Possibilities increase for what can be done with this technology as profitability and investments grow.
Rising chip complexity is creating a booming emulation business, as chipmakers working at advanced nodes turn to bigger iron to get chips out the door on time.
What started as a “shift lift”—doing more things earlier in the design cycle—is evolving into a more complex mix of hardware-accelerated verification for both hardware and software. There are even some new forays into power exploration and on-demand emulation services, which can be rented for a fixed period of time to fill a gap in figuring out which IP blocks to use for a specific design. And while both simulation and FPGA prototyping are still key technologies for verification, mainly because the systems are less expensive or already in place or both, the appeal of emulation is expanding rapidly.
“Over the past couple of years we’ve seen a big shift,” said Jean-Marie Brunet, marketing director for Mentor Graphics‘ Emulation Division. “If you look at emulation versus simulation right now, 80% of the market is simulation and 20% is emulation. Over the next 10 years, that will be reversed.”
One of the big drivers for that shift is hybrid emulation, driven initially by the ability to develop hardware and software simultaneously. All emulation providers now offer this in some shape or form, sometimes in conjunction with FPGA prototyping, sometimes as a standalone solution. But even here, the definition of hybrid emulation is expanding as software and hardware are more tightly integrated.