For Software Developers, Hardware Emulation Rules!

Booting an OS such as Linux gets the designer to the starting line, but how does the real work commence for complex multicore designs destined for gaming, digital signage, and more? Source: Embedded Systems Engineering When software developers hear the word emulation, they often think software emulators and not hardware emulation. That’s changing, though, as the … Read more

A Match Made in Chip Verification Heaven: Simulation and Emulation

Given the complexity of chip designs and the various verification stages along the way, project teams use both simulation and emulation in their verification flows Source: EETimes Simulators — for both analog and digital design — have been around for so long (~40 years now) that most project teams take them for granted. Hardware emulation has … Read more

Hardware emulation answers Brooks’ Law

Given the complexity of chip designs and the various verification stages along the way, project teams use both simulation and emulation in their verification flows Source: Tech Design Forum Someone reminded me recently about Brooks’ Law. It states that adding more software developers to a late-running project will make it even later, and is credited to Fred … Read more

2016 Prediction: More Hardware Emulation Experts Than Ever Before

Source: EDACafé Industry onlines have been posting 2016 predictions since the beginning of the year, so why should EDACafe be any different? Herein is my 2016 prediction: The Electronics Industry will see more hardware emulation experts and specialists this year than ever before due in large measure to the widespread proliferation of hardware emulators. These experts … Read more

11 Myths About Hardware Emulation

Source: Electronic Design Misconceptions and outright falsehoods can skew the perception of hardware emulation. These include: 1. Hardware emulators are verification tools relegated to the backroom and used only on the most complex designs that need more rigorous debugging. This was true in the early days of their existence in the late 1980s and early 1990s until … Read more

Hardware Emulation Refuses to Stay in One Lane

Source: EDACafé One day recently, I was considering the varied use models for hardware emulation. It brought back a long-forgotten memory of an evening bowling in New England, where I lived for several years in the ‘80s. New England has a quaint, little-known (outside of the region) type of bowling called Candlepin. While the play is … Read more

Risk Avoidance, Hardware Emulation Style

Risk aversion, which comes from the uncertainty associated with committing a design to silicon, is the name of the game. Source: EETimes December is normally a month in which we take a moment to look back over the preceeding year. With this in mind, I skimmed through the blog posts I’ve written for EE Times in … Read more

2015 DVCon Europe Report: Self-Driving Cars, Huge Opportunity for EDA

Source: EDACafé The 2015 DVCon/Europe was held in Munich at the Holliday Inns City Center Hotel November 11-12. November in Munich brought back long ago memories of a snow covered city with freezing temperatures when I lived there in the 80s. Not this November. Warm, sunny days crowned the conference and invited attendees to take a … Read more

Hardware Emulation: One Tool Fits All

Source: EDACafé The 2015 DVCon/Europe was held in Munich at the Holliday Inns City Center Hotel November 11-12. November in Munich brought back long ago memories of a snow covered city with freezing temperatures when I lived there in the 80s. Not this November. Warm, sunny days crowned the conference and invited attendees to take a … Read more

Hardware Emulation: Three Decades of Evolution – Part III

Source:  Verification Horizon THE LAST DECADE At the beginning of the third decade, circa 2005, system and chip engineers were developing evermore complex designs that mixed many interconnected blocks, embedded multicore processors, digital signal processors (DSPs) and a plethora of peripherals, supported by large memories. The combination of all of these components gave real meaning … Read more