Process design kit (PDK) standards are one area that could greatly help reduce the disproportionate time and effort required to realize the analog portion of a design. PDKs have existed for two decades and provide access to foundry-verified data files for such AMS design elements as parameterized layout cells (PCells). However, most have been constructed […]
The increasing capability and performance of microcontrollers suggests that they can now reach markets for which they were never previously envisioned, particularly as 32-bit devices move into the mainstream. However, prototyping and even researching new application spaces is difficult with existing tools. These are highly optimized for existing uses, but as such very unwieldy when […]
The article describes LSI’s work on the use of a single SystemVerilog-based (SV) verification environment for both the chip and its submodules. The environment is based on SV’s Advanced Verification Methodology (AVM) libraries, although alternatives are available. One particular reason for choosing AVM was that LSI wanted to leverage its transaction-level modeling capabilities as well […]
System designs have traditionally achieved reliability through redundancy, even though this inevitably increases component count, logic size, system power and cost. The article describes the design separation feature in Altera software that seeks to address these as well as today’s conflicting needs for low power, small size and high functionality while maintaining high reliability and […]
To the world at large, Junot Diaz is well on the way to becoming a literary superstar. His novel The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao has already earned critical superlatives and the 2008 Pulitzer Prize for Literature. And deservedly so. It is a fabulous, accessible book, expressed in language that—when you buy a copy […]
For two decades, the benefits of ESL and abstractions have been supposedly confined to engineers working on digital designs and to system architects. Analog and mixed-signal (AMS) design has largely remained a ‘circuit level’ activity. This article shows that tools exist that now also allow AMS engineers to exploit abstraction, and that can make all […]
The article provides an overview of one common theme in the papers presented at a special session of the 2009 Design Automation Conference, Dawn of the 22nm Design Era. As such, we would recommend that readers wishing to access still more detail on this topic (in particular, on device structures for 22nm and project management […]
During the CEO Panel at this year’s Design Automation Conference, the men leading the three largest EDA vendors stressed that their industry can do well in a slump because it both contributes to the ongoing battle against technological limits, and enables the delivery of ever greater efficiency. But another, parallel question raised by this year’s […]
When we first reviewed the consumer electronics market at the beginning of the year, there were still hopes that growth could remain statistically flat despite global economic woes. However, at the beginning of the summer, the Consumer Electronics Association revised its forecast down from January’s -0.7% to -7.7%, implying total factory-gate sales of $165B. The […]
USB offers many advantages for use on embedded systems, although software developers remain concerned about the additional complexity it can bring to an application. For example, software drivers for SPI, RS-232 and other traditional serial protocols typically involve little more than read and write routines, while USB software drivers can span thousands of lines, incorporating […]