This put up was co-authored by Giancarlo DiPasquale, Microsoft Director, Semiconductor & EDA; Rajat Chaudhry, Product Management Director, Cadence; and Adrian Lao, Senior Software Architect, Cadence.
With the appearance of AI and hyperscale designs on superior nodes, it is not uncommon to see designs in over 50 billion transistor classes with tens to 100 billion plus nodes within the on-chip energy community. This explosion in scale requires options that meet the next necessities:
- High efficiency and capability.
- Elasticity.
- Manage various compute useful resource necessities.
- Low price to handle the exponential enhance in compute necessities.
Voltus on Azure
Voltus is a number one IC Power Integrity Signoff Solution from Cadence Design Systems. It is utilized by prime chip design corporations to confirm the reliability of their energy networks on chip (NoC) and permits energy integrity and thermal evaluation on the system stage.
Microsoft Azure supplies a cloud-based high-performance computing (HPC) infrastructure with safety, reliability, and scalability that could be a pure match for digital design automation (EDA) workloads, particularly energy integrity evaluation.
Azure can assist each a hybrid mannequin in addition to an all-in mannequin. In the hybrid mannequin clients primarily use their on-premises infrastructure however can add to their compute and storage capability on an on-demand foundation to fulfill peak demand. The hybrid strategy is often utilized by clients new to utilizing the cloud. In an all-in mannequin, clients primarily use Azure infrastructure for all their EDA workloads. The all-in mannequin is a superb use case for startups and clients who actually wish to optimize their prices whereas making the most of the dimensions and suppleness of Azure. Voltus helps each the hybrid in addition to the all-in mannequin with Azure.
Managing variable compute prices by the design cycle
Using Azure may also help clients optimize their prices as compute necessities will range by the design cycle with decrease necessities early on and peak demand close to signoff. This is in distinction to the excessive fastened price of on-premises infrastructure.
Running Voltus on Azure
We have used a block and full Chip check case to display our outcomes.
The Azure workforce chosen Edsv4 digital machines (VMs) primarily based on second-generation Intel Xeon Platinum 8272CL (Cascade Lake). These VMs are effectively fitted to each compute and memory-intensive workloads.
The Voltus use case setup on Azure is illustrated in Figure 1.
Figure 1
High efficiency and elasticity
Voltus has a completely distributed and scalable structure. Every step of the ability integrity evaluation circulation, from design parsing to the solver, is totally distributed and scalable. Data from every a part of the mechanically partitioned design is assigned to compute nodes on the compute infrastructure for varied steps within the evaluation. This course of is managed by a grasp machine as illustrated in Figure 2.
Figure 2
The stage of distribution is user-controlled, which permits the consumer to make the most of compute elasticity and handle efficiency. As Figure 3 illustrates for each the block and full chip run, we observe near-linear scalability in efficiency with respect to the variety of CPUs.
Figure 3
Higher efficiency with decrease prices
Believe it or not, that’s certainly true. The elasticity of Voltus structure permits the device to run quicker with a better variety of CPUs and for the reason that CPUs are used for a smaller period of time, the result’s that the entire price drops to an optimum level. This might be seen at each the block and full chip ranges as illustrated in Figure 3. This is a win-win scenario the place you may enhance your efficiency and scale back your prices.
Figure 4
The magic of Voltus hierarchical evaluation
Designers can additional enhance their efficiency and scale back price through the use of Voltus XM hierarchical evaluation. With Voltus XM, block-level fashions can be utilized as an alternative of the complete flattened design as illustrated in Figure 5. This technique considerably reduces node depend whereas sustaining accuracy. We may even additional scale back our runtime and prices with Voltus XM and Azure. We observe a 4.5x discount in price and a 2x enchancment in efficiency over the flat run for the complete chip check case (Figure 6).
Figure 5
Figure 6
We have demonstrated the advantage of utilizing Voltus on Azure at each the block stage and chip stage. These benchmarks present that clients cannot solely simply profit from larger efficiency utilizing elastic compute, however there may be an optimum level for efficiency and price. Using Voltus XM hierarchical evaluation additional improves price and efficiency. With Voltus on Azure, semiconductor corporations have the perfect resolution to confirm energy integrity for his or her most complicated designs.
Learn extra about Voltus on Azure
Please contact your Cadence gross sales consultant for assist enabling Voltus on Azure.
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