Cadence & ARM Optimize Complex SoC Performance

Cadence & ARM Optimize Complex SoC Performance
by Pawan Fangaria on 12-03-2013 at 3:00 pm

Now a day, a SoC can be highly complex, having 100s of IPs performing various functionalities along with multi-core CPUs on it. Managing power, performance and area of the overall semiconductor design in the SoC becomes an extremely challenging task. Even if the IPs and various design blocks are highly optimized within themselves,… Read More


Because X doesn’t always mark the exact spot

Because X doesn’t always mark the exact spot
by Don Dingee on 11-30-2013 at 1:00 pm

Digital hardware has a habit of deciding – based on the bias and behavior of transistors – to drive outputs to a 0, or a 1, or if commanded a high-impedance Z state. SystemVerilog recognizes a fourth state: X, the “unknown” state a simulator has trouble inferring.

Simulators have a choice. Under X-optimism, they can convert the unknown… Read More


Assertions verifying blocks to systems at Broadcom

Assertions verifying blocks to systems at Broadcom
by Don Dingee on 10-15-2013 at 6:00 pm

Speaking from experience, it is very difficult to get an OEM customer to talk about how they actually use standards and vendor products. A new white paper co-authored by Broadcom lends insight into how a variety of technologies combine in a flow from IP block simulation verification with assertions to complete SoC emulation with… Read More


Constrain all you want, we’ll solve more

Constrain all you want, we’ll solve more
by Don Dingee on 07-24-2013 at 8:30 pm

EDA tool development is always pushing the boundaries, driven in part by bigger, faster chips and more complex IP. For several years now, the trend has been developing tools that spot problems faster without waiting for the “big bang” synthesis result that takes hours and hours. Vendors, with help from customers, are tuning tools… Read More


Debugging Verification Constraints

Debugging Verification Constraints
by Paul McLellan on 07-23-2013 at 3:44 pm

In his DAC keynote last year (2012) Mike Mueller of ARM compared how much CPU was required to verify the first ARM versus one of the latest ARM Cortex CPUs. Of course the newer CPU is hundreds of times larger than the first ARM but the amount of verification required was millions of times as much, requiring ARM to construct their own datacenter… Read More


Training Day at DAC

Training Day at DAC
by Paul McLellan on 05-07-2013 at 12:15 pm

This year for the first time the Thursday of DAC is tranining day. So that would be June 6th in Austin, of course. There are four tracks of training focused on SystemC, ARM Cortex and two on SystemVerilog, all areas of increasing use in SoC design, especially in mobile.

Each track of training is divided into two parts, one held from 9am… Read More


Multi-level abstraction accelerates verification turnaround

Multi-level abstraction accelerates verification turnaround
by Pawan Fangaria on 05-02-2013 at 8:30 pm

Often a question is raised about how SystemC improves verification time when the design has to go through RTL in any case. A simple answer is that with SystemC, designs can be described at a higher level of abstraction and then automatically synthesized to RTL. When the hands-on design and verification activity is at a higher level,… Read More


Happy Birthday to Synopsys VIP

Happy Birthday to Synopsys VIP
by Paul McLellan on 04-22-2013 at 3:25 am

I met Mike Sanie around DVCon time and planned to write a blog about the one year anniversary of Synopsys Discovery VIP which was announced during Aart’s keynote at DVCon in 2012. Eric covered it for SemiWiki here. But Synopsys had other stuff they wanted me to blog about and so it is a couple of months late. The 14th month anniversary… Read More


In compliance we trust, for integration we verify

In compliance we trust, for integration we verify
by Don Dingee on 03-26-2013 at 8:10 pm

So, you dropped that piece of complex IP you just licensed into an SoC design, and now it is time to fire up the simulator. How do you verify that it actually works in your design? If you didn’t get verification IP (VIP) with the functional IP, it might be a really long day.

Compliance checking something like a PCIe interface block is a … Read More


Plotting to take over the time-domain only world

Plotting to take over the time-domain only world
by Don Dingee on 03-16-2013 at 10:00 am

The state machine nature of many digital designs has made time-domain debugging the favorite tool for most designers. We provide a set of inputs, data gets clocked in, and a set of outputs appears. We look for specific patterns in parallel paths, or sequences on serial lines.… Read More