Cadence Acquires Jasper

Cadence Acquires Jasper
by Paul McLellan on 04-21-2014 at 4:06 pm

Cadence announced today that it is acquiring Jasper Design Automation for $170M in an all-cash offer. Jasper has $24M in cash so it is really an acquisition for around $145M. i think that is around 4X revenue but I only know rumors about Jasper’s revenue numbers.

All the big 3 already have their own formal technology but the … Read More


Can the NSA Get Into Your Chip?

Can the NSA Get Into Your Chip?
by Paul McLellan on 04-21-2014 at 2:49 am

At DVCon Lawrence Loh and Viktor Markus Purri gave a tutorial on Formally Verifying Security Aspects of SoC Designs. Lawrence is the direector of WW application engineering and Markus is an FAE who specializes in security verification.

I’m not going to attempt to summarize an entire half-day tutorial in under 1000 words,… Read More


Jasper Announces Sequential Equivalence Checking

Jasper Announces Sequential Equivalence Checking
by Paul McLellan on 03-31-2014 at 8:00 am

Jasper finally announced their sequential equivalence checking app this morning. I say finally because they haven’t really tried to keep it a secret. They talked about it at the end of last year the Jasper User Group meeting and it has even had a page on their website. But formally the product was announced today.

The new JasperGold… Read More


Jasper Goes to DVCon

Jasper Goes to DVCon
by Paul McLellan on 02-02-2014 at 6:00 pm

As usual, since they are firmly in the verification space, Jasper will have a number of things going on at DVCon 2014 which is March 3-6th at the Doubletree in San Jose. In the exhibition hall they are at booth #402.

Jasper will be happy to talk to you about anything, I’m sure, but the focus this year is on the JasperGold Security… Read More


JasperGold COV App, the Swiss Army Knife for Verification

JasperGold COV App, the Swiss Army Knife for Verification
by Paul McLellan on 01-16-2014 at 12:55 am

At the Jasper Users Group meeting in October Rajeev Ranjan presented on the JasperGold COV App which he described as the Swiss army knife for verification. It comes in many sizes and contains many useful tools.

The primary goal of COV is to provide coverage metrics:

  • stimuli coverage: how restrictive is the design behavior under
Read More

Security Path Verification

Security Path Verification
by Paul McLellan on 12-16-2013 at 5:18 pm

Formal approaches and security are a perfect match since you really want to prove that there are no holes in your security, rather than just being fairly confident. At the recent Jasper User Group meeting, Victor Purri presented some case studies in security verification.

The Jasper Security Path Verification (SPV) App is used… Read More


The Pelican Has Landed: Formal on an Unannounced ARM Processor

The Pelican Has Landed: Formal on an Unannounced ARM Processor
by Paul McLellan on 11-10-2013 at 3:00 pm

At the Jasper Users’ Group, Alex Netterville of ARM presented about how ARM are using formal on an unannounced processor code-named Pelican. Don’t read the presentation trying to find out information about Pelican itself, there isn’t any. That wasn’t the topic. Alex has been using formal approaches… Read More


Using Formal to Find Bugs in ARM Microprocessors

Using Formal to Find Bugs in ARM Microprocessors
by Paul McLellan on 11-01-2013 at 12:35 am

2.5x ROI vs simulation. 25% of bugs found for only 10% of the overall verification cost. 36% of bugs in a current CPU project. These impressive results for formal analysis are what ARM’s Laurent Arditi reported at JUG 2013 after painstaking recording of metrics over several production programs.


As you can see from the above graph,… Read More


Jasper: Negronis on tap

Jasper: Negronis on tap
by Paul McLellan on 08-22-2013 at 6:26 pm

Did you know that Jasper’s Corner Tap in San Francisco serves Negronis on tap? It’s true. They also have Hanky Panky on tap, which is a Negroni with the Campari replaced with Fernet (which everyone pronounces as Frenet despite it being…well…wrong). And here’s another thing you probably didn’t… Read More


What Do Brazil and Sweden Have in Common?

What Do Brazil and Sweden Have in Common?
by Paul McLellan on 08-06-2013 at 4:55 pm

Well, Sweden is not noted for its carnivals, Brazil is not noted for it’s tall blonde blue-eyed women, Sweden’s climate is not great for growing sugar cane and Brazil’s isn’t great for reindeer. Both countries speak languages with odd-sounding vowels but they are not the same language. But, ding, Jasper… Read More