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No Cord Cutting Autonomous Cars

No Cord Cutting Autonomous Cars
by Roger C. Lanctot on 03-03-2019 at 7:00 am
Categories: Automotive

The automotive industry is a world of contradictions. Nowhere is this more evident than in the realm of connected cars. Car makers remain utterly conflicted over connecting cars 21 years after General Motors got the ball rolling with the introduction of OnStar.

Even GM had to famously be goaded into connecting its cars by then executive vice president and general counsel, Harry Pearce, who touched off what became known as Project Beacon by rhetorically asking a collection of GM executives: “Now, how many out of a hundred OnStar-equipped cars that crash will need to call for help before we’d be more wrong for holding back a potentially lifesaving technology like this than we would be for putting it in?”

February 2019 finds the industry on the precipice of a world where the embedded wireless connection in the car will not only be able to summon assistance in the event of a crash a la OnStar, but will soon be able to help the car and driver avoid a crash altogether. It is for this reason that forecasters like my employer Strategy Analytics foresee an acceleration in the adoption of automotive wireless technology.

This proposition is especially relevant on the eve of Mobile World Congress in Barcelona – where multiple car companies will exhibit and connected and autonomous cars will be demonstrated. Yet, many automotive engineers continue to aver that wireless connectivity is non-essential for the operation of autonomous vehicles.

It is easy to see the source of this misguided perspective given that autonomous vehicle tech leaders such as Waymo, Tesla Motors, Nvidia and Intel/Mobileye all tend to downplay the role of connectivity. These companies need look no further than GM’s Cruise Automation to see a semi-autonomous vehicle aggressively leveraging wireless technology

General Motors integrates wireless connectivity in both the Cruise Automation platform and its Super Cruise advanced cruise control system. The Cruise Automation car comes with simultaneous connectivity to four wireless carriers. The Super Cruise system, currently only available in select Cadillacs, supports only one carrier.

The significance is that both systems make use of connectivity to enhance contextual awareness and vehicle positioning. Today, these two implementations are something of a belt-and-suspenders approach to automating driving. Soon, wireless connectivity for autonomous vehicles will be required.

This is why the resistance to wireless connectivity for autonomous operation at companies like Volkswagen is so mystifying. A budding recognition is sweeping the automotive industry that the onset of cellular C-V2X technology in advance of the rollout of 5G is radically changing the notion of connecting cars.

The industry has rapidly shifted from OnStar-like automatic crash notification (in the event of a collision) to a focus on on-board Wi-Fi connections to the integration of digital assistants and, finally, wireless enabled and enhanced autonomous operation. If there is any remaining doubt at large auto makers – such as VW – that connectivity is key to autonomy one need only consider the future requirement for remote vehicle control.

Finland’s regulators, for example, have stated that autonomous vehicles must have human drivers, but those drivers need not be in the vehicles. Finland is not alone. Regulators across the world will swiftly grasp that remote control is an essential element of autonomous operation (in the event of system failure or malicious intrusion) and 4G/5G-style connectivity will be essential to deliver this solution.

Remote control of autonomous cars will require 4G/5G connectivity and 4G/5G connections will help enable autonomy. The low latency, mesh networking, edge computing and vehicle-to-vehicle communication characteristics of 5G will accelerate autonomous vehicle development.

Car companies as a whole are far from “cutting the cord.” Car companies are adding redundancy to their wireless connections. Dual SIM Dual Access (DSDA) and three- and four-SIM vehicles will arrive in the market by the end of 2019.

Cars will increasingly be connected, whether they operate autonomously or semi-autonomously. Remote control or tele-operation will dictate that car makers have an improved sense of the reliability of the wireless connection to their vehicles. Companies like Phantom Auto, Designated Driver and Ottopia have already emerged to meet this requirement.

Quality of Service requirements for connected cars, autonomous or otherwise, is radically changing the thinking of automotive engineers. In many ways, though, the thought process remains the same.

As OnStar’s first president, Chet Huber, noted in his book “Detour:” “…his (Harry Pearce’s) standard was clear. We would need to do everything we knew how to do to make it as reliable as best-in-class technology and strong operating discipline made possible.” In other words, car makers across the world have come to recognize that a single SIM may not do the trick.

Connecting cars isn’t about automatic crash notification or Wi-Fi or digital assistants. Connected cars of the future will leverage their connectivity to avoid crashes and save lives and that will require a reliable connection.

Roger C. Lanctot is Director, Automotive Connected Mobility in the Global Automotive Practice at Strategy Analytics. Roger will be chairing the 5GAA event Wednesday, Feb. 27, at Mobile World Congress in Barcelona and participating in the Future Networked Car Workshop, March 7, at the Geneva Motor Show – https://www.itu.int/en/fnc/2019. More details about Strategy Analytics can be found here: https://www.strategyanalytics.com/access-services/automotive#.

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LithoVision 2019 – Semiconductor Technology Trends and their impact on Lithography

LithoVision 2019 – Semiconductor Technology Trends and their impact on Lithography
by Scotten Jones on 03-01-2019 at 12:00 pm
Categories: Events, Foundries, Lithography, Semiconductor Services, TechInsights
20 Comments

I was asked to present at Nikon’s LithoVision event again this year. LithoVision is held the day before the SPIE Advanced Lithography Conference also in San Jose. The following is a write up of my talk.
Continue reading “LithoVision 2019 – Semiconductor Technology Trends and their impact on Lithography”

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Report from SPIE EUV Update 2019

Report from SPIE EUV Update 2019
by Robert Maire on 03-01-2019 at 7:00 am
Categories: Lithography, Semiconductor Advisors, Semiconductor Services
2 Comments

Not as much new – No breakthrough announcements, 300 watts is better than 250 watts – Pellicle Problems, TSMC is EUV king – Third times a charm? We attended this years SPIE Lithography convention in San Jose as we have for many years. Although the show was quite enthusiastic and EUV was the central topic, as it has been for a long time, there were no real “breakthrough” announcements or changes that we have seen previously.

300 is more than 250
It seems that ASML has had good luck and good results with it latest EUV source as it seems capable of 300 watts rather than the 250 watts specified, a nice step on the way to the needed wafer throughput

Pellicle Problems
On the other side of the coin, there has not been any significant progress on the transmission efficiency which is still stuck at 83% or so rather than the 90% previously hoped for. There is some discussion of carbon nanotube pellicles being worked on by IMEC but nothing real yet. Pellicles need to get better to improve throughput.

TSMC is big man on EUV campus
We have heard that TSMC is taking between 18 and 20 of ASML’s planned 30 EUV systems to be produced in 2019. This is a huge 180 degree reversal from a company that said they would never use EUV just two short years ago. We have heard that Intel may be good for another half dozen EUV tools in 2019 with Samsung or others taking the balance. ASML is obviously sold on on EUV for 2019.

The risk of going “bareback”
TSMC seems to be willing to push production without the protection of pellicles. The “print and pray” approach seems to be the way to go as there is still no mask inspection in sight, at least not from KLA. Maybe if TSMC gets paid per wafer not per known good die, they don’t care, its the customers risk. We wonder how long customers might be willing to take the defect loss from running with no pellicle. Maybe TSMC figures out how to get yield without mask inspection and never buys it by the time KLA gets it to market, probably not.

Third times a charm
It sounds as if the “C” version of ASML’s EUV scanner, which is now shipping, will likely be the “go to” production scanner for HVM. The “B” version which was obviously better than the prior version was better but not good enough and not economically viable for ASML whereas the “C” seems to fix all the issues (or at least enough of them) and is financially better for ASML.

It’s party time!
We attended both the Tokyo Electron and ASML parties at the show on Monday evening and for an industry in a slump you wouldn’t know it from the crowds at the parties nor the positive tone coming from the attendees. While there were no major new announcements at the show the tone was very positive about progress towards HVM and more layers going EUV.

Triple patterning versus EUV
A number of people we spoke to at SPIE suggested that the cost crossover between EUV and multipatterning was that EUV costs about the same as current triple patterning techniques. In our view, there is still a lot of room for progress in EUV costs. ASML has projected a “slam dunk” cost advantage of EUV over multipatterning but we are still not near that goal. However, EUV has power performance advantages over multipatterning that outweigh the fact that cost advantages haven’t yet been achieved. The basic fact is that EUV formed transistors are better than multipatterned transistors of the same dimensions and customers want the better product…..especially Apple.

Impact on pricing of dep and etch
We think that both AMAT and Lam have the opportunity to slow the move away from multipatterning to EUV by finding ways to reduce multipatterning costs. This may put pricing pressure on dep and etch tools. We think that margins at AMAT and Lam may already be under pressure as they cut pricing to get more share in a declining market as we are in. When demand has gone down in previous cycles, pricing has suffered more as the competitors have cut each others throats to get the smaller pool of business left. We have already heard of some aggressive pricing in the market that some have walked away from

NAND and DRAM going EUV- question of when not if
Many we spoke to at the show are already talking about when EUV will enter the memory industry. Right now there is no real reason but at some point memory will also have to go with EUV to keep up with Moore’s law…its inevitable.

In our view this is the same question of when logic would go to EUV…..we never doubted that EUV would eventually work if enough time and money was throw at it (which it was). We think that the cost issue is a bigger impediment to EUV being used for memory production and may takes a few years to overcome. We could also hit a technology block that forces memory to go EUV before the costs come down but that doesn’t seem predictable right now

The stocks
We think that those investors who were worried about ASML’s EUV business in the downturn can breath a bit easier, however we can’t say the same about DUV business which will likely be impacted. AMAT and Lam still have some runway left on multipatterning given that EUV costs aren’t coming down as quickly as hoped. All in all we saw nothing at the show that made us want to go out and buy or sell a specific stock…maybe no surprises or big announcements is a good thing.

About Semiconductor Advisors LLC
Semiconductor Advisors is an RIA (a Registered Investment Advisor), specializing in technology companies with particular emphasis on semiconductor and semiconductor equipment companies.

We have been covering the space longer and been involved with more transactions than any other financial professional in the space. We provide research, consulting and advisory services on strategic and financial matters to both industry participants as well as investors. We offer expert, intelligent, balanced research and advice. Our opinions are very direct and honest and offer an unbiased view as compared to other sources.

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Synopsys GLOBALFOUNDRIES and Automotive IP

Synopsys GLOBALFOUNDRIES and Automotive IP
by Daniel Nenni on 02-28-2019 at 12:00 pm
Categories: Automotive, FD-SOI, Foundries, GlobalFoundries, IP, Synopsys
1 Comment

IP vendors have always had the inside track on the status of new process nodes and what customers are planning for their next designs. This is even more apparent now that systems companies are successfully doing their own chips by leveraging the massive amounts of commercial IP available today. Proving once again that IP really is the foundation of modern semiconductor design.

Automotive is one of those market segments where systems companies are doing their own chips. We see this first hand on SemiWiki as we track automotive related blogs and the domains that read them. To date we have published 354 automotive blogs that have been viewed close to 1.5M times by more than 1k different domains.


The recent press release by Synopsys and GLOBALFOUNDRIES didn’t get the coverage it deserved in my opinion and the coverage it got clearly missed the point. Synopsys, being the #1 EDA and #1 IP provider, has the semiconductor inside track like no other. For Synopsys to make such a big investment in FD-SOI (GF FDX) for automotive grade 1 IP is a huge testament to both the technology and the market segment, absolutely.

I talked to John Koeter, Vice President of Marketing for IP, Services and System Level Solutions. John is a friend and one of the IP experts I trust. 3 years ago Synopsys got into automotive grade IP and racked up 25 different customer engagements just last year. The aftermarket electronics for adding intelligence (autonomous-like capabilities, cameras, lane and collision detection, etc…) to older vehicles is also heating up, especially in China.

I also talked to Mark Granger, Vice President of Automotive Product Line Management at GLOBALFOUNDRIES. Mark has been at GF for two years, prior to that he was with NVIDIA working on autonomous chips with deep learning and artificial intelligence. According to Mark, GF’s automotive experience started with the Singapore fabs acquired from Chartered in 2010. The next generation automotive chips will come from the Dresden FDX fabs which are right next door to the German automakers including my favorite, Porsche.

One thing we talked about is the topology of the automotive silicon inside a car and the difference between central processing and edge chips. Remember, some of these chips will be on glass or mirrors or inside your powertrain. The edge chips are much more sensitive to power and cost so FDX is a great fit.

Mark provided a GF link for more information:

Here is the link to our Automotive resources:
https://www.globalfoundries.com/market-solutions/automotive

One thing Mark, John, and I agree on is that truly autonomous cars for the masses is still a ways out but we as an industry are working very hard to get there, absolutely.

Here is the press release:

Synopsys and GLOBALFOUNDRIES Collaborate to Develop Industry’s First Automotive Grade 1 IP for 22FDX Process

Synopsys’ Portfolio of DesignWare Foundation, Analog, and Interface IP Accelerate ISO 26262 Qualification for ADAS, Powertrain, 5G, and Radar Automotive SoCs

MOUNTAIN VIEW, Calif., and SANTA CLARA, Calif., Feb. 21, 2019 /PRNewswire/ —
Highlights:

  • Synopsys DesignWare IP for automotive Grade 1 and Grade 2 temperature operation on GLOBALFOUNDRIES 22FDX[SUP]®[/SUP] process includes Logic Libraries, Embedded Memories, Data Converters, LPDDR4, PCI Express 3.1, USB 2.0/3.1, and MIPI D-PHY IP
  • Synopsys’ IP solutions implement additional automotive-grade design rules for the 22FDX process to meet reliability and 15-year automotive operation requirements
  • Synopsys’ IP that supports AEC-Q100 temperature grades and ISO 26262 ASIL Readiness accelerates SoC reliability and functional safety assessments
  • Join Synopsys and GLOBALFOUNDRIES at Mobile World Congress in Barcelona, Spain on Feb. 25 for a panel on “Intelligent Connectivity for a Data-Driven Future”

Synopsys, Inc. (Nasdaq: SNPS) and GLOBALFOUNDRIES (GF) today announced a collaboration to develop a portfolio of automotive Grade 1 temperature (-40ºC to +150ºC junction) DesignWare[SUP]®[/SUP] Foundation, Analog, and Interface IP for the GF 22-nanometer (nm) Fully-Depleted Silicon-On-Insulator (22FDX[SUP]®[/SUP]) process. By providing IP that is designed for high-temperature operation on 22FDX, Synopsys enables designers to reduce their design effort and accelerate AEC-Q100 qualification of system-on-chips (SoCs) for automotive applications such as eMobility, 5G connectivity, advanced driver assistance systems (ADAS), and infotainment. The Synopsys DesignWare IP implements additional automotive design rules for the GF 22FDX process to meet stringent reliability and operation requirements. This latest collaboration complements Synopsys’ broad portfolio of automotive-grade IP that provides ISO 26262 ASIL B Ready or ASIL D Ready certification, AEC-Q100 testing, and quality management.

“Arbe’s ultra-high-resolution radar is leveraging this cutting-edge technology that enabled us to create a unique radar solution and provide the missing link for autonomous vehicles and safe driver assistance,” said Avi Bauer, vice president of R&D at Arbe. “We need to work with leading companies who can support our technology innovation. GF’s 22FDX technology, with Synopsys automotive-grade DesignWare IP, will help us meet automotive reliability and operation requirements and is critical to our success.”

“GF’s close, collaborative relationships with leading automotive suppliers and ecosystem partners such as Synopsys have enabled advanced process technology solutions for a broad range of driving system applications,” said Mark Ireland, vice president of ecosystem partnerships at GF. “The combination of our 22FDX process with Synopsys’ DesignWare IP enables our mutual customers to speed the development and certification of their automotive SoCs, while meeting their performance, power, and area targets.”

“Synopsys’ extensive investment in developing automotive-qualified IP for advanced processes, such as GF’s 22FDX, helps designers accelerate their SoC-level qualifications for functional safety, reliability, and automotive quality,” said John Koeter, vice president of marketing for IP at Synopsys. “Our close collaboration with GF mitigates risks for designers integrating DesignWare Foundation, Analog, and Interface IP into low-power, high-performance automotive SoCs on the 22FDX process.”

GLOBALFOUNDRIES & Synopsys at Mobile World Congress 2019
On February 25, 2019, Synopsys will join the GLOBALFOUNDRIES NEXTech Lab Theater Session at MWC19. A panel discussion with leading industry experts, including Joachim Kunkel, general manager of the Solutions Group at Synopsys, and Mike Cadigan, senior vice president of global sales, business development, customer and design engineering at GF, will offer insights about the importance of intelligent connectivity, the growth, demands, and innovations it is poised to bring, and its impacts across the semiconductor value chain. For more information, visit:https://www.globalfoundries.com/join-gf-mwc19.

Resources
For more information on Synopsys DesignWare IP for automotive Grade 1 temperature operation on GF’s 22FDX process:

About GLOBALFOUNDRIES
GLOBALFOUNDRIES (GF) is a leading full-service foundry delivering truly differentiated semiconductor technologies for a range of high-growth markets. GF provides a unique combination of design, development, and fabrication services, with a range of innovative IP and feature-rich offerings including FinFET, FDX[SUP]™[/SUP], RF and analog/mixed-signal. With a manufacturing footprint spanning three continents, GF has the flexibility and agility to meet the dynamic needs of clients across the globe. GF is owned by Mubadala Investment Company. For more information, visitwww.globalfoundries.com/.

About Synopsys DesignWare IP
Synopsys is a leading provider of high-quality, silicon-proven IP solutions for SoC designs. The broad Synopsys DesignWare IP portfolio includes logic libraries, embedded memories, embedded test, analog IP, wired and wireless interface IP, security IP, embedded processors, and subsystems. To accelerate prototyping, software development and integration of IP into SoCs, Synopsys’ IP Accelerated initiative offers IP prototyping kits, IP software development kits and IP subsystems. Synopsys’ extensive investment in IP quality, comprehensive technical support and robust IP development methodology enables designers to reduce integration risk and accelerate time-to-market. For more information on Synopsys DesignWare IP, visit https://www.synopsys.com/designware.

About Synopsys
Synopsys, Inc. (Nasdaq: SNPS) is the Silicon to Software[SUP]™[/SUP] partner for innovative companies developing the electronic products and software applications we rely on every day. As the world’s 15[SUP]th[/SUP] largest software company, Synopsys has a long history of being a global leader in electronic design automation (EDA) and semiconductor IP and is also growing its leadership in software security and quality solutions. Whether you’re a system-on-chip (SoC) designer creating advanced semiconductors, or a software developer writing applications that require the highest security and quality, Synopsys has the solutions needed to deliver innovative, high-quality, secure products. Learn more at www.synopsys.com.

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Can I Trust my Hardware Root of Trust?

Can I Trust my Hardware Root of Trust?
by Bernard Murphy on 02-28-2019 at 7:00 am
Categories: IP, Security, Tortuga Logic

Hardware Roots of Trust (HRoTs) have become a popular mechanism to provide a foundational level of security in a cell-phone or IoT device or indeed any device that might appear to a hacker to be a juicy target. The concept is simple. In order to offer credible levels of security, any level in the stack has to be able to trust that levels below it have not been compromised. The bottom of the stack becomes the root of trust. Given the sophistication of modern threats, most of us believe that has to be the hardware itself.

HRoTs aim to manage all security functions within a tightly-managed enclave. These would typically include functions such as secure key generation and storage, authentication, encryption and decryption and perhaps secure memory partitioning. The goal is to put all the security eggs in one basket and watch that basket very carefully rather than to scatter security features around a design and then not be sure what sneaky tricks an attacker might be able to use to get around those security measures.

So HRoTs are a good thing. And there are quite a few vendors who have excellent HRoT IP and will be happy to have you adopt their solution. Problem solved? Not exactly. You are going to integrate an HRoT into your larger design and, sadly, there are a number of ways this can go wrong. HRoTs are configurable because one fixed design can’t fit all possible needs, and when you can configure something you can configure it incorrectly. Second, you can make mistakes in hardware connections. Don’t laugh; some of these can be very subtle. Third, and most challenging, vulnerabilities at this level are not just in hardware or just in software; they can be in a combination of hardware and software. (For those familiar with the domain, think of timing-channel attacks on cache.)

Now you know that mistakes can happen, how are you going to find such mistakes? For the first two classes of problem, you might argue that a combination of hardware simulation and formal verification could do the trick. Maybe – problem is you first need to know what you’re looking for. But this debate is academic anyway because as soon as you need to cover hardware+software exploits, testing complexity explodes. Exploits can run over many instruction cycles and may use cache access times and other factors to accomplish their objectives. Mapping tests for any of this into standard hardware verification formats would be painful and is clearly impractical at a scale necessary to provide the comprehensive security coverage you need.

That said, you also clearly don’t want to have to setup a whole new verification infrastructure to solve these problems. What you’d like is a mechanism which can work with your existing verification platforms, particularly emulation since you’ll want to run software on your hardware platform. A good way to accomplish this would be through a class of assertions which can capture these security level checks but then be compiled in some manner into the existing verification infrastructure.

Tortuga Logic has created a nice approach to accomplish exactly this. I should say first that my explanation here approaches their technology bottom-up rather than a top-down presentation. But us hardware verification types may find it easier to understand. And this is just an example; talk to Tortuga for the full range of capabilities.

Any security check really comes down to proving there is no path though which something privileged (such as an encryption key) can flow to some unprivileged location (such as a USB interface). What is a little different from pure hardware approaches is that these “things” can be logical (data in memory locations) or physical (hardware). Tortuga has a format to describe and compile this kind of assertion into your standard verification environment.

A set of these assertions together represents a threat-model for the design; Tortuga Logic calls the language for these assertion “Sentinel”. This threat-model, together with the RTL, is compiled into a set of SVA assertions which you can run in any of your verification platforms, from formal to emulation (or even FPGA prototypes, I would guess, since they what they generate is an RTL model which runs together with your design).

So far, so good, but many users aren’t necessarily security experts; they invested in an HRoT because they wanted to avoid becoming experts. Doesn’t this verification requirement drag them back into needing to learn more about security? Tortuga just release a new update of their software, Radix-S, which aims to put more of this verification around HRoTs on auto-pilot. Jason Oberg (the CEO) told me they have helped draft guidelines and provide more features and guidance to setup the threat model and the flow for security novices. He tells me that even the experts like this flow because for them it adds automation; they know what they want but they don’t want to have to hand-craft it every time.

All of which is great, but for me the real deal-closer is the test-bench part of the story. Normally new simulation-based technologies can do great things only if you develop special-purpose test-benches to drive them. They sound good, but you have to do even more (and often rather specialized) test development work to tap the promise, greatly limiting their appeal. Not so with the Tortuga technology. The key differentiator in their approach is how they do the analysis – looking at information transfer through logic rather than logic states. They can do this based on your existing test suites. No need to develop new test-benches, just run what you already have together with their generated security-checking RTL. (Jason added, reasonably, that they do expect your test benches deliver reasonable coverage.)

So you can run advanced hardware/software checks on your existing verification infrastructure, using your existing test-suites. Difficult to imagine why you wouldn’t want to try that if you are even a little bit worried about security. Jason presented a workshop session on this topic Monday afternoon at DVCon. If you weren’t able to attend, you can learn more about Radix-S HERE.

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How Well Did Methodics do in 2018?

How Well Did Methodics do in 2018?
by Daniel Payne on 02-27-2019 at 12:00 pm
Categories: EDA, Perforce

In January I read from the ESDA Allianceabout EDA and Semiconductor IP revenues increasing 6.7% for Q3 2018, reaching $2,435.6 million, which is decent growth for our maturing industry. In stark contrast there’s a company called Methodicsthat specializes in Intellectual Property Lifecycle Management (IPLM) and traceability that has a much higher growth rate than the industry average. To get better informed I spent some time asking questions of two contacts at Methodics: Jerry Brocklehurst, VP of Marketing and Simon Butler, President and CEO.


Jerry Brocklehurst, Simon Butler

Q&A

Q: I know that you’re still a privately held company and don’t publish a detailed quarterly financial report, but what can you tell me about your growth rate?

Jerry: Well, we just reported 5 consecutive years of greater than 50% growth rate per year from 2014 through 2018.

Q: Wow, a 50% growth rate is way above the industry average. What trends are happening in the semiconductor industry that account for such rapid adoption of your IPLM tools?

Jerry: Over the past 5 years, semiconductor companies have found it mission-critical to implement design reuse strategies across their organizations in order to meet time-to-market, financial, and profitability goals while also facing tougher competition to design and produce ever more complex designs.

As design elements and IPs are being reused in different chips, a further challenge is the need to track all IP assets and to prove compliance with Functional Safety (FuSa) and security standards.

Q: OK, 2018 was another strong year, but what about 2019 for your business?

Simon: As we enter 2019, we see even more emphasis on the need for traceability as industry standards such as ISO26262, DO-254 and others are putting strict requirements for design traceability on suppliers. When customers create their designs within the Percipient platform, traceability can be easily achieved – it’s not an after-thought where assets must be tracked in spreadsheets or other manual ways. Traceability is a natural benefit of the Percipient methodology.

Q: Was there one particular geography that was adopting IPLM tools most?

Jerry: No, fortunately for us, we saw growth in revenue and in numbers of users in all regions, including the U.S., Asia/Pacific, and EMEA.

Q: Did you do anything different in 2018 at Methodics to help your customers?

Jerry: Yes, we had the first-ever Methodics User Groupmeeting with a keynote presentation by Intel and other presentations by Maxim Integrated, Silicon Labs, and Analog Devices.

Q: How about the way that your software integrates with other vendor tools in a design flow?

Jerry: Back in November 2018 we announced a software and technology partnership with Siemens, for a combined PLM/IPLM integration for our mutual customers. Late in 2018 we expanded our technology and reseller partnership with Perforce, providing a more tightly integrated solution for our semiconductor and embedded design customers.

Q: Can you give me a quick overview of your three tools?

Jerry: Sure, our Percipienttool is an IP Lifecycle Management (IPLM) platform that gives semiconductor design companies control over the design, integration, and traceability of internal IP, external IP, libraries for new analog and digital designs.

VersIC 2.0 Platform is a new approach to the management of IC design data. It provides a comprehensive, united and reliable design data management (DM) experience in the Cadence design environment.

WarpStoraddresses the issue in semiconductor design of data explosion by providing a Content Aware NAS optimizer and accelerator.

Q: Final question, why has Methodics been so successful in the IPLM arena?

Simon: From the beginning, our growth has been driven by our guiding principle to help our customers achieve success in their goals, and this past year was no exception. In addition to maintaining strong relationships with existing customers, we look forward to working with many new customers in 2019 and beyond.

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Safety: Big Opportunity, A Long and Hard Road

Safety: Big Opportunity, A Long and Hard Road
by Bernard Murphy on 02-27-2019 at 7:00 am
Categories: Arteris, Automotive, IP

Safety, especially in road vehicles (cars, trucks, motorcycles, etc.), gets a lot of press these days. From the point of view of vendors near the bottom of the value chain it can seem that this just adds another item to the list of product requirements; as long as you have that covered, everything else remains pretty much the same in your business cycle. That would be nice but it’s quite inaccurate at least for those selling components, such as IP, which wind up in the final product.

Back in the mists of time (5 years or so ago), vehicle electronics were pretty simple: a number of small control units, simple 16-bit or maybe 32-bit MCUs, spread around the car to handle braking, engine control chassis control and so on. Then we all got excited about putting more intelligence into our ride. Automakers started with automated driving assistance – lane keeping, intelligent cruise control and the like. This takes real compute horsepower, far beyond the capabilities of an MCU. And decisions you want these engines to make, such as, “should I brake because I see a pedestrian crossing the road”, can’t be distributed around the car. So the next logical step was to architect for a central brain, digesting sensor input from around the car in support of its decisions.

Which in part drove the need for Automotive Ethernet, because that’s a lot of data you have to send – just think of a video stream from a camera. And we realized we needed a lot of these sensors, partly to cover different directions but also for different capabilities – more cameras, radar and lidar for ranging and speed information for objects around the car and ultrasonic sensors for parking control. Each pumping masses of data to that central brain to drive time-critical decisions.

Hmm – maybe need to rethink the architecture a bit. So we are now adding more intelligence to the sensors, increasingly in ASICs for performance, so they can just send back object lists rather than raw images to reduce the load on the Ethernet. But that’s not quite right either because sometimes we want both objects and images – detect a pedestrian but also show the image on the cabin monitor so the driver can decide if she thinks there’s really a problem or not. Then there’s sensor fusion; maybe recognition needs to look at both the camera and radar images, not just objects, to draw a conclusion. Bottom-line, there is no “right” architecture – central or distributed or a mix – at least today, so OEMs pick candidates which best serve their competitive and safety needs. Here, Safety of the Intended Function (SOTIF, beyond 26262) is also becoming more prominent although it’s unclear yet how this will affect hardware developers; it would be surprising to hear it will have no impact.

Then you get down to building these chips for which you have to ensure functional safety. Systematic errors are dealt with through the process side of ISO 26262 on which I and others have already written plenty. Random errors triggered by cosmic ray-induced ionization are also a concern. Back in those same mists of time, processes use for automotive electronics were, per Kurt Shuler (VP marketing at Arteris IP) “Cro-Magnon”; 50nm or thereabouts, less susceptible to this kind of problem. But you can’t build these big ML-centric chips in 50nm; ADAS devices are now going into 7nm where ionization is much more of a problem. In your phone or TV, this is not a big deal, but in a safety-critical system random errors have to be weeded out, at minimum by detection, better still by correction. In ISO 26262 Part 2, you and the integrator need to deliver credible evidence that the safety mechanisms provided are sufficient.

Since I’m talking about Arteris IP, the interconnect between CPUs and ML accelerators and all the other goodies in these big devices, this runs to tens of millions of gates itself, a major candidate for random error detection/correction. This can be through parity checks, ECC or even logic duplication with units running in lockstep. Though of course where to insert such mechanisms rests on decisions the integrator will make based on failure mode effects and diagnostic analysis (FMEDA) with planned detection/mitigation fixes. A network-on-chip (NoC) interconnect is built bottom-up so the safety mechanisms can be programmed in, as needed, bottom-up. Other IPs will often have to work harder to provide similar levels of protection (and confidence); retro-fitting safety is a lot harder than designing it in from the outset.

So far, so complicated, though maybe no big surprises above what you already knew. But now look at the support and business cycle from an IP vendor point of view. During design, the vendor supports the integrator in joint discussions on how to meet functional safety goals with respect to that IP and helping the architect and integrator as needed. The integrator tapes out, when everything goes relatively quiet for maybe a year or more as the integrator works with their customer, maybe a tier 1. Then requests start rolling back to you; the integrator wants to know more about how something was designed, for verification reports and confirmation measures and you have to support them in their responses. Point being that “signoff”, measured by when you get paid, moves higher in the chain and later. Kurt said they have seen 5-6 years in one case, although competitive pressures are driving that down somewhat. Royalties as always come later still. Another twist; IP vendors now have to keep everything that was built in a lock box for 10 years.

Still think you want to sell IP into the automotive chain? There’s certainly a lot of promise. More big chips in the central brain and in intelligent sensors together offer a lot of opportunity. The US, Europe and Israel markets are all very aggressive in developing ADAS and ML. China has been a laggard but is coming on strong and is not held back by legacy so much. They also see a big tie-in with AI where they are very strong. Kurt tells me there are over a couple of hundred funded startups in automotive and AI in China.

That said, this is not an easy way to get rich. You’ll have to put a lot of investment into supporting your customers, supporting their customers and so on up to the top. The market is very dynamic, so what “done” means may not always be clear. You may not be paid for quite a long time. But if you have the grit to hang on and keep your customer happy the whole way through, you might just be successful!

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eSilicon Expands Expertise in 7nm

eSilicon Expands Expertise in 7nm
by Tom Simon on 02-26-2019 at 12:00 pm
Categories: eSilicon, FinFET, RISC-V, Semiconductor Services

At SemiWiki we usually don’t write about the press releases we are sent. However, a recent press release by eSilicon caught my eye and prompted me to call Mike Gianfagna, eSilicon Vice President of Marketing. The press release is not just about one thing, rather it focuses on a number of interesting things that together show their momentum, especially in the 7nm space. So, in my conversation with Mike I dug a bit deeper to better understand their progress. 7nm is a topic that gets a lot of talk, but eSilicon can point to some pretty significant and very real milestones at 7nm.

Not that long ago eSilicon announced their NeuASIC IP platform that targets AI designs at 7nm. It offers specialized AI blocks that perform convolution operations and acceleration of AI tasks. Also included in this are HBM2 PHY IP. Similarly, they recently announced their 56G long reach 7nm SerDes. In talking to Mike, he was quick to point out that If you look at AI designs, they have moved memory from large instances to localized memory associated with each processing element. This helps eliminate memory access bottlenecks that these designs are prone to.

In many cases 50% of the area on AI chips is dedicated to memory. Interestingly, about 250 of eSilicon’s 500 person design team is focused on memory design. In short, they have significant resources to apply to these leading-edge memories. This is big leverage point for reducing power and area.

Another focus of Mike’s comments had to do with what it takes to deliver silicon for today’s systems. He pointed out that Apple early on figured out that the processor chip was a big differentiator for their products. We now live in an age where most of the big systems companies are well aware that the SOCs that go into their designs are critical to product success and differentiation. This is why we see many very large systems companies driving SOC development. So, it goes without saying that these are type of companies that would look to eSilicon for ASICs to incorporate into their products.

However, delivering silicon to systems companies results in a totally different kind of engagement than there used to be for earlier ASICs. At 65nm each team could engage sequentially. You had the front-end guys in at the kick off and brought test in later closer to the end of the cycle. No longer. The criteria for success now is having the chip working in the targeted system, not just delivery “to spec”.

Mike said that the project kick-off teams now have “all hands” to ensure that each phase of the project will run smoothly. Another example of this phenomenon is that the bring up team from eSilicon is at the customer several months ahead of silicon delivery to look at firmware, test methodology, etc.

Mike and I also spoke about SerDes design and how it has changed over the years. Mike says their customers need to measure the SerDes performance completely isolated from all the test fixtures and equipment. This is a big task given the high frequencies and tight tolerances. This is why they partnered with Wild River to develop a test board to allow de-embedding. A 56G SerDes still is very much dependent on the package, board, connectors and cable for its performance. So, in a way the test board best practices can serve as a reference design to help guide system integration.

The current generation of SerDes will actually monitor its own performance and adapt to the operating environment. eSilicon uses a RISC-V processor core inside the digital section of their SerDes to control its operation. It’s even possible to open up a graphical interface to the internals of the SerDes to view its functioning.

eSilicon now has silicon back for two different advanced FinFET designs and is going through bring up. These chips incorporate advanced IP – high speed SerDes, specialized IP, advanced memories, 2.5D HBM, advanced packaging, etc.The effort required to build an effective platform for SOC design at 7nm is immense.eSiliconhas worked hard to achieve success at previous nodes such as 28nm, 16/14nm and now on 7nm.This is the kind of silicon that will be used in data centers, automotive intelligence and other demanding applications. For more background on their progress take a look at the press release on their website.

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Interview with Bob Smith, Executive Director of the ESD Alliance

Interview with Bob Smith, Executive Director of the ESD Alliance
by Daniel Nenni on 02-26-2019 at 7:00 am
Categories: ESD Alliance, Events, Semiconductor Services
1 Comment

Bob Smith is executive director of the ESD (for electronic system design) Alliance that many Semiwiki readers will remember as the EDA Consortium. As Bob explains, the semiconductor industry is changing and evolving, and the electronic system design ecosystem with it. I encourage you to take a break from what you’re doing and read about the ESD Alliance and the new event, ES Design West.
Continue reading “Interview with Bob Smith, Executive Director of the ESD Alliance”

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Mentor Automating Design Compliance with Power-Aware Simulation HyperLynx and Xpedition Flow

Mentor Automating Design Compliance with Power-Aware Simulation HyperLynx and Xpedition Flow
by Camille Kokozaki on 02-25-2019 at 12:00 pm
Categories: EDA, Siemens EDA

High-speed design requires addressing signal integrity (SI) and power integrity (PI) challenges. Power integrity has a frequency component. The Power Distribution Network (PDN) in designs has 2 different purposes: providing power to the chip, and acting as a power plane reference for transmission-line like propagating signals. One must pay attention to traces going from one layer to the next and to return current flowing on one power plane, when return current has to jump to another plane somehow. The challenges include PI, SI, return path analysis, EM modeling and an understanding of metal and dielectric structure. HyperLynx solves those challenges.

A vast bulk of designers do not know how to do this high-speed analysis, getting to a point where experts are needed. Todd Westerhoff, HyperLynx product manager, calls it the ‘expert bottleneck’ during a chat at DesignCon 2019. He states “With signal integrity design challenges, it is harder to find the expert and the time. HyperLynx relieves the need to have a dedicated SI person. Point tools offer the best in this and that. HyperLynx brings all this together. If you are designing a 112G device and wondering how to perform the complex analysis, with a signal out of one device on board, through a via and off, you will look at each part of the signal hierarchy. How does the field behave? You do not decompose at all and put into an electromagnetic solver, as this is too big of a problem. You can section it, and bring it back together. Can you do a distributed analysis? You can look at a whole path and break the trace into different segments and make it a 2D problem, but when you go through a via and board coupling, it becomes a 3D problem. The current next to a via becomes irregular. Far enough from a via, you get a constant cross-section and solve through the disruption. This is not complicated, it is standard housekeeping, but it becomes difficult not to make mistakes. HyperLynx takes care of that.”

When modeling interconnect, you bring the board database from the CAD system, the tool looks at the layout, and finds where the nets are. EM analysis produces S-parameters. Once the channel is modeled, the simulators become simulator specific but are still agnostic on the data format.

HyperLynx is a suite of tools which include signal integrity (SI), power integrity (PI), an electromagnetic (EM) solver, a DRC expert rule-based checker for problems like thermal issues. In rules-based geometry checking (DRC), the checks return currents in terms of signal propagation. Usually, PCB designers manually review the database and sometimes they eyeball the layout and turn on traces. The problem is that it is easy to miss something. Pattern-based, DRC geometry checking extended to many levels, EM modeling, simulation, and modeling technology are needed. The goal is reading the layout and checking for common problems without modeling all the IO. There are limited ways to do what-ifs and doing an incremental analysis. Some items to note:

● There is a pre and a post route signal integrity analysis distinction: Pre-route is what-if, post-route is verification and validation.
● All tool modules are integrated so patch releases are in one release.
● HyperLynx is leading in making simulation easy to use while preventing costly repairs.
● One can open HyperLynx from within Xpedition. HyperLynx has the ability to create reports for certification including electrical safety compliance.
● There is a big gap between how many SI and PI experts are needed and how many are available. With the pervasive expert bottleneck, the problem is getting worse, thus the need to take sophisticated analysis to a broader audience. Managing expert availability is always a challenge. Using the analogy of vinyl records, Westerhoff quips ‘you want the needle to stay on the record, but it keeps skipping’.

Reducing Certification Risks

One of the increasing challenges for system, board and chip designs is comprehensive automated design checking and verification while meeting the increasingly demanding certification requirements. Manually verifying a schematic, layout and prepping for manufacturing is time-consuming. IEC safety standards need to be met and power and signal integrity issues need to be addressed in a timely fashion.
These verification tools work in any flow and can be sold standalone. However, their integration with Mentor’s Xpedition flow has an advantage. This allows the person performing the schematic capture or layout design the ability to fix the errors without the usual back and forth of simulation and without adopting a new tool.

Automated Design Compliance Testing with Xpedition Validate features include:

● Fully automated proven schematic integrity tool designed to replace visual inspection
● Exhaustive power and technology aware test of all schematic nets
● Parametric error detection
● Warnings highlighting poor design
● Major EDA tools agnostic
● No additional infrastructure required
● 150+ automated checks
● 6+ million library parts

Examples of checks performed include:

● Open collector/drain
● Poor practices (lack of needed pull-ups/pulldowns)
● Power/ground connectivity
● Component power checks
● Multiple or missing power supplies
● Differential pin checks
● Unconnected nets or buses
● Off-board net collection
● Overloaded pins
● Unconnected mandatory pins
● Nets missing driver
● Diode orientation

HyperLynx Scalable High-Speed System Design

A study of 100 customer designs showed that direct savings exceeded $51K per project and of those 100 designs, 69 were spared a re-spin with 18 time-to-market days reduction.

● After models are assigned, the designer can scan for voltages on the nets or export from CSV format.
● The IEC standards are embedded in the rules.
● Automatic checks such as output threshold can be run.
● Power net checks decoupling caps detection, return path reference point changes.
● HyperLynx DRC can be run inside layout, can check 3D, multilayer creepage, a big safety issue.
● Automating manufacturing Valor does those checks, allowing a move from proto to production.
● Will check weak solder joints, flex conductive materials, manufacturing issues.
● Valor includes 35 million industry standard manufacturing part numbers and will do a virtual prototype of the build. Valor can also be run inside the layout tool. If constraints are changed, Valor will read these changes dynamically and update.
● Automated compliance checking for schematic, layout and manufacturing.

Physical Design Checks Certification Risk Reduction with Valor NPI

HyperLynx Model-Free Analysis Flow

An automated Design Rule Check finds and fixes marginal and questionable practices and identifies simulation issues before embarking on a detailed analysis which checks common design decisions and applies standards-based verification followed by silicon-accurate verification that would allow signoff. This simple screening for errors and the use of protocol models minimizes expensive vendor-specific simulation and lengthy runs.

The power-aware simulation includes 3 separate types of Signal Power Distribution network (PDN) interactions:

● Multiple driver switching and power supply effects
● Via-to-via coupling through PDN cavity
● Non-ideal trace return path effects.

This power-aware simulation reduces overdesign and reliance on guidelines that may add design cost and complexity. Another benefit of power-aware simulation is the ability to make design tradeoffs for high-volume, low-cost, layer and space constrained designs.

Power-Aware: HyperLynx DDRx Design Flow

With the ability for the designers to do their own validation, the experts are freed up to focus on more complex multi-physics analysis for specific tough problems. This best practice allows shortened design cycles, reduced re-spins and higher product quality with errors caught early in the design cycle.
Mentor automated design compliance testing tools reduce certification risk with shorter turnaround time due to the following:

● Automated tools from Mentor allow every net, component, or scenario in a design to be checked, and are not just limited to critical areas the designer has time to check
● These tools work in any flow and can be sold standalone. However, their integration with Mentor’s Xpedition flow provides an advantage. This allows the person performing the schematic capture or layout design the ability to fix the errors without the usual back and forth of simulation and without adopting a new tool since the compliance testing works with current Xpedition GUIs and Xpedition format
● Certifications issues are identified in real-time, not at the end of the design cycle.
HyperLynx and Xpedition flow allow model-free analysis, power-aware simulation well suited for high-speed design, ensuring reliability, safety compliance with reduced cycle-times and certification risk in a cost-effective way.

[More information on HyperLynx]