@head: Max's Chips and Dips: Wow! There's so much going on!
@deck: There's so much going on at the moment that I can barely keep track of things, with mega-cool announcements from companies like Lynguent, Mentor, Solido, and Synplicity.
@text: Good Grief Charlie Brown, this has certainly been a busy couple of weeks. There have been so many cool things going on that my head is spinning and I don't know which way to turn (hmm, I'll have to think about this last sentence).
Solido Design Automation
Let's kick off with a new company in analog/mixed-signal design space called Solido (<a href="http://www.solidodesign.com" target="_new">www.solidodesign.com). This is the brainchild of entrepreneurs Amit Gupta and Trent McConaghy, who previously foundered Analog Design Automation (which was acquired by Synopsys, Inc. in 2004). Their intention is to provide pioneering transistor-level design enhancement solutions that will address emerging challenges for analog/mixed-signal, custom digital and memory designers.
We'll doubtless be talking about these folks more in the future when they emerge from their stealth mode ("run quite, run deep"). So, for the moment, let's just say <i>"Hi guys, welcome to the party, jump in the pool, the beer is cold and the weather is fine!"</i>
Mentor's New Algorithmic C Datatypes
Now this is pretty cool. Suppose you create a representation of a design at a high level of abstraction in C++ or SystemC. In the case of a DSP design, for example, you may start out using floating-point values, but at some stage you will revert to integer or fixed-point representations.
At this point you have a choice. One option is to use native processor precision (64-bits for integer), which may require you to truncate your results and introduce artificial corner cases. Alternatively, you may decide to use the integer and fixed-point arbitrary-bit-width datatypes provided in SystemC, but these result in much (MUCH) slower simulation speeds.
In order to address this issue, Mentor's chief scientist for C-based design, Andres Takach, has been slaving away for the last couple of years on what Mentor calls Algorithmic C datatypes. These arbitrary-bit-width integer and fixed-point datatypes allow algorithm, system, and hardware designers to precisely model bit-true behavior in C++ specifications while accelerating simulation speeds by 10-200x.
The really cool thing is that Mentor is making these new datatypes immediately available to electronics designers and electronic design automation (EDA) tool vendors free of charge from their <a href="http://www.mentor.com/products/c-based_design/ac_datatypes" target="_new">AC Datatypes</a> webpage.
Synplicity
Next, let's consider Synplicity, who have come up with a really cunning proposal for an open IP encryption scheme. Currently, protecting one's IP is a complete pain. There are two major encryption techniques known as symmetric and asymmetric encryption, where the latter is also known as "public key encryption".
The symmetric approach is really fast. The problem is that the "key" used to decrypt the file is the same as the one that was used to encrypt it. This means that once the IP vendor has encrypted the file, they have to find a secure way to pass the key to the end user. If that key is compromised, then anyone will be able to access the IP.
The alternative is to use an asymmetric scheme, in which the key used to decrypt the file is different to the one used to encrypt it. In this case, the end user generates two keys, a public key and a private key, and they make the public key available to the various IP vendors. An IP vendor uses the public key to encrypt the file, and the end user subsequently employs the private key to decrypt it again. The problem here is that asymmetric encryption and decryption is painfully slow in the case of large files, even on a modern computer.
The point of all of this is that the folks at Synplicity have come up with an incredibly cunning hybrid scheme that uses a mixture of symmetric and asymmetric encryption and addresses just about every problem facing current techniques. Moreover, they've based their technique on open tools and techniques, thereby making it available to anyone who wants to use it (even the "two guys in a garage" type IP vendors).
There are way too many subtleties associated with this topic to cover here, but for anyone who is interested, there's a really great whitepaper available on Synplicity's website <a href="http://www.synplicity.com" target="_new">www.synplicity.com</a>that explains all.
Lynquent and ModLyng
Last but certainly not least, we have another new-kid-on-the-block in analog/mixed-signal (AMS) space: Lynguent (<a href="http://www.lynguent.com" target="_new">www.lynguent.com</a>). As part of their launch, Lynguent announced its first product, ModLyng, which they claim to be the industry's first tool for AMS chip design that incorporates an easy-to-use graphical user interface, is language- and platform-independent, and removes significant barriers to the re-use of models.
With the ModLyng environment, engineers can create, maintain, debug, and translate their AMS models faster than ever before. And, they can re-use the models in other designs, across a number of target HDLs. ModLyng does this through its graphical user interface that is independent of, yet compatible with, proprietary simulation environments and HDLs.
ModLyng imports the model code, automatically creating a topological view of the model and interpreting the electrical equations and statements in the body of the model. Engineers can augment and extend their models with new equations or icons representing pre-configured behaviors. ModLyng also populates a table with all of the ports and parameters in the model and generates a symbol representing the model so that it may be used inside other models.
Alternatively, engineers can create new models with ModLyng, which is especially important in developing behavioral model blocks for speeding design simulation and validation. The models may be exported to the same language in which it was written or automatically translated to another language.
Happy Holidays
Well, as you can see, there's a lot of exciting stuff going on. And, if like me, you happen to live in the USA, then there's something else to look forward to, because next Tuesday is the 4th of July, which is a big holiday over here (apparently something happened hundreds of years ago and everyone is still pretty happy about it). In fact, most folks are going to make this a 4-day holiday weekend, which seems like a really good idea to me! Until next time, have a good one!