Formal bytes: The Axiomise Podcast Channel

Episode 40: A fireside chat with Dr. Zvonimir Bandic

In this episode, Dr. Darbari talks to a key leader in the field of the RISC-V ecosystem - Dr. Zvonimir Bandic - Senior director, Western Digital. Zvonimir traces his journey to the USA and describes the exciting field of storage and hard drives. We talk about the CHIPS alliance, open-source, and how Western Digital is influencing the RISC-V ecosystem.

Episode 39: Abstraction in 7 minutes!

We demystify abstraction in today's podcast. Abstraction is the cornerstone of modern-day scalable formal verification. Classic papers in formal literature talk about abstraction as a Galois connection, but understanding abstraction when you're new to formal is not easy. We discuss it in detail in our upcoming webinar on 11 Feb 2021 but for now, here is an intuitive and simple explanation of abstraction and refinement.

Episode 38: A fireside chat with Calista Redmond

We kick-off 2021 with our first podcast, talking to Calista Redmond, CEO of RISC-V International. Dr. Darbari asks Calista about the challenges and opportunities for the RISC-V revolution. Calista traces her roots from her days in IBM to what it takes to run an international organization spreading an open-source revolution in computer architecture like never seen before.

Episode 37: A fireside chat with Harry Foster

Dr. Ashish Darbari delves into the findings of the 2020 Wilson Research report with Harry Foster in the last podcast this year. Together we gain more insight into design and verification trends. With 68% projects running behind schedule, and an equal number requiring respin for IC/ASIC, is the industry doing enough? With 23% of the semiconductor designs using RISC-V; and the headcount ratio of verification to design being 5:1 for processor verification, perhaps it's time to reflect and ask  - are we doing enough?

With these thoughts, we sign-off 2020, wishing you all Happy holidays and merry Christmas.

Episode 36: A fireside chat with Dr. Jason Oberg

We talk about hardware security this week. Tune in to bootstrap yourself with a primer on hardware security with Dr. Jason Oberg - CTO of Tortuga Logic. Jason is one of the best-known names in the industry in the field of hardware security.

Episode 35: Six dimensions of coverage for formal verification

Learn how to sign-off formal verification using six dimensions of coverage. Metric-driven verification is important, but we need to consider all aspects when using formal verification including qualitative and quantitative methods. We made it easy for you to use the six dimensions of coverage to sign-off RISC-V verification. Find out about it in more detail next week at the RISC-V summit.

Episode 34: Scenario coverage in formal verification

Dr. Darbari talks about a new coverage solution for formal verification - scenario coverage. He describes why you need it, what it is, and how this has been used to verify the latest core from the OpenHW group - CVE4. Let's cover our formal verification properly.

Episode 33: A fireside chat with Dr. Lucio Lanza

This week Dr. Darbari talks to Dr. Lucio Lanza - Managing Director of Lanza techVentures and the 2014 recipient of the Phil Kaufman Award for Distinguished Contributions to Electronic System Design. We talk about some of the exciting things Lucio did in his early days in Olivetti, Intel, Daisy Systems, and Cadence to his current engagement in pervasive healthcare. Previously, Dr. Lanza was a non-executive director of Arm, the world’s leading semiconductor IP company, and a member of the board of directors of Harris & Harris Group, an investor in transformative companies enabled by disruptive science. He currently serves as chairman of the board of PDF Solutions, Inc., a provider of technologies to improve semiconductor manufacturing yields, and is on the board of directors of several private companies.

Episode 32: A fireside chat with Rajat Swarup

Dr. Darbari got together with Rajat Swarup - a cyber-security expert and ex-Director of Information Security, Blackrock. We talk about computer security, its origins, its impact on software, hardware security, and the role of formal methods. We ask Rajat about simple ways of keeping us safe.

Episode 31: A fireside chat with Khaled Maalej

Do you always need a GPU for L4/L5 autonomous driving? This week, Dr. Darbari sat down with Khaled Maalej - Founder & CEO, VSORA, a provider of high-performance silicon intellectual property (IP) solutions for artificial intelligence, digital communications, and advanced driver-assistance systems (ADAS) applications based in France. Find out how VSORA's unique solutions are powering the next generation of driverless cars. We talk about programmable DSP, performance, low-power, and verification of petaflop computers on wheels.