The Power Estimation Challenge

Is it time for the industry to devise a nimbler, faster and more efficient methodology? Source: Semiconductor Engineering If you wonder how important low power is in chip design today, consider the recent news in the blogosphere reporting the controversy surrounding Qualcomm’s Snapdragon 810 SoC — the company’s first flagship 64-bit chip, which will most likely … Read more

Why the OS is the Hub of a Hardware Emulator

The OS shields the software from the hardware and assures the compatibility of any new and old software with any new or old hardware platform For more than a decade, I have been following the practice of upgrading my laptop every three years. I do so for more than one reason. After three years of … Read more

Design Compilation in Hardware Emulators

Design capacity in hardware emulators, also the compilation flow, is heavily dependent on the type of technology used in the verification engine. Source:  EETimes In my last blog post, I described differences in the maximum design capacity of a software simulator versus that of a hardware emulator, highlighting that not all emulators are created equal. In … Read more

Lauro on CDNS Palladium-XP2 vs. MENT Veloce 2 vs. SNPS Zebu 3

Source: DeepChip Subject: Lauro on CDNS Palladium-XP2 vs. MENT Veloce 2 vs. SNPS Zebu 3 > Category 1: > > – Cadence Palladium. Hats off to Cadence for being pioneers in > emulation and sustaining innovation to maintain a very competitive > product year-over-year. > > – Mentor Veloce. Their revenue numbers show emulation is a … Read more

The Melting of the ICE Age

Many designers still use ICE, but a designer’s verification perspective typically changes once he or she experiences transaction-based verification through emulation Source: Electronic Deisgn Hardware emulation is the only verification tool that can be deployed in more than one mode of operation. In fact, it can be used in four main modes, with some of them … Read more

Hardware/Software Planets Align With Hardware Emulation

Source:  Embedded Systems Engineering It wasn’t all that long ago when hardware engineers and embedded software developers saw no common ground. It was all but the semiconductor world’s version of “Men are from Mars, Women are from Venus.” While they may have been the same gender, worked for the same company and attended the same … Read more

Hardware Emulation: One Verification Tool, Unending Possibilities

Verification Consultant Lauro Rizzatti explains why hardware emulation really is the most versatile of verification tools Source: EE Times Today, hardware emulation has become an eminently popular verification tool. Two independent reasons concurred to this success: In the past few years, the emulation user community has expanded exponentially by the addition of software developers to the … Read more

What to Run on Day One of Emulation

Source: EDACafe Many of you are probably familiar with Lauro Rizzatti, who has written countless articles on the value of emulation for verifying system-on-chip (SoC) designs and been an occasional guest blogger here on The Breker Trekker. Lauro recently published an article in Electronic Engineering Times that really caught our attention. We could not possibly agree more with … Read more

Understanding Design Capacity in Hardware Emulators

Verification Consultant Lauro Rizzatti explains that the three different types of hardware emulator offer different design capacities, thereby giving users more options Source: EE Times Unlike software simulators, whose specifications do not mention limits in design capacity, a primary specification of hardware emulators is the maximum size of the designs they can handle. More to the … Read more