Minimize the Cost of Testing ARM® Processor-based Designs and Other Multicore SoCs

Minimize the Cost of Testing ARM® Processor-based Designs and Other Multicore SoCs
by Daniel Payne on 07-15-2013 at 1:37 pm

On my first job out of college as an IC design engineer I was surprised to discover that a major cost of chips was in the amount of time spent on the tester before being shipped. That is still true today, so how would you keep your tester time down, test coverage high and with a minimum number of pins when using multiple processors on a single… Read More


Static Low-Power Verification in Mixed-Signal SoC Designs

Static Low-Power Verification in Mixed-Signal SoC Designs
by Daniel Payne on 06-19-2013 at 2:02 pm

IC designer Shubhyant Chaturvediof AMD used EDA tools from Mentor Graphicsand Concept Engineeringto perform static, low-power verification of a mixed-signal SoC design with a combined CPU and GPU. Shubhyant presented a poster session at DAC two weeks ago in Austin, and I wanted to share it with my readers here at SemiWiki.… Read More


Deploying 14nm FinFETs in your Next Mobile SoC

Deploying 14nm FinFETs in your Next Mobile SoC
by Daniel Payne on 06-19-2013 at 11:05 am

At DAC in Austin a design company, foundry and EDA vendor teamed up to present their experiences with 14nm FinFETs during a breakfast on Tuesday.

Panelists included:

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Formality Ultra, Streamline Your ECOs

Formality Ultra, Streamline Your ECOs
by Paul McLellan on 06-17-2013 at 8:00 am

One of the most challenging stages in an SoC design is achieving timing closure. Actually design closure is perhaps a better term since everything needs to come together such as clock tree, power nets, power budget and so on. Changes made to the design are known as ECOs (which stands for engineering change orders, a term that comes… Read More


Missed #50DAC? See Aldec Verification Sessions Online

Missed #50DAC? See Aldec Verification Sessions Online
by Daniel Nenni on 06-13-2013 at 12:00 am

Aldec, Inc. is an industry-leading Electronic Design Automation (EDA) company delivering innovative design creation, simulation and verification solutions to assist in the development of complex FPGA, ASIC, SoC and embedded system designs. With an active user community of over 35,000, 50+ global partners, offices worldwide… Read More


SoC Sign-off, Real Intent at DAC

SoC Sign-off, Real Intent at DAC
by Daniel Payne on 06-09-2013 at 8:10 pm

Monday morning at DAC I met with Real Intent to get an update on their SoC sign-off tools:

  • Dr. Prakash Narain, President and CEO
  • Graham Bell, Sr. Dir. Mktg.

Years ago Prakash was at IBM the only two years that they attended DAC, in an attempt to offer their internal EDA tools to the EDA marketplace. Graham worked at Nassda marketing the… Read More


A bird told me the EDPS Monterey Conference was a great success

A bird told me the EDPS Monterey Conference was a great success
by Camille Kokozaki on 04-20-2013 at 8:10 pm

The 20th annual Electronic Design Process Symposium (EDPS) held April 18-19 at the Monterey Beach Hotel in Monterey California was an unqualified success. I know this because a bird (seagull?) sitting on the window sill of the conference room was so captivated by the fascinating insight provided by a number of luminaries that … Read More


FPGAS – The New Single Board Computers?

FPGAS – The New Single Board Computers?
by Luke Miller on 04-16-2013 at 10:00 pm

I have always felt that FPGAs have been the red haired step child of Silicon Valley. Software weenies have hated them, they are mysterious and take too long to route. Even though they can be massively parallel and the most deterministic piece of silicon you can buy besides a million dollar ASIC, the GPU steals their glory, for now. … Read More


Ivo Bolsens’ Keynote on the All-Programmable SoC

Ivo Bolsens’ Keynote on the All-Programmable SoC
by Paul McLellan on 04-13-2013 at 8:00 pm

Ivo Bolsens, the CTO of Xilinx, is giving the opening keynote at the Electronic Design Process Symposium (EDPS) in Monterey on Thursday and Friday this coming week. The title of his keynote is The All Programmable SoC – At the Heart of Next Generation Embedded Systems. He covers a lot of ground but the core of his presentation… Read More