EDA and IP

A common verification methodology available to both RISC-V core providers and SoC teams integrating these cores is required, argues Nicolae Tusinschi of Siemens. Modern processor designs present some of the toughest hardware verification challenges. Verification is particularly challenging for RISC-V processor core designs, with many providers and many variations of implementation. The flexibility that RISC-V provides makes it especially difficult ...

Intrinsic ID, Physical Unclonable Function (PUF) security IP specialist, has had its ID QuiddiKey hardware IP and Apollo FPGA IP adopted for  the DARPA Toolbox Initiative, which provides DARPA researchers open licensing opportunities with commercial technology vendors. QuiddiKey IP can be applied to almost any chip – from MCUs to high-performance SoCs, to secure the products with internally generated, device-unique ...

IAR Systems extended coverage of the functional safety version of its Embedded Workbench software tool chain to the 32-bit Risc-V core of Nsitexe, a subsidiary of automotive parts maker Denso. “Functional safety is a constant growing requirement for embedded systems, with automotive applications, industrial automation and medical devices as three of the major driving forces,” according to IAR Systems. “With ...

Realtek has licensed Imagination Technologies’ IMG B-Series BXE-4-32 GPU for a system-on-chip aimed at mass market digital television. BXE-4-32 was selected, said Imagination, for area efficiency while processing four pixels per clock, plus its multi-core capability and cache configurability. BXE also features Imagination’s IMGIC multiple-quality-level real-time image compression technology that “enables DTV platforms with a BXE-4-32 GPU to configure and optimise ...

Risc-V core design house Andes Technology has certified reference models for its cores with ‘P’ extensions from Imperas. Cores carrying the P designation have SIMD and DSP extensions to the instruction set for data processing and real-time operation. “The RISC-V International P Extension Task Group is in the final stages of submitting the specification to the official ratification process, which ...

Based in Norfolk, Die Devices is a unique small component distributor and fabless semiconductor company. All of its products have one thing in common: they are 100% tested bare die, sold in small and medium quantities. “We specialise in supplying die,” company owner and sales director Ben White told Electronics Weekly. “We are a niche supplier to aerospace, defence, medical ...

Risc-V intellectual property creator SiFive has qualified models for its core portfolio from Oxford-based Imperas Software – as well as signing a distribution deal with Valtrix. Imperas’ models for SiFive processor IP are an instruction accurate programmer’s representation with full functionality including user, privileged, system and debug modes, plus configuration options for Risc-V vector extensions and custom instructions. “The models deliver ...

WiSE Studio is STMicroelectronics’ free integrated development environment (IDE) for its BlueNRG range of Bluetooth SoCs. “Featuring a user-friendly and customisable development environment with ready-to-build examples, the new IDE helps both expert and inexperienced users jump-start their projects,” according to the company. “Using WiSE Studio to learn, explore, and build applications and prototypes, developers can take advantage of the Bluetooth ...

Chip foundry X-Fab has announced a reference design kit for its XH018 180nm modular mixed-signal high-voltage CMOS process and Siemens’ Tanner analogue and mixed-signal (AMS) EDA software. “The kit is based on silicon-proven circuitry, providing coverage of the flow to design and simulate analogue and mixed-signal ICs,” according to X-Fab which “provides its customers reference design flows based on its established ...

Segger has created an operating system for industrial and IoT products, building it on its existing tool portfolio. “The emPower OS software package includes all core components: RTOS, GUI and file System, and communication software: TCP/IP, USB device, USB host and Modbus, as well as IoT Toolkit, security and compression modules,” according to the company. Portable between microcontrollers, the code ...