Semiconductor Engineering: Emulation’s Footprint Grows

By Brian Bailey

It wasn’t that many years ago that Emulation was an expensive tool available to only a few, but it has since become indispensable for a growing number of companies. One obvious reason is the growing size of designs and the inability of simulation to keep up. But emulation also has been going through a number of transformations that have made it more affordable, more useable, and a more complete verification tool.

The changes have evolved along two different axes. One is cost of ownership, which includes maximizing utilization of the equipment while minimizing maintenance costs and the time it takes to use it effectively. The other axis involves extensions of emulation’s capabilities into areas that reach beyond simulation. Those include hardware/software co-verification and power analysis.

But emulation is still trying to find exactly where it fits into the flow and how it works with other tools. There is still a lot of room for improvement....

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