Accelerating the Development of New Processor Chip for Autonomous Driving

by Nicolette Emmino

Initially formed in 2017, NSITEXE is on a mission to develop, create and license high-efficiency and high-quality semiconductor IP that is adaptable to various applications. When it comes to level-4 and higher autonomous driving vehicles, adapting to environments, controlling vehicles, and conducting synchronized communications with the cloud are requirements that incorporate a wide range of technologies to develop these functions while maintaining high reliability and safety.

On this mission, the company used Synopsys design, verification, and IP solutions to successfully achieve its first silicon for Data Flow Processor (DFP)-based SoC test chip.

The DFP has a unique architecture that combines both a CPU and a GPU designed for processing large and complex datasets, allowing for parallel data management, and enabling application-independent capability with power-efficient parallelism and high quality, proven through many automotive systems. NSITEXE adopted Synopsys designtest and verification solutions, and DesignWare® IP for the development of its next-generation SoC and achieve first-pass silicon success.

“We deliver DFP-based IP solutions and services for customers including tier 1, industrial and smart household appliances, which enable various applications such as next-generation automotive system with autonomous drive, robotics, factory automation, and IoT,” said Yukihide Niimi, President and CEO at NSITEXE, Inc. “We are pleased to achieve successful development and validation of our DFP-based test chip in short turnaround time by leveraging Synopsys design, test, verification, and IP solutions.”

To address challenges that come along with these levels of autonomous vehicles, Synopsys provides comprehensive automotive solutions such as:

  • Virtual prototyping solutions provide early access to silicon chips and virtual ECUs, allowing software development and testing to start up to 12 months before hardware is available.
  • Synopsys Fusion Design Platform™ provides the industry’s most comprehensive portfolio of foundry certified tools and flows. It enables full-flow optimization for concurrent clock and data (CCD), wire synthesis, and logic restructuring, delivering high performance while supporting low power consumption, small area and a high level of functional safety.
  • Test solutions enable early validation of complex design-for-test (DFT) logic supported through full RTL integration while maintaining physical-, timing-, and power-awareness.
  • The Synopsys Verification Continuum™ Platform natively integrates verification technologies, including virtual prototyping, static and formal verification, simulation, emulation, FPGA-based prototyping, debug and verification IP (VIP), to accelerate verification closure.
  • A broad portfolio of silicon-proven DesignWare IP for automotive applications includes Interface IP, Logic Libraries, Embedded Memories, Data Converters, ARC® Processors, Security IP and the Sensor and Control IP Subsystem. The ASIL Ready ISO 26262 certified IP portfolio with automotive safety packages accelerates SoC-level functional safety assessments to help designers reach target ASIL levels.

Specific Synopsys products used to develop NSITEXE DFP SoC include:

  • Design solutions including Design Compiler® Graphical, IC CompilerTM II, PrimeTime® SI, and Formality® Ultra tools
  • Test solutions
  • Verification solutions including SpyGlass®, VC FormalTM, VCS®, and Verdi® tools, and VIP
  • DesignWare® IP including PCI Express®, LPDDR4, AMBA® Fabric and AXI DMA Controller, STAR Memory SystemTM, STAR Hierarchical System, and Logic Libraries and Embedded Memories

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