Voltus and Azure—no energy integrity problem too massive to resolve | Azure Weblog and Updates

This put up was co-authored by Giancarlo DiPasquale, Microsoft Director, Semiconductor & EDA; Rajat Chaudhry, Product Administration Director, Cadence; and Adrian Lao, Senior Software program Architect, Cadence.

With the appearance of AI and hyperscale designs on superior nodes, it’s common 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:

• Excessive efficiency and capability.
• Elasticity.
• Handle various compute useful resource necessities.
• Low price to handle the exponential enhance in compute necessities.

Voltus on Azure

Voltus is a number one IC Energy Integrity Signoff Answer from Cadence Design Techniques. It’s 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 gives 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. Within the hybrid mannequin prospects 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 method is usually utilized by prospects new to utilizing the cloud. In an all-in mannequin, prospects primarily use Azure infrastructure for all their EDA workloads. The all-in mannequin is a good use case for startups and prospects who actually need to optimize their prices whereas benefiting from the size and suppleness of Azure. Voltus helps each the hybrid in addition to the all-in mannequin with Azure.

Managing variable compute prices by means of the design cycle

Utilizing Azure may help prospects optimize their prices as compute necessities will fluctuate by means of the design cycle with decrease necessities early on and peak demand close to signoff. That is in distinction to the excessive fastened price of on-premises infrastructure.

Operating Voltus on Azure

We have now used a block and full Chip check case to display our outcomes.

The Azure crew chosen Edsv4 digital machines (VMs) based mostly on second-generation Intel Xeon Platinum 8272CL (Cascade Lake). These VMs are nicely fitted to each compute and memory-intensive workloads.

The Voltus use case setup on Azure is illustrated in Determine 1.

Determine 1

Excessive efficiency and elasticity

Voltus has a completely distributed and scalable structure. Each step of the facility integrity evaluation stream, from design parsing to the solver, is totally distributed and scalable. Information from every a part of the robotically 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 Determine 2.

Determine 2

The extent of distribution is user-controlled, which permits the person to make the most of compute elasticity and handle efficiency. As Determine 3 illustrates for each the block and full chip run, we observe near-linear scalability in efficiency with respect to the variety of CPUs.

Determine 3

Increased efficiency with decrease prices

Consider it or not, that’s certainly true. The elasticity of Voltus structure permits the device to run quicker with the next variety of CPUs and because the CPUs are used for a smaller period of time, the result’s that the overall price drops to an optimum level. This may be seen at each the block and full chip ranges as illustrated in Determine 3. It is a win-win state of affairs the place you’ll be able to enhance your efficiency and cut back your prices.

Determine 4

The magic of Voltus hierarchical evaluation

Designers can additional enhance their efficiency and cut back price by utilizing Voltus XM hierarchical evaluation. With Voltus XM, block-level fashions can be utilized as an alternative of the total flattened design as illustrated in Determine 5. This methodology considerably reduces node depend whereas sustaining accuracy. We will even additional cut 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 total chip check case (Determine 6).

Determine 5

Determine 6

We have now demonstrated the advantage of utilizing Voltus on Azure at each the block stage and chip stage. These benchmarks present that prospects cannot solely simply profit from increased efficiency utilizing elastic compute, however there’s an optimum level for efficiency and value. Utilizing Voltus XM hierarchical evaluation additional improves price and efficiency. With Voltus on Azure, semiconductor corporations have the perfect answer to confirm energy integrity for his or her most advanced designs.

Be taught extra about Voltus on Azure

Please contact your Cadence gross sales consultant for assist enabling Voltus on Azure.

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