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Silvaco Nanometer Newsbyte ![]() Jai Durgam
Jai Durgam brings nearly 30 years of experience in the design, IP and EDA space. Most recently, Jai was the Vice President for Customer Design Enablement at Globalfoundries where he led all enablement, from PDKs & models to IP and design solutions for all GF nodes, including 22FDX and 14nm. … More » System and Method for IP Fingerprinting and IP DNA AnalysisAugust 8th, 2019 by Jai Durgam
In the world of SoC development, an IP management system is software for the licensing, distribution and compliance administration of design IP for both vendors and consumers of IP. In May 2019, Silvaco was awarded a patent for System and Method for IP fingerprinting and IP DNA analysis. This patent reflects a little of the unique technology in the Xena® IP Management System from Silvaco. What is IP fingerprinting? An IP fingerprint is a unique signature for an individual IP that allows for the detection of that individual IP in an SoC . What's interesting about this is, unlike other methods like tagging, there's no modification of the IP, and there's no modification of the design flow.
How are fingerprints created? A group of IP source files is scanned to create a small unique fingerprint file. The fingerprinting process supports all kinds of design IP such as Verilog and VHDL RTL code, and GDSII. It can also be used with other kinds of IP as well. What's the difference between a tag and a fingerprint? An IP tag is something that's inserted into the IP. Tags are most popularly used with hard IP in GDSII format. There is a soft IP tagging standard, but because of synthesis, those tags can be destroyed through the synthesis process. Fingerprinting is useful because you can do a DNA analysis (an IP audit) of a device or SoC. Essentially the SoC design database files are scanned looking for IP fingerprints and the DNA analysis generates a DNA report. A DNA report shows what IP was detected, what versions were detected, any tags discovered, and scores the confidence level of that IP's presence. And it can show what files are missing or have been modified in some way. It is especially important to know if third-party IP has been modified. The DNA report will point you to which files were modified from their originals, and questions can be raised about the intent of any change and whether it was approved. So if you're an IP supplier and you want to audit your customer, you run the DNA analyzer to get a report. And then from that DNA report, pointed questions can be asked about each IP that showed up on the list. This approach is much easier than a traditional audit where an auditor is granted access to a semiconductor company's internal data and the audit crawls through internal file systems. For Chip designer managers, the DNA report can be used for design reviews. It can show if expected IP are present, whether the right version has been used, and if all the expected files are being used. It can also highlight the presence of any unexpected files. Xena has a rich set of features and capabilities for licensing, distribution and compliance administration of design IP with fingerprinting and DNA analysis being one example. It is the right solution for IP suppliers managing the deployment of design IP in the marketplace, and for semiconductor companies looking to manage what goes into their SoC projects. Category: Silvaco |