The Rainless Cloud

Author: Irfan Waheed, Founder & CEO, SilverLining EDA

The first article in this series was a critique of UVM. I followed it up with an alternative verification methodology which addresses the weaknesses of UVM. Alas, UVM isn't the only problem afflicting verification. Zoom out a bit, and you will see that verification timelines and budgets are morbidly growing for a myriad of reasons. The topic of today's discussion is compute infrastructure.

The cloud computing revolution unfolded gradually but gained significant momentum around 2010. It was a disruptive event when that term actually meant something.

Cloud computing eliminated the need for expensive on-premise infrastructure, making enterprise-grade computing power accessible to startups, large businesses and individuals alike. It literally leveled the playing field in terms of compute access.

The cloud has also given birth to serverless computing (AWS Lambda, Google Cloud Functions) allowing software developers to focus on writing code without managing infrastructure. That's something our infra-structurally challenged DV and RTL engineers would dearly appreciate.

Cloud-Based IDEs & Development Environments like GitHub Codespaces and Replit have commoditized software development tools and lowered the barrier to entry for the software industry. Today, a talented software developer can develop and sell an Android App from the most remote mountains of Gilgit-Baltistan without even owning an Android phone.

All thanks to the power of the cloud.

For the semiconductor sector, the cloud has been rainless. While unshackled software engineers are reaching for the stars and shaping their own destiny, hardware engineers are waiting on a simulation license to free up.

How would the semiconductor industry (specifically front end design and verification) look like if it had mirrored the trajectory of the software industry ?

You don't have to let your imagination run too wild before seeing the picture crystallize:

• On-demand compute available through the hyperscaler of your choice
• An App Store of tools from different vendors
• Ability to mix and match EDA tools
• Plug and play Verification IP
• The option to accelerate your simulation using FPGAs or emulation frameworks at the click of a button
• A global pool of elastic engineering resources
• Seamless collaboration across multi-timezone teams

Feels like a Utopian dream.

Earth to hardware engineer: wake up, a simulation license is available now.

The software sector has shown that cloud adoption commoditizes tools & infrastructure and gets them out of the way so that actual work can get done.

The cloud boom seeded a flourishing and lucrative ecosystem of SaaS startups. Sadly, there was no EDA-as-a-service boom in the semiconductor sector. There was no surge of activity to harness the power of the cloud to simplify semiconductor design and lower barriers to entry.

We are still early in the game though. The cloud has been mainstream for barely over a decade and the marketplace of ideas is wide open.

SilverLining EDA was founded with the mission of making chip design just like software design. The idea is simple: if you are a chip startup, your barrier to entry should be as low as that of a software startup. Remove the friction around infrastructure and tools, and you will see hardware innovation happen at the speed of software. You will save millions in the process as well.

So how is SilverLining EDA making that happen ?

Infrastructure

This one is easy. We picked AWS because its the most widely adopted cloud across the globe allowing us to maximize our reach. Another major factor in favor of AWS was the availability of heavy duty cloud FPGAs we put to use for accelerated verification and debug.

Tools

This one is not so easy. We basically had to invent a tool from scratch which is cloud-native and is compelling enough in its own right. The inertia and the resistance to change in the semiconductor industry puts a high bar on a new entrant. Merely being a cloud-native tool will not move the needle.

We decided to simultaneously take on the challenges of infrastructure, simulation speed and debug while architecting our EDA tool. VeriFire is the culmination of that year-long effort.

By combining simulation and emulation capabilities, VeriFire addresses the primary problems facing verification: Simulation Speed and debug.

Using VeriFire, you can switch seamlessly from simulation to FPGA emulation while retaining 100 percent of your testbench codebase and most of your debugging ability and visibility. This allows you to share and re-use testbench infrastructure between simulation and emulation.

With VeriFire, all you need is access to the cloud to get your chip designed, verified and even emulated. Our goal is that one day, every cloud will have a SilverLining.

You can read more about VeriFire in this blog post co-authored by Umar Shah, SCPM of AWS and Irfan Waheed of SilverLining EDA.

SilverLining EDA is seeding the cloud. But for the hardware industry to reap the rewards of the cloud fully, we need more cloud-first EDA players to enter this domain and build the future of the semiconductor industry along the lines of the software industry.