| |
 | |  | | | | | What Every Low-power Designer Should Know about the Cadence Low-Power Solution
An interview with Ankur Gupta
Director, Product Engineering, Cadence | |
| |  | |  |
The community interviewed Ankur Gupta, Product Engineering Director, Cadence, asking for the one or two things all designers using low power should know about the new Cadence Low-Power Solution.
cdnusers: Tell us about your background working with Low Power design software.
Ankur: I've been a product engineer for SoC Encounter’s low-power capabilities since the beginning of the project about 3 years back. Some of our biggest customers were moving towards Multi-Supply Voltage designs, and realizing that automation would play a critical role in the successful deployment of advanced low-power techniques such as PSO and DVFS. Working with these customers we developed the critical pieces of a domain aware place-and-route system, and demo-ed it at DAC 2004. The same year we also used this software to design and tape-out silicon with key low-power features, as a proof of the methodology and to see the benefits of the automation. There’s been no turning back since. Throughout 2005 I’ve been part of a team driving the solution to meet the increasing demands of the market. With success of the solution in the market, the demands kept growing. To match these growing demands, and with executive support I’m now managing a product engineering team focused on low-power. Today this team is at the core of the Power Forward Initiative.
cdnusers: What is the one new thing engineers designing for Low Power should know about the new Cadence Low Power flow?
Ankur: Designers should know that Cadence is committed to making low-power designs just as mainstream as non-low-power designs are today. Towards that end, we continue to look at every aspect of the design process through our low-power lenses and provide improved automation or innovation wherever it makes sense.
cdnusers: Tell us how this benefits the customer?
Ankur: It is well established that the barrier to adopting low-power techniques lies in the impact to design and verification methodology. With Cadence's focus on reducing these barriers, customers get a reliable solution and a knowledgeable partner in us.
cdnusers: Now tell us about a couple more features that users will find helpful when creating their low power designs.
Ankur: Power switch insertion and analysis are great examples. Encounter's automatic switch insertion "addPowerSwitch" and VoltageStorm’s switch analysis in the VSDG product allows the user to insert the appropriate number of power switches in an appropriate pattern while meeting electrical rules and constraints. If this was missing in the EDA solution, users would need to spend expert man-months customizing solutions for their designs, instead of focusing on the task of design closure.
cdnusers: . Now some personal questions. How do you concentrate when working? Any tricks?
Ankur: I've taught myself to be able to "switch off" or dissociate myself from work on the weekends and at nights. At all other times my full concentration is essential to get my job done. It’s my own low-power PSO, if you will.
cdnusers: Where do you do your best thinking?
Ankur: I've done some creative work on business trips - when I am at work, but not in the office.
cdnusers: What do you do after a long day or week of working on Low Power problems to relieve your stress levels?
Ankur: Talk non-stop about my day with my wife, over dinner. I find it very calming to get it out of my system.
| 
About the author
Ankur Gupta received his MS in Electronics and Computer Engineering from Iowa State University, then joined Cadence in March 1998. At Cadence Ankur worked in various Digital IC Applications Engineering roles until 2001, supporting timing analysis and design planning and implementation solutions. Then in 2001 Ankur moved to Digital IC product engineering, supporting signal integrity and power analysis solutions. Since 2004, Ankur has been a product engineer for low-power solution in SoC-Encounter. Most recently he is Product Engineering Director for SoCE-low-power and VoltageStorm product lines. |
| |
This content has not yet been rated by other users |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|