Known Unknowns and Unknown Unknowns

Known Unknowns and Unknown Unknowns
by Paul McLellan on 12-11-2013 at 3:18 pm

Donald Rumsfeld categorized what we knew into known unknowns and unknown unknowns. In a chip design, those unknown unknowns can bite you and leave you with a non-functional design, perhaps even intermittent failures which can be among the hardest problems to debug.

Chips are too big to do any sort of full gate-level simulation,… Read More


The Unknown in Your Design Can be Dangerous

The Unknown in Your Design Can be Dangerous
by Graham Bell on 07-30-2012 at 10:00 am

The SystemVerilog standard defines an X as an “unknown” value which is used to represent when simulation cannot definitely resolve a signal to a “1”, a “0”, or a “Z”. Synthesis, on the other hand, defines an X as a “don’t care”, enabling greater flexibility and optimization. Unfortunately, Verilog RTL simulation semantics often… Read More