Cadence Design Systems - Best New Semiconductor or Other Electronic Component
Company: Cadence Design Systems, San Jose, CA
Company Description: Cadence is a leader in electronic design and computational software. We apply our Intelligent System Design strategy to deliver software, hardware and IP that turn design concepts into reality. From chip to board to systems, we empower dynamic applications in the products used in everyday life from consumer, hyperscale computing, 5G, automotive, aerospace, industrial and health
Nomination Category: Product & Service Categories
Nomination Sub Category: Hardware - Semiconductor or Other Electronic Component
Nomination Title: Cadence Dynamic Duo - Palladium Z2 / Protium X2
If this is a brand-new product, state the date on which it was released. If this is a new version of an existing product, state the date on which the update was released:
Updated Release April 5th, 2021: Cadence Dynamic Duo - Palladium Z2 and Protium X2
The Dynamic Duo is Cadence’s new, best-in-class emulation and prototyping solution. It refers to the integration of two of Cadence’s recently introduced systems: the emulation platform, Palladium Z2; and the prototyping platform, Protium X2. This latest generation ties these two tools together into one revolutionary package that offers unprecedented improvements to a verification engineer’s experience.
The Palladium emulation platform allows verification engineers to test multiple emulation use cases faster than ever before, even before the register-transfer level (RTL) code is finalized. Palladium can handle the small projects as well as the big projects, with job sizes ranging from 8M gates to 18.4B gates, and the new Z2 model compiles these designs much faster than ever before.
Palladium Z2 features a 2x capacity and 1.5x performance improvement over the Z1 model and can turnaround a 10B gate design in under 10 hours. It also boasts a brand-new high-performance debug engine, FullVision 2.0.
Protium X2, the prototyping side of the Dynamic Duo, allows for verification teams to implement a FPGA-based prototype of their, vastly accelerating the development and verification process, thereby accelerating time to revenue. This lets engineers catch hardware problems and begin validating software before a chip is, physically made, resulting in a significantly improved development timetable.
Protium X2 delivers twice the capacity per rack and 1.5x the speed of its predecessor, and its integration with the Palladium Z2 platform makes the pair incredibly user-friendly. X2 can compile a billion-gate design in under 24 hours, a speed unheard of only a few years ago, and can debug a design twice as fast. It also boasts a 2x faster host-workstation connection, 2x faster memory access, and enhanced multi-user features to help teams coordinate their time to ensure the unit is being used as efficiently as possible.
Together, the combination of Palladium Z2 and Protium X2 are revolutionizing the fields of emulation and prototyping. The explosive growth in chip sizes and complexity in the past few years demands a powerful and scalable set of tools fit for any job, and the Dynamic Duo delivers.
As the previous generations, Palladium Z1 and Protium X1 have been the leading enterprise level emulation and FPGA-based prototyping platform for several years. The all-new Dynamic Duo consisting of Palladium Z2 and Protium X2 are taking emulation and Prototyping to the next level, with the initial customers embracing the systems enthusiastically.
Nvidia, an early adopter of the new Dynamic Duo, expressed their need for a highly powerful and scalable set of emulation and prototyping tools to meet the demands of future technology. Chip sizes are doubling every two years, and designs are only increasing in complexity. The congruent nature of the compilers in Palladium and Protium allow for an easy transfer of a design from an emulator to an FPGA-based system—a transfer that was previously difficult. Nvidia feels confident that a given design question can be moved from emulator to FPGA-based prototyping without any component being misrepresented or corrupted, and this transfer can be done incredibly quickly—what used to take two or three days now only takes four hours with the new Dynamic Duo. This alone revolutionizes the way engineers can work on designs—now, software development can occur much earlier in the development cycle, and with much more confidence than ever before. https: //www.youtube.com/watch?v=KlRXrjz006g
AMD saw similar success with the new Dynamic Duo. Citing the shared front-end tool-chain architecture between Palladium and Protium, AMD spoke highly of the speed and accuracy with which a design can be moved between the two tools. The amount of time saved in transit between emulation and prototyping through the new Dynamic Duo gave AMD enough time to design and develop features for their new line of EPYC processors that they would not have had the ability to do before within the scope of their program schedule. https: //www.youtube.com/watch?v=O33v40sLUFU
https: //www.youtube.com/watch?v=otbv4ewT1OA Dynamic Duo – Product video
https: //www.youtube.com/watch?v=KlRXrjz006g – This video from Nvidia highlights their successes with the Dynamic Duo. The representative speaks highly of the integration between the units, and how Dynamic Duo’s singular, unified package streamlines the emulation/prototyping cycle.
https: //www.youtube.com/watch?v=O33v40sLUFU – This video from AMD highlights a similar success story, where the representative talks about how the time they saved using the Dynamic Duo allowed them to develop extra features.