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The acid test of any conference is how long after the keynotes, panels, and demos wrap up, the information and lessons learned linger in your mind.  Like this fall's CDNLive series, ARM Techcon 2010 is passing the test of time given the raft of serious new technology announcements (the significantly enhanced Mali-T604 Graphics Processor technology (GPU) is but one example) in addition to the meaty content presented…

In my last blog post, I related a story from my engineering past in which I learned the hard way about the value of anticipating and verifying corner-case conditions. That story was technical in nature, having to do with inadequate verification of software. However, sometimes the corner cases we encounter in life are not technical, but rather a series of relatively inconsequential incidents that line up in just the right…

The SPB16.3 release of Allegro PCB Editor now provides the ability to resize line width and gap of differential pairs. Designers are faced with challenges driven by time, cost and quality. A change request can come from the electrical engineers that mandates that differential pair gaps and widths be resized. This can entail hours to hundreds of hours ripping up and rerouting entire sections of the design to the new constraints…

OK, so the title is perhaps a little optimistic but I'm playing off the saying "keep your friends close, but your enemies closer" (The Godfather Part II: Francis Ford Coppola and Mario Puza). The corollary in custom design is to bring the understanding of parasitic effects as early as possible in the design flow, so there is less chance of surprises later.

In custom design there are a few ways…

Heads-up Team Verify subscribers: on his "Industry Insights" blog Richard Goering just interviewed Zocalo president Howard Martin about assertion-based verification methodology -- including the dangers of an ad-hoc approach to ABV.  To read the interview, click here.

For some additional background on Zocalo, recall this discussion from DAC:

If video fails to open, click here.

Additionally, Zocalo has been…

The SPB16.3 release of OrCAD Capture now allows you to create intersheet references on flat designs, simple designs, and complex hierarchical designs. Design navigation in Capture now also includes a signal navigation feature to navigate through the connected signals on a design. This feature allows you to select a signal that you want to trace and then browse through all the connected signals on the design.

Intersheet…

There were several questions about measuring transistor f_max in comments posted to my previous Measuring Transistor f_t and Simulating MOS Transistor f_t blog posts. So in this posting we will look at simulating transistor s-parameters and device characteristics...

An obvious criticism of my previous post SKILL for the Skilled: Making Programs Clear and Concise is that clarity is subjective. What is clear to one person may be confusing to someone else, especially to someone who is accustomed to doing things the hard way.

I'd also suggest the converse is also true. If you are accustomed to using a programming language that encourages an imperative style, you may become…

Preface: are you having trouble (re-)igniting interest in formal, muti-engine, and Assertion-Based Verification (ABV) among your colleagues and management?  If so, the following article is the perfect primer to share with such skeptics (whose knowledge of ABV might be way out of date.)

Like many things in EDA, what I'm about to say isn't conceptually new, but after years of development and promises the technology and methodology…

Mechanical part support! It's here in the Allegro Design Workbench (ADW16.3) release! 

There are new data model types in ADW16.3 that provide a solution for the support of mechanical models in the library and design flow. The mechanical model types supported in this release include three basic model categories – Allegro PCB Editor, Design Entry HDL (DEHDL), and Mechanical Kits.

Allegro PCB Editor mechanical models…

MDL is an immensely powerful feature in our simulators that allows designers to run better simulations quicker.  Below is a quick demo to get you started -- and be sure to try out the workshop in your hierarchy under <MMSIM_installation>/tools/spectre/examples/MDL_workshop.

If video fails to play click here.

Below are some solid SpectreMDL examples and tips from our Support knowledgebase that show what else it…

Measurement Description Language (MDL) is an immensely powerful feature in our simulators that is frequently overlooked.  MDL gives the designer advanced control of our simulators allowing them to run better simulations quicker.  Below is a quick demo to get you started. Also, be sure to try out the workshop in your hierarchy under <MMSIM_installation>/tools/spectre/examples/MDL_workshop.

If video fails to…

PCB Librarian Expert (sometimes known as Part Developer or PDV) is the librarian tool used for generating all the parts that are used in Allegro Design Entry HDL (DEHDL) and Allegro System Architect (ASA) based designs. These parts contain symbols which are placed on the schematic canvas and connected to capture the design logic. In the SPB16.3 release, with the availability of font support in DEHDL, this same font support…

I've just returned from CDNLive! India in Bangalore, fired up with the huge crowd, their avid interest in Cadence and our products, and both the quantity and the quality of the user sessions. Of course I was impressed with CDNLive! here in Silicon Valley too; I blogged about that a couple of weeks ago. But the India show has at least as many attendees, plus there was something extra in their level of enthusiasm…

This is second in a series of blog posts about making your design cycles shorter and more predictable for increasingly complex PCB designs. In my last post I talked about using ECSets and Topology Apply capabilities for high-speed standards based interfaces such as DDRx and PCI Express.

Continuing on that theme, implementing high-speed signals can be a challenge as the delay tolerances shrink and matching requirements…

The SPB16.3 PCB SI release has simplified the use of case management.

In previous releases, a Signoise case management dialog often appeared after changing SI parameters or before running a simulation. This dialog is shown below:

 
The purpose of this dialog was to allow you to control what to do with existing simulation data that might now be out of date. The options provided by this dialog are:

• Save the existing simulation…

Shortly after DAC 2010, Gabe Morretti wrote a couple of interesting blogs (reference links below) on how associating the name "verification" with formal was a bit of a misnomer.  (Just to be clear, Gabe was referring to formal property verification (FPV) and not formal equivalence verification.)  He feels the label should be "Formal Design" and justifies this by the fact that assertions need to be developed simultaneously…