Accelerating SoC Simulation Times

Accelerating SoC Simulation Times
by Daniel Payne on 08-15-2013 at 2:43 pm

There never seems to be enough time in a SoC project to simulate all of the cycles and tests that you want to run, so any technique to accelerate each run is welcomed. You can just wait for your software-based RTL simulator to finish running, or you can consider using a hardware-based accelerator approach. I learned more about one such… Read More


Don’t Shoot Yourself in the Foot With Timing Exceptions

Don’t Shoot Yourself in the Foot With Timing Exceptions
by Paul McLellan on 08-15-2013 at 1:42 pm

Timing exceptions are ways of guiding design tools, primarily synthesis and static timing analysis (STA), but these days also place & route and perhaps other tools. Most paths in a design go from one register to the next register. Both registers are on the same clock, and the design needs to ensure that the signal can make it from… Read More


Xilinx picks another winner…

Xilinx picks another winner…
by Luke Miller on 07-31-2013 at 7:00 pm

Just as important as block RAMs, IO and DSP48’s is what interconnect or fabric is going to be used when considering SoC FPGA designs. I think Xilinx has found the winning combination. What is paramount to the new SoC FPGA methodologies is not only the challenge of moving huge amounts of data around; we are now to consider data… Read More


Power and Reliability Sign-off – A must, but how?

Power and Reliability Sign-off – A must, but how?
by Pawan Fangaria on 07-29-2013 at 11:00 am

At the onset of SoCs with multiple functionalities being packed together at the helm of technologies to improve upon performance and area; power, which was earlier neglected, has become critical and needs special attention in designing SoCs. And there comes reliability considerations as well due to multiple electrical and … Read More


From Layout Sign-off to RTL Sign-off

From Layout Sign-off to RTL Sign-off
by Pawan Fangaria on 07-25-2013 at 5:00 am

This week, I had a nice opportunity meeting Charu Puri, Corporate Marketing and Sushil Gupta, V.P. & Managing Director at Atrenta, Noida. Well, I know Sushil since 1990s; in fact, he was my manager at one point of time during my job earlier than Cadence. He leads this large R&D development centre, consisting about 200 people… Read More


The FPGA Blob is Coming…

The FPGA Blob is Coming…
by Luke Miller on 07-24-2013 at 5:00 pm

I never understood when I was a kid how ‘the Blob’ could actually catch someone but it sure did. It caught the unsuspecting, the off guard. I mean you’d have time for a soda and shower if you saw it on your road. And no, your manager is not the Blob; don’t think like that, it’s always his boss. The blob comes to consume the worker who was unaware… Read More


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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