Mentor are stepping up their game in AI/ML. They already had a well-established start through the Solido acquisition in Variation Designer and the ML Characterization Suite, and through Tessent Yield Insight. They have also made progress in prior releases towards supporting design for ML accelerators using Catapult HLS. Now… Read More
The basic principles used for neural networks have been understood for decades, what have changed to make them so successful in recent years are increased processing power, storage and training data. Layered on top of this is continued improvement in algorithms, often enabled by dramatic hardware performance improvements.… Read More
At the recent DesignCon 2019 in Santa Clara, I attended a couple of sessions where Cadence and their research partners provided some insight on machine learning/AI and on large system design analysis; with the first one focused on real-world cloud & machine learning/AI deployment for hardware design and the second one focused… Read More
Ever since we replaced horses in our personal transportation system, folks have been pining for cars that offer some relief from the constant need for supervision, control and management. Indeed, despite their obvious downsides, horses could be counted on to help with steering and obstacle avoidance. There are even cases when… Read More
For SOC designers that are waiting for library models the saying “give me liberty or give me death” is especially apropos. Without libraries to support the timing flow, SOC design progress can grind to a halt. As is often the case, more than just a few PVT corners are needed. Years ago, corners were what the term sounded like – the 4 corners… Read More
Naturally, chips that fail test are a curse, however with the advent of Scan Logic Diagnosis these failures can become a blessing in disguise. Through this technique information gleaned from multiple tester runs can help pin down the locations of defects. Initially tools that did Scan Logic Diagnosis relied on the netlist to filter… Read More
When DARPA plans programs, they’re known for going big – really big. Which is what they are doing again with their Electronics Resurgence Initiative (ERI). Abstracting from their intro, this is a program “to ensure far-reaching improvements in electronics performance well beyond the limits of traditional scaling”. This isn’t… Read More
Machine learning-based applications have become prevalent across consumer, medical, and automotive markets. Still, the underlying architecture(s) and implementations are evolving rapidly, to best fit the throughput, latency, and power efficiency requirements of an ever increasing application space. Although ML is … Read More
I attended on Monday, June 25, DAC’s Opening Day, a Cadence-sponsored Lunch panel. Ann Steffora Mutschler (Semiconductor Engineering) was the Moderator and the Panelists were Jim Hogan (Vista Ventures), David Lacey (HP Enterprise), Shigeo Oshima (Toshiba Memory Corp), Paul Cunningham (Cadence).… Read More
The venue
Despite of being held at the new three-story Moscone West building, this year 55th DAC in San Francisco bore many similarities as compared with last year’s. Similar booth decors and floorplan positioning of the big two, Synopsys and Cadence, which were across of each other and right next to the first floor entrance –although… Read More
