Is your SoC ready for HBM2E – 2x more capacity at 50% more speed
Highlights
In this era of technology revolution, there is a continuous progression in domains like AI applications, high end servers, and graphics. These applications require fast processing and high densities for storing the data, where High Bandwidth Memory (HBM) provides the most viable memory technology solution. Our previous memory blog HBM2 memory for graphics, networking and HPC explored this protocol with data transfer rate of 2GT/s with stacked architecture of 8-Hi stacks (8 die).The HBM2-extension (HBM2E) architecture provided further improvement on top of HBM2 with 3.2 GT/s transfer rate and 12-Hi stack architecture with individual die density upto 8Gb and overall density of 24GB.
Posted in Data Center, Debug, DesignWare, HBM, Uncategorized
SoC designs are growing more complex, not just by the sheer number of transistors that can be packed into one design, but the emergence of different interconnect methods you must use to connect chip internals and to connect to the outside world. Becoming an expert on each of the interconnect protocols is not going to shorten the verification schedules, reduce design productivity and expose design bugs that might only be found when used by the end consumer.
Posted in ACE, AMBA, CXL, Debug, Display, Ethernet, HBM, Memory, Test Suites, Verification Service
Performance continues to be key factor for the design of any complex system-on-chip (SoC). Moreover, complexity is increasing every day, which poses a challenge for engineers to track performance of the design, yet they are tasked to continuously increase chip performance. When it comes to run time performance engineers not only develop the functionality but also can check performance of the design which is getting impacted from the new module. In traditional approach functionality development and performance analysis are sequential task and executed one after the other.
Synopsys recently announced the fastest, and most power efficient DDR5 and LPDDR5 IP solutions. Industry’s first LPDDR5 controller, PHY, and verification IP solution supports data rates up to 6400 Mbps with up to 40% less area than previous generations. The LPDDR5 IP provides significant area and power savings for mobile and automotive SoCs with its dual-channel memory interface option that shares common circuitry between independent channels. The DesignWare DDR5 IP, operating at up to 4800 Mbps data rates, can interface with multiple DIMMs per channel up to 80 bits wide, delivering the fastest DDR memory interface solution for artificial intelligence (AI) and data center system-on-chips (SoCs). The DDR5 and LPDDR5 controller and PHY seamlessly interoperate via the latest DFI 5.0 interface.
Posted in Automotive, Data Center, DDR, Debug, DesignWare, DFI, HBM, LPDDR, Memory, Mobile SoC
New applications like Cloud Computing, Artificial Intelligence, Autonomous cars, Augmented reality, Embedded vision are driving stricter requirements around memory performance and power efficiency. Memory is central to these systems, that require high bandwidth and speed along with lower power and lower cost. With these emerging market needs, the memory industry started to move from planar (2D) DRAMs to wide I/O or a 3D technology TSVs (Through Silicon Vertical interconnect access) such as HBM (high bandwidth memory). For more insight on HBM, read our blog “Next Generation Memory Technology for Graphics, Networking and HPC.” Low Power DRAM technology, evolved to the fifth-generation(LPDDR5) to deliver significant reduction in power and extremely high bandwidth as compared to LPDDR4. In this blog, we discuss LPDDR5 new features based on our understanding from collaboration with memory vendors and early adopters of Synopsys VIP over last 2 years.
Posted in Automotive, Camera, DDR, DFI, Display, HBM, HMC, LPDDR, Memory, Mobile SoC
SoC performance is a key competitive advantage in the marketplace, and the choice and configuration of protocol IP and interconnects is geared towards maximizing said performance. A case in point is the use of HBM (High Bandwidth Memory) technology and memory controllers. Currently in its third generation, HBM boasts of high-performance while using lesser power in a substantially smaller form factor than DDR. That said, how do teams ensure that the performance is delivered in the context of their SoC design?
Posted in Automotive, Data Center, DDR, DFI, events, HBM, LPDDR, Memory, Uncategorized
Posted in Data Center, DDR, Debug, DFI, eMMC, events, Flash, HBM, HMC, LPDDR, Memory, ONFi, Storage, UFS
The Design Automation Conference (DAC) 2016 was a great success and here we provide you the highlights of Synopsys’ activities at the event.
Posted in AMBA, Audio, Automotive, Camera, CAN, Data Center, DDR, Debug, DesignWare, Display, eMMC, Ethernet, Ethernet AVB, Flash, FlexRay, HBM, HMC, Interconnects, Interface Subsystems, LIN, LPDDR, Memory, Methodology, MIPI, Mobile SoC, ONFi, PCIe, Processor Subsystems, Storage, SystemVerilog, Test Suites, UFS, Uncategorized, USB, UVM
Synopsys VC VIP provides Verdi Protocol Analyzer, a protocol and memory aware debug environment . In my previous blog Debugging Memory Protocols with the Verdi Protocol Analyzer, I discussed the value add for using the Verdi Protocol Analyzer to debug memory protocols easily and efficiently. Also, I described how easy it is to look at a specific command as a transaction rather than as interpreted signals. In this blog I’m going to show another feature that makes Verdi Protocol Analyzer the tool of choice for debugging memory protocol issues and for validating proper system behavior. Furthermore, the tool can be used for verification of the command sequencer and the interaction between the DUT and the memory models. The feature, we are going to look at today, is synchronizing transactions to the corresponding signals.
Posted in DDR, Debug, DFI, Flash, HBM, HMC, LPDDR, Memory, Uncategorized