C++ signoff made real

Excerpt from article: “C++ signoff made real“

Some companies began using high-level synthesis (HLS) for design well before its benefits became apparent for use-cases around AI and machine learning. For them, the next objective has been to use the same degree of abstraction to achieve C++ signoff.

C++ signoff offers potentially many benefits. In particular, simulation speeds are around one hundred times faster than those available at RTL. The problem is that most C++-focused methodologies so far have involved a large amount of manual checks and depended on the brute-force use of code coverage tools that are not hardware-aware, (chiefly GCOV). There has also been the risk of RTL-level mismatches due to undetected ambiguities that pass through the flow in the C++ code.

Konica Minolta was one of those early HLS adopters, applying it to products ranging across its peripherals, digital printing and healthcare product lines as well as projects for new markets. It has now constructed a C++ signoff methodology that overcomes many of the earlier limitations. It is based on the Catapult HLS and Questa simulation suites from Siemens EDA.

Read the entire article on TechDesignForum originally published on July 11th, 2019