( ESNUG 523 Item 7 ) -------------------------------------------- [05/02/13]
Subject: Bluespec warns pricing kills Hogan's ubiquitous emulation claim
> My conclusion is that emulation has indeed gone mainstream. Its growth
> extends from the rise of the SoC as the cornerstone of system hardware,
> with its associated multiple SW functions. What's also helped emulation
> grow is its better debug, increased FPGA sizes, and its newer ability to
> handle complex designs.
>
> - Jim Hogan on emulation becoming ubiquitous
> http://www.deepchip.com/items/0522-04.html
From: [ Charlie Hauck of Bluespec ]
Hi, John,
I must add my 2 cents to Jim's recent emulation claim.
Jim's "emulation is everywhere" thesis will occur ONLY when it proliferates
to the adjacent phases of the design development cycle (which happen to have
orders of magnitude more developers.)
In a recent Mentor earnings call, Wally said: "there's been nearly an 8x
increase in the number of embedded software developers required for chip
designs at 20 nanometers compared to the 90-nanometer leading-edge designs
of 10 years ago."
And two things must come about for ubiquitous emulation to happen:
1. Emulation must be AFFORDABLE. Not many will spend $1+ M to
deploy a pre-silicon firmware platform for a few SW engineers.
Prices need to be $10 K to $50 K to give to 100 engineers.
2. Two verification technologies must merge. There are two islands
looking at each other to solve their problems:
- Virtual platforms implemented in C-based open-source
software (SystemC/C/C++). Virtual platform users are
looking to FPGA platforms to connect to RTL components
to eliminate model-to-design mismatches without killing
simulation performance.
- FPGA platforms (whether for emulation or prototyping)
built with low cost, high density FPGAs. Users of FPGA
boards are looking to virtual platforms to improve their
stimulus and debug capabilities.
These two islands must connect.
Five years ago at Bluespec, we saw this activity only in the most advanced
chip development houses, but today just about everyone is trying to connect
these two worlds in some manner or another.
PRICE-DRIVEN EMULATION
Because it's so affordable, we're seeing users themselves trying to tie
together:
open-source software + low cost hardware
Just like free Linux on X86 PC's or Android on hand-held tablets. In our
case, "open-source SW" is SystemC/C/C++ and "low cost hardware" is another
term for FPGA boards.
Pre-silicon SW development has become the single biggest opportunity to cut
an SoC's time-to-market. Cycle-based models are accurate, but slow. TLM
models are fast, but not accurate. The problem is firmware engineers often
need both speed and accuracy.
- The design RTL is often the only accurate "model".
TLM's and cycle-based aren't enough.
- The design RTL may be the only thing available.
- But since RTL simulation is too slow to develop SW,
developers turn to FPGA boards for fast RTL runs.
FPGA boards are difficult to use -- especially when connecting to software
for models, test benches and debug -- but they're CHEAP and FAST.
Look at almost any chip development team and engineers are bringing up FPGA
boards to verify designs or develop software. They are buying boards from
companies like DINI, HyperSilicon, and S2C. And many chip design houses are
simply building FPGA boards of their own.
FPGA capacity has grown tremendously. One that keeps coming up is Xilinx's
Virtex 7 2000T, which supports about 14 million useable ASIC gates in a
single device. Bluespec has 11 customer requests to provide C-based host
connectivity, observability and controllability to FPGA boards using the
Virtex 7 2000T.
> Bluespec Semu. Bluespec expanded their emulation footprint in
> March with a new FPGA-based desktop form factor verification and
> hybrid emulator. They emphasize low cost, ease of use, fast
> deployment using third-party FPGA boards, dynamic hardware debug
> (no re-instrument and re-synthesis) and a C API to integrate
> SystemC/C/C++ models and test benches. Bluespec claims to need
> only 1 day set up.
Thanks to Jim for including us in his chart. What Jim missed was a very key
value we bring: Bluespec also offers transaction-level interfaces to connect
virtual platforms to FPGA boards.
As far as the cost hurdle -- those folks that think emulators are $100K's to
$1M are in for a pleasant surprise:
Bluespec Semu is $9,500.
Further, Semu software works with Vivado on many 3rd party Xilinx-based
boards -- and its C API connects virtual platforms to designs running in the
FPGA. For example, Semu works with the Xilinx VC707 board (~3.5 M gates)
which goes for $3,495. And, soon we'll be announcing support for Xilinx
2000T boards (14 M gates).
The key here is an emulation price point that enables AFFORDABLE deployment
to firmware engineers.
- Charlie Hauck
Bluespec, Inc. Framingham, MA
Join
Index
Next->Item
|
|
