Mentor Blogs

Download the standard now – at no charge The IEEE Standards Association (IEEE-SA) has published the latest UPF 2.1 standard, officially called IEEE Standard for Design and Verification of Low-Power Integrated Circuits, many refer to it as IEEE 1801 or UPF for the Unified Power Format as this was the name Accellera had given it prior to transferring standardization responsibility and ongoing maintenance … Read More

UPF, DAC, IEEE 1801, Accellera, Low Power, IEEE Get, ieee standards association

Power Aware Verification Course Modules Released I guess I could continue the puns on the low-power theme as a few readers may get a charge out of it.  And there is a reason I seem to gravitate to puns from the start.  The first chair of the IEEE 1801 committee and I exchanged puns one time that resulted in him shipping me a Pun DVD that recorded a pun contest in which one person and another tried … Read More

Low Power, Power Aware Verification, IEEE 1801, UPF

IEEE 1801™-2013 Enters Pre-Publish Phase The completion and approval of electronic design automation standards has seemed to be the order of the day for several months now.  Added to this list is the IEEE Standards Association (SA) approval of their newly revised low power standard (IEEE 1801™-2013).  The IEEE SA’s Review Committee (RevCom) unanimously recommended approval and that was confirmed by … Read More

UPF, Erich Marschner, IEEE 1801, DVCon, RevCom, Low Power

Learn about new standards, industry surveys and trends This year’s DVCon is set and if you have not yet registered, you can do it now – or just show up!  If you want to secure seating at some of the Monday tutorial events, I strongly encourage pre-registration to ensure you can secure a seat.  And if you just want to see the exhibits and chat with suppliers, that’s free. The IEEE low power format … Read More

IEEE 1801, Low Power, Harry Foster, Wally Rhines, UPF

Live & In-Person at DAC 2012! Verification Academy, the brain child of Dr. Harry Foster, Chief Verification Scientist at Mentor Graphics, was live from the Design Automation Conference tradeshow floor this year.  Harry is pictured to the right giving an update on his popular verification survey from the DAC tradeshow floor. The Verification Academy, predominantly a web-based resource is a popular … Read More

Verification Academy, UVM Express, Tech Design Forum, ACE, AMS, Thales, UPF, UVM, ABV, Coverage Closure, iTBA, Low Power, DAC, OVM, ARM, Assertion-Based Verification, Formal, Doulos, Verification Trends

Where might our paths cross? It is always challenge to fit all the needed visits in during the Design Automation Conference (DAC).  If you happen to like some of the same events I attend, then the chances are good our paths might cross in public. Saturday and Sunday are busy with an Accellera Systems Initiative board meeting.  Split across two days, Accellera board members will meet to conduct traditional … Read More

UPF, UCIS, UVM, DAC, EDAC, Accellera, Verification Academy, SystemC, TLM, Gary Smith

IEEE Standards Association Hosts Design Automation Standardization Workshops in Bangalore & Delhi I, along with several other individuals, will participate in two IEEE-SA EDA standardization workshops in India on Friday, 4 February 2011 in Bangalore and on Thursday 10 February 2011 in New Delhi.  In the last year, the IEEE announced it opened an office in Bangalore, India.  This is the fourth IEEE … Read More

UPF, 1735, 1666, SystemC, 1801

For those of you who were wondering if I had fallen off the face of the planet, the answer is no. My mind was stuck in a limbo when I got hurt in an extraction (not the parasitic kind) mission. Confused? Read on… I finally got to watch the critically acclaimed sci-fi movie Inception last weekend and life has never been the same again. Without giving away too much detail for the benefit of those who … Read More

Donut Domains, Multi-Voltage Flow, always-on, UPF

Step 0 Commitment – Are you really sure you want to MV? Are you positive that Multi-Vt & Clock gating would not help with your power budgets? Proceed to step1 with caution only if you really must. Step 1 Architecture Selection – Ensure that the architecture is frozen and capture all the power constraints required for the chosen MV style in the UPF file. As most of you are aware this can also be done … Read More

Isolation Cells, Level Shifter, Always on Buffers, Power Switches, UPF, MTCMOS, Multi-Voltage