Blog Review: Dec. 9
By Ed Sperling
Tis the season to be jolly, but you never want to admit that in the blogosphere.
Mentor’s Harry Foster digs into assertion-based verification and why, as of 2007, only 37% of the industry had adopted it. Interesting stat, but what does the state of Missouri have to do with all of this?
With 70% of an SoC’s development time consumed by verification, it probably helps to figure out how to use the tools better. If you’re in the VMM camp, check out Vidyashankar Ramaswamy’s blog on developing transactors. And if you’re in the other camp—check out Team Specman’s SimVision interaction tips and tricks.
A developer known only as Unfrozen Caveman Lawyer did a five-week evaluation of Mentor’s Catpult C synthesis vs. hand-coded RTL and came up generally impressed. The only drawback was the steep learning curve and a bug in the interface. So if cavemen had these kinds of tools would they have invented fire more quickly or simply have modeled the perfect flame? Check out the latest issue of DeepChip from John Cooley.
On a big-picture level, Si2 is developing a new model for putting all the pieces together. The new Open Modeling Calculation Interface is an ambitious project and it will take time, but it’s certainly an interesting idea. If you have an opinion about these kinds of things, or need some information to form one, check out Stacy Doss’ blog on the subject.
Remember Venn diagrams, those overlapping circles first introduced to the world back in 1880 by John Venn? Well, they’re still being used. Check out how they apply to design intent, or vice versa, with the blog by Synopsys’ Adiel Khan and independent consultant Andrew Piziali.
Mentor’s Colin Walls looks at the incompatibility between a conference he attended in Grenoble, France, aimed at academic researchers and the presentations that were largely made by people from the industry. So who, exactly, was funding this confab?
On the standards front, Synopsys’ Navraj Nandra digs into what made HDMI—the high-def multimedia interface—so successful and why new players are going to change the power structure behind that standard. It’s an interesting piece on how a business strategy changes as a market evolves.
Synopsys’ Karen Bartleson takes a look at the new IEEE-SA corporate membership model and why it works for some companies—namely those that can afford it. Talk about dividing the world into the haves and have-nots.
Harry Gries, aka the ASIC guy, is looking for reader input on predictions for 2010. Where did he find that photo of the tarot card reader, though?
Tags: Cadence, Mentor Graphics, Synopsys