IC and System Design for Mobile and Wearable Devices!

IC and System Design for Mobile and Wearable Devices!
by Daniel Nenni on 07-16-2016 at 7:00 am

The Linley Mobile and Wearable Conference is coming up so let’s take a look at what is in store for us. Bernard Murphy, Tom Simon, and I will be covering the event live for SemiWiki and we will also be doing a book giveaway/signing for our new “Prototypical” book (compliments of S2C Inc.) during the networking event on Tuesday evening.… Read More


Learn How to Debug UVM Test Benches Faster – Upcoming Synopsys Webinar

Learn How to Debug UVM Test Benches Faster – Upcoming Synopsys Webinar
by Bernard Murphy on 07-14-2016 at 4:00 pm

UVM for developing testbenches is a wonderful thing, as most verification engineers will attest. It provides abstraction capabilities, it encapsulates powerful operations, it simplifies and unifies constrained-random testing – it has really revolutionized the way we verify at the block and subsystem level.

However great… Read More


EDA Tool for ATPG – Refactor or Rewrite?

EDA Tool for ATPG – Refactor or Rewrite?
by Daniel Payne on 07-12-2016 at 3:00 pm

In the life of all EDA software tools comes that moment when new requirements make developers stop and ask, should I continue to refactor the existing code or just start all over from scratch using a new approach? Synopsys came to that junction point when ATPG run times were reaching days or even weeks on the largest IC designs, something… Read More


Circuit Simulation Panel Discussion at #53DAC

Circuit Simulation Panel Discussion at #53DAC
by Daniel Payne on 06-29-2016 at 12:00 pm

Four panelists from big-name semiconductor design companies spoke about their circuit simulation experiences at #53DAC in Austin this year, so I attended to learn more about SPICE and Fast SPICE circuit simulation. I heard from the following four companies:… Read More


TMR approaches should vary by FPGA type

TMR approaches should vary by FPGA type
by Don Dingee on 06-20-2016 at 4:00 pm

We’ve introduced the concepts behind triple modular redundancy (TMR) before, using built-in capability in Synopsys Synplify Premier to synthesize TMR circuitry into FPGAs automatically. A recent white paper authored by Angela Sutton revisits the subject… Read More


Custom IC Layout Design at #53DAC

Custom IC Layout Design at #53DAC
by Daniel Payne on 06-17-2016 at 12:00 pm

Last week at the #53DAC conference there was a lot of excitement in the air about custom IC design, especially at the luncheon that I attended on Tuesday from Synopsys where they had customers like STMicroelectronics, GSI Technology, Samsung Foundry and the Synopsys IP group talk about their experiences using the new Custom Compiler… Read More


ARM sets up quagmire-free ecosystem for IoT

ARM sets up quagmire-free ecosystem for IoT
by Don Dingee on 06-10-2016 at 4:00 pm

Wandering around DAC this week, I found much of the discussion focused on the EDA community being at an inflection point. How do we get more design starts from new places with new ideas without jeopardizing existing business? It’s not as simple a transition as it sounds.… Read More


One FPGA synthesis flow for different IP types

One FPGA synthesis flow for different IP types
by Don Dingee on 05-06-2016 at 4:00 pm

Both Altera and Xilinx are innovative companies with robust ecosystems, right? It would be a terrible shame if you located the perfect FPGA IP block for a design, but couldn’t use it because it was in the “wrong” format for your preferred FPGA. What if there were a way around that?

There is a compelling argument to use each FPGA vendor’s… Read More