Community

Blogs
Forums
Resources

Latest Forum Posts

Visit the User Forums »

Latest Blog Posts

Verification: Specman, e, and EDA360

teamspecman

The EDA industry is all abuzz over the new vision paper "EDA360 - The Way Forward for Electronic Design"; and for good reason - in 2010 the electronics world is finally starting to transform in ways that have been long anticipated by Specmaniacs and our "Trailblazer" program partners. Specifically, quoting this document:
"EDA360 helps close the profitability gap [i.e. the difference between what you…
- 8 Jun 2010
SoC and IP: MemCon 2010 agenda posted. Your only problem: Which free track do you need to attend?

archive

We’ve just posted the agenda for MemCon 2010. If you touch semiconductor memory in any way--use it, make it, sell it, or just dream about it--you need to come to this 1-day conference. This is the only place in the world where you can spend just one day and find out all you need to know about semiconductor memory technology and the memory markets for the coming year. This year’s focus is on DRAM, but that’s not all you…
- 8 Jun 2010
SoC and IP: Apple controls 20% of NAND Flash market with iPhone and iPad says DRAMeXchange

archive

With Apple fervor pheromones still heavy in the air from yesterday’s introduction of the iPhone 4G at the Apple Worldwide Developers Conference in San Francisco’s Moscone West convention center, DRAMeXchange sent out emails estimating that Apple currently controls approximately 20% of the NAND Flash market between its iPhone and iPad product lines. The email went on to estimate first-half 2010 iPad shipments at 1.7M units…
- 8 Jun 2010
Verification: India Takes The Lead By Hosting The First Two “ClubTs” in 2010

teamspecman

Specman/e users in India were very excited to see the first two ClubT events hosted in Noida and Bengaluru, India on May 10^th and May 13^th respectively. Overall, there were nearly 125 Specman/e users who attended these two "highly interactive and technology rich" ClubTs.
Customers like TI, Samsung and others presented technical articles on how they've used Specman/e in their advanced verification environments…
- 8 Jun 2010
Verification: System Development – What To See At DAC 2010

Ran Avinun

The EDA360 vision paper specifies key System Realization challenges. Embedded software development and verification are rapidly becoming the key increasing cost factors for the electronics industry. Integration and re-use are becoming critical for th...
- 7 Jun 2010
SoC and IP: INDILINX reveals use of its Barefoot SSD controller in HLDS’ HyDrive optical/solid-state hybrid drive

archive

This blog has twice written up the newly announced HyDrive optical/solid-state hybrid drive from Hitachi-LG Data Storage (HLDS), which was formally announced last week at Computex in Taiwan. (See “More details on and system-design implications of the Hitachi-LG Data Storage HyDrive Optical/Solid-State Disk” and “How does a hybrid SSD/optical drive make sense?”) The HyDrive combines a Blu-ray/DVD burner optical disc with…
- 7 Jun 2010
SoC and IP: Denali’s never-ending list of parties expands to Flash Memory Summit: August 18

archive

Seems like the list of Denali parties for Summer 2010 never ends. Denali is heavily participating in the upcoming Flash Memory Summit held in August in Silicon Valley and the company is sponsoring a big offsite party on August 18 at The Loft Bar & Bistro in downtown San Jose (90 S. 2nd Street). It’s free, but you have to register for a ticket ahead of time. https://www.denali.com/en/events/register/denali_party.jsp…
- 7 Jun 2010
SoC and IP: Verification tips and GLOBALFOUNDRIES low-power process to be discussed in Denali’s free DAC Presentations

archive

Going to DAC? Interested in making your verification processes more effective? Interested in GLOBALFOUNDRIES’ new 65 LPe low-power IC fabrication process? You can attend free presentations on both of these topics at Denali’s DAC booth #1183. Here’s the schedule:

“How to Improve Validation Effectiveness & Efficiency with Customizable Transaction Logs & Protocol Checkers” Speaker: Ravi Kalyanaraman, Marvell…
- 7 Jun 2010
SoC and IP: Last call for Denali’s DAC party: Anaheim, June 14

archive

It’s the Denali DAC party for 2010. The big one. With the bells and whistles. With the EDA360 Idol contest. The one with the outrageous and copious quantities of music, fun, and booze. At the House of Blues. That one.

There’s no registration at DAC. You must register this week at http://a.denali.com/4H. Then go to Denali’s booth first thing Monday morning at DAC to pick up your ticket. You see, the party’s Monday night…
- 7 Jun 2010
Verification: Bloggers and Journalists and Gadflies, Oh My!

tomacadence

There has been quite a bit of discussion out in the blogosphere about the similarities and differences among traditional journalists, paid bloggers, "independent" bloggers, industry gadflies, and commentators of all sorts in EDA (and electronics in general). See threads from John Blyler and Harry Gries on this topic, including how DAC is evolving to handles the different types of attendees, whether the Deep…
- 7 Jun 2010
SoC and IP: An inconvenient truth about using DDR3 SDRAM for embedded designs

archive

DDR (double data rate) memory chips mounted on DIMMs have long been the mainstay of the PC and server industries. The resulting sales volumes often make these DIMMs the best value available today in terms of cost per bit. PC DIMMs have been 64 bits wide through all DDR generations from the original DDR (also called DDR1) parts to today’s DDR3 chips. Many embedded designs also use PC DIMMs because their high sales volumes…
- 4 Jun 2010
Verification: EDA360 And The "Paperback Computer"

jvh3

Have you ever heard an assertion that's so intriguing and farsighted that it sticks in your mind over a period of years; even decades? Imagine that the given thought is so resonant, that whenever a related innovation appears the idea is instantly recalled as if you were just talking about it. For me, one such notion is the "paperback computer" -- a computing device so cheap that it's as physically inconsequential…
- 3 Jun 2010
SoC and IP: Storage Analyst Jim Handy says “NAND Cache is Back!”

archive

Storage analyst and Grand Poobah Jim Handy has just released a free White Paper titled “NAND Cache is Back: SSD Performance at an HDD Price” and it’s worth a look if you are interested in either the market for NAND Flash or have any interest in PC and server storage. The reason this White Paper is worth a look is because Handy goes into substantial quantitative detail with extensive graphs in his analysis and mapping…
- 3 Jun 2010
SoC and IP: Kingston shows HyperX USB 3.0 SSD prototype at Computex

archive

Earlier, this blog reported on OCZ’s Enyo USB 3.0 SSD and now at a private event held at this week’s Computex show in Taiwan, memory vendor Kingston has shown a prototype USB 3.0 SSD (as reported by Tom’s Hardware and Softpedia). Slated for August availability, the HyperX SSD will reportedly be offered in capacities of 64, 128, and 256 Gbytes. The USB 3.0 connection gives the drive peak read and write speeds of 195 and…
- 3 Jun 2010
Verification: Making an EDA360 System Realization Investment Through Standards Support

Steve Brown

Cadence is a sponsor of the Open SystemC Initiative (OSCI) standards organization. We are providing finanical and leadership resources to facilitate the creation and promotion of standards for system development. We continue to invest in OSCI and its...
- 3 Jun 2010
SoC and IP: Introduced at Computex: OCZ’s speedy RevoDrive brings PCIe SSD to consumer-class PCs

archive

PC add-on vendor OCZ plays in several high-performance PC component markets including DRAMs and SSDs. The company is at the Computex 2010 event in Taiwan this week and is reportedly introducing a high-performance SSD on a PCIe x4 plug-in card. Anandtech’s coverage of the introduction reports that the RevoDrive is based on a pair of Sandforce SF-1200 controller chips in a RAID configuration. (The photo on the Anandtech…
- 2 Jun 2010
Verification: C-to-Silicon Compiler 10.1 - Ease Of Use And RTL QoR

Steve Brown

In the continuing effort to make high-level synthesis more viable to mainstream RTL designers, Cadence has released version 10.1 of the Cadence C-to-Silicon Compiler (CtoS).This new release continues the recent trend towards overall ease-of-use and Q...
- 2 Jun 2010
SoC and IP: Hitachi’s Z HDDs: Will 2.5mm less height make a difference? For SSDs?

archive

Hitachi just shaved 2.5mm off of the top of its 2.5-inch laptop hard drives, producing a line of 5400- and 7200-rpm, single-platter HDDs called the Z series (Z is the height axis, get it?) with capacities of 160 to 320 Gbytes. (Press release here.) Although there are standard specs for a 2.5-inch drive’s width and depth, height is not part of the size spec but some heights have become de facto standards. Initially, 2…
- 1 Jun 2010
SoC and IP: More details on and system-design implications of the Hitachi-LG Data Storage HyDrive Optical/Solid-State Disk

archive

As discussed last week in this blog, Hitachi-LG Data Storage (HLDS)--an OEM vendor of optical drives that’s a joint venture between Hitachi and LG--introduced a combo optical/solid-state drive called HyDrive last week at Computex 2010 in Taipei with a few more technical details about the drive. (See: How does a hybrid SSD/optical drive make sense?) The initial version of the HyDrive will reportedly be based on a DVD burner…
- 1 Jun 2010
System, PCB, & Package Design : What's Good About AMS Simulator And Cursors? You’ll Need The SPB16.3 Release To See!

Jerry GenPart
With the SPB16.3 release of AMS Simulator, several new cursor enhancements are available:
Setting cursor width and color
Placing cursors across multiple traces and plots
Exporting and copying cursor data
Dockable cursor window

Read below to see these new features.
_______________________________________________________________________________________________________
Setting cursor width and color

The Cursor Settings tab of the…
- 1 Jun 2010
SoC and IP: ST Microelectronics’ SPEAr1300 embedded MCU features 600MHz dual-core ARM Cortex-A9, DDR2/DDR3 SDRAM controller

archive

A few days ago, this blog discussed the “big resistor” model of SDRAM power consumption (see Marc Greenberg’s “big resistor” model of semiconductor DRAM power consumption) and that blog entry ended with this statement:

“It might also be a very good idea to design your system so that it can accommodate more than one DDR variant. That way, time and circumstance can determine which DRAM technology gets used at any given…
- 28 May 2010
Verification: TLM 2.0 As Part Of The EDA360 Vision

Ran Avinun

Ann Steffora Mutschler recently covered in her blog the progress the industry has made with OSCI transaction-level modeling (TLM 2.0) and the requirements moving forward. Per my quote in the blog, Cadence is a big advocate of standards-base...
- 28 May 2010
System, PCB, & Package Design : Catch A Full-Wave Summer Kickoff Webinar: CST 3D Extraction Integrated With Cadence SiP

TeamAllegro

Is there anyone who does not carry a mobile communication device anymore? Sending and receiving phone calls seem to be just a minor feature on these devices nowadays. With texting, email, Wi-Fi, GPS, camera, video, image recognition softw...
- 28 May 2010
SoC and IP: How does a hybrid SSD/optical drive make sense?

archive

Some combinations like chocolate with peanut butter, ice cream with peanuts and chocolate sauce, and HDDs with NAND Flash caching make obvious sense. Other combinations don’t make such an obvious match. In these cases, people need extra convincing. LG and Hitachi are suggesting just such a non-obvious combo as a concept: an optical drive and NAND Flash. Optical drives? Aren’t they on the way out, like floppy disks? Not…
- 28 May 2010
Verification: EDA360 Is More Than Design IP Plus Software Drivers

tomacadence

I checked my Linked-In messages the other day and saw a survey by Girish Patil with the provocative question "Is EDA360 the same experiment that Phoenix Technology tried a decade ago with the acquisition of Virtual Chips and Sand Micro?" Well, that was an interesting link between my past professional life and my role at Cadence today.
Phoenix Technologies was -- and remains -- a leading provider of BIOS for…
- 27 May 2010

Cadence Guidelines

Community Guidelines

The Cadence Design Communities support Cadence users and technologists interacting to exchange ideas, news, technical information, and best practices to solve problems and get the most from Cadence technology. The community is open to everyone, and to provide the most value, we require participants to follow our Community Guidelines that facilitate a quality exchange of ideas and information. By accessing, contributing, using or downloading any materials from the site, you agree to be bound by the full Community Guidelines.