For a significant new customer, Sondrel has stated that it has begun front end, RTL design, and verification work on a high-performance computing (HPC) chip project.
Ollie Jones, Sondrel’s CEO, said, “HPC designs are a key area for Sondrel because they require large, ultra-complex custom chips on advanced nodes, which are our speciality. We have developed the skills, tools and advanced design methodologies to be able to create billion-transistor designs at leading nodes. For example, we have one customer for such designs that has contracted us for the past eight years to work on each generation of its advanced node chips.”
He clarified that in order for the chip to provide the best performance, HPC designs need multicore processors operating at maximum clock speeds and utilizing the newest, most coherent Network on Chip (NoC) technology, sophisticated memory, and high bandwidth IO interfaces.
In addition to allowing data to flow between processors, memory, and IO, the coherent NoC also makes it possible for processors to consistently share and preserve data that is stored in their caches. Performance-impairing latencies may be introduced as a result of the potential large reduction in the need to access off-chip memory.
“HPC is in huge demand for next generation applications that demand tremendous computing power such as AI, scientific modelling, data centres and internet infrastructures,” further asserted Jones. “In every case, the key is understanding how to move data around in the optimal way to maximise performance and that is an area where we have world-class expertise and in-house technologies such as our Advanced Modelling Process.”
“This is part of our suite of in-house tools and flows, which have been perfected over many years, and enables us to analyse exactly what is going on inside a chip design to ensure that the data flow is balanced properly and that the processors are not stalled waiting for data. It runs through every stage of the chip design to ‘prove’ that the design meets its specification and performance requirements, which is why we are the partner of choice for these projects as customers can see at every phase that it is on specification and on track, concludes Jones.“
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