Cadence Design Systems, Inc. has announced the launch of its revolutionary digital twin platform, Cadence® Palladium® Z3 Emulation and Protium™ X3 FPGA Prototyping, based on the successful implementation of the Palladium Z2 and Protium X2 systems. These cutting-edge systems provide industry-leading solutions for handling complex system and semiconductor designs and developing the most advanced SoCs within a limited timeframe.
With the growing need for system and semiconductor innovation driven by rapid advancements in technology, Cadence’s customers are faced with the challenge of making their most advanced applications more powerful. The new Palladium Z3 and Protium X3 systems surpass the capabilities of previous generation systems, delivering over 2X improvement in capacity and over 1.5X improvement in performance, enabling them to tackle the largest multi-billion-gate designs, intense design architecture, and timely sales requirements.
The Palladium Z3 system provides accelerated hardware verification and enables rapid deployment of models onto the Protium X3 system for efficient software validation. These systems are powered by Cadence Verification Suite, with its key components being the third-generation dynamic Palladium and Protium systems, which provide a high level of scalability and a seamless interface, including the barrier-free interface of Verisium AI-driven validation platform.
Cadence’s verification flow offers customers the highest throughput for delivering hardware innovations to market quickly and supporting the rapid development of next-generation technologies, such as generative AI. The Palladium Z3 and Protium X3 systems ensure optimal functionality and performance for the largest SoCs, allowing full testing instead of partial model testing, increasing the design size from 16 million gates to up to 48 billion gates. These systems are operated with NVIDIA BlueField DPU and NVIDIA Quantum InfiniBand networking platforms, offering consistency during the transition between the two systems and virtual-to-physical interface changes.
Cadence’s new Palladium Z3 and Protium X3 systems, with their capacity and performance improvements, are equipped with new domain-specific apps. These apps provide users with a complete offering for managing increasingly complex system and semiconductor designs, improving system-level accuracy, and accelerating low-power validation. The domain-specific applications include the industry’s first 4-State Emulation App, Real Number Modeling App, and Dynamic Power Analysis App.
The collaboration between Cadence and industry leaders such as Arm, NVIDIA, AMD, and more, ensures that the Palladium Z3 and Protium X3 systems meet the scalability requirements and deliver high capacity between Protium X3 system and AMD Versal™ Premium VP1902 adaptable SoC on AMD EPYC™ processor-based host servers.
The Palladium Z3 and Protium X3 systems are integral components of the comprehensive Cadence Verification Suite, supporting Cadence’s System Design™ methodology, which enables exceptional system design productivity. Customers can expect these systems to be available in selected deployments and have their general availability expected by Q3 2024. For more information about the new Palladium Z3 and Protium X3 systems, please visit www.cadence.com/go/dynamicduo3.
About Cadence:
Cadence is a leading company in electronic design, with over 30 years of expertise in computational software. The company provides software, hardware, and IP to transform design principles into reality. Cadence’s Intelligent System Design strategy delivers reliable solutions to change design concepts into hardware, software, and IP delivery. Its customers include the world’s most innovative companies in markets ranging from customer electronics, hyperscale computing, 5G communication, automotive, mobile, aerospace, industrial, and healthcare services. Cadence has been consistently named in Fortune magazine’s list of 100 Best Companies to Work For over the past 10 years. For more information, visit cadence.com.
The article discusses Cadence Design Systems, Inc.’s groundbreaking digital twin platform, Cadence Palladium Z3 Emulation and Protium X3 FPGA Prototyping. To provide a more comprehensive understanding of the topic, let’s add some additional information, discuss current market trends, provide forecasts, and identify key challenges or controversies associated with the subject.
Current Market Trends:
1. Increasing Complexity: The rapid advancement of technology has led to a surge in system and semiconductor designs’ complexity. With the growing need for innovation, companies are seeking advanced solutions to handle the complexity and deliver more powerful applications.
2. Time-to-Market Pressure: In today’s competitive landscape, companies face immense pressure to bring their products to market quickly. Shorter product development cycles require efficient and effective design and validation solutions.
3. Scalability and Performance: With the increasing size and complexity of SoCs (System-on-Chips), there is a demand for scalable and high-performance verification and validation platforms that can handle designs with billions of gates.
Forecasts:
1. Growing Adoption of Digital Twin Platforms: The market is expected to witness a significant increase in the adoption of digital twin platforms in the coming years. Companies will rely on these platforms to accelerate the design and verification process while managing complex system and semiconductor designs.
2. Integration of AI and Machine Learning: As generative AI and machine learning technologies continue to evolve, they are expected to play a crucial role in the design and verification of advanced semiconductor systems. Digital twin platforms will integrate AI-driven validation platforms to enhance system-level accuracy and efficiency.
3. Expansion of Industry Partnerships: Collaborations between industry leaders, such as Cadence’s partnerships with Arm, NVIDIA, and AMD, will play a vital role in driving the development and adoption of digital twin platforms. These partnerships will ensure the scalability and compatibility of the platforms with different industry requirements.
Key Challenges and Controversies:
1. Design Complexity vs. Time-to-Market: The increasing complexity of designs poses a challenge in meeting aggressive time-to-market goals. Companies will need to find ways to effectively manage design intricacies without compromising on development timelines.
2. Cost and Resource Allocation: Building and deploying advanced digital twin platforms can require substantial investments in terms of hardware, software, and skilled resources. Companies must carefully assess the cost-benefit analysis and allocate resources accordingly.
3. Compatibility and Integration: Integrating digital twin platforms with existing design and verification workflows can be a challenge. Ensuring compatibility with various software tools and hardware architectures requires careful planning and coordination.
Advantages:
1. Enhanced Capacity and Performance: The Cadence Palladium Z3 and Protium X3 systems offer significant improvements in capacity and performance compared to previous-generation systems. This allows for the handling of larger and more complex designs, enabling full testing instead of partial model testing.
2. Domain-Specific Apps: The inclusion of domain-specific applications in the digital twin platform allows users to manage complex system and semiconductor designs more effectively. These apps, such as the 4-State Emulation App, Real Number Modeling App, and Dynamic Power Analysis App, provide users with specialized functionalities to improve accuracy and accelerate validation processes.
3. Collaboration with Industry Leaders: Cadence’s partnerships with industry leaders ensure that the digital twin platforms meet scalability requirements and provide high capacity between different systems and processors. This collaboration brings together expertise from multiple domains, resulting in robust and reliable solutions.
Disadvantages:
1. Initial Investment Costs: Implementing digital twin platforms, such as the Cadence Palladium Z3 and Protium X3 systems, may require a significant upfront investment. Companies must evaluate the cost implications and weigh them against the potential benefits before making a decision.
2. Integration Challenges: Integrating digital twin platforms into existing design and verification workflows can be complex and time-consuming. Ensuring compatibility and smooth integration with various software tools and hardware architectures may pose technical challenges.
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To learn more about Cadence’s new Palladium Z3 and Protium X3 systems, you can visit their official website: Cadence Website.