs may differ from typical microcontrollers.
One of my first… Read More
Since creating the landmark “all-you-can-eat” license with Samsung in 2002, ARM has inked several subscription deals with chipmakers and EDA firms. The latest ARM subscriber license deal just announced is for Mentor Graphics. What makes their strategy unique?… Read More
How can large SOC projects effectively integrate sub blocks and IP into a stable version for release or internal development? The person responsible for integrating SOC sub blocks into a validated configuration for release has a difficult task. Usually there are many sub-blocks, each undergoing their own development. There… Read More
About 11 months ago, I wrote a piece titled “Money for data and your MEMS for free.” In that, I took on the thinking that TSMC is just going to ride into town, fab trillions of IoT sensors, and they all will be 2.6 cents ten years from now. Good headline, but the technology and economics are not that simple. This may be the semiconductor … Read More
Today, an SoC is seen in the context of an optimized assembly of IPs; it’s no more a single monolithic chip design. It’s very common to see an ARM processor IP along with an interconnect IP, a memory IP, and couple of buses and interfaces IP in an SoC. Although the SoC seems to be an integrated collection of IPs, it can be very complex and… Read More
If you hang around engineers for any time at all, the word optimization is bound to come up. The very definition of engineer is to contrive or devise a solution. With that anointing, most engineers are beholden to the idea that their job is creating, synthesizing, and perfecting a solution specifically for the needs of a unique situation.… Read More
There is a lot more to sound than meets the ear, and there a vast number of ways to deliver an audio experience. I recently trashed my gaming headset, replacing it with a Samson C03U mic and Audio-Technica ATH-PRO700MK2 headphones. It’s a huge upgrade, especially for podcasting, and I admit I was also motivated by research into digital… Read More
