Case Study: Cognitive Systems Corp. achieves first-pass silicon success for an energy-efficient, high-performance multi-core cognitive radio with Synopsys ASIP Designer

Cognitive Systems Achieves First-Pass Silicon Success for Multi-Core Cognitive Radio Chip Using ASIP Designer

Cognitive Systems Corp., a Waterloo-based startup, developed Aura — a camera-free home monitoring system that analyzes disruptions in wireless signals to detect motion and enable cloud-integrated security services. To bring Aura to market they needed a chipset that could perform wideband spectrum analysis from 650 MHz to 4 GHz, support many wireless standards, deliver high performance with low power for mobile deployments, and be developed in under 12 months by a very small team.

Using Synopsys’ ASIP Designer, Cognitive created two custom processors — a high-performance SIMD/VLIW vector processor for intensive I/Q signal processing and a 32-bit dual-core MCU for control — with full C toolchains and FPGA prototypes early in development. The team achieved first-pass silicon in under a year: a 40 nm design delivering up to 46 GOPS at 312 MHz (processing up to 54 I/Q samples per cycle), flexible multi-standard programmability, and an SDK-enabled iterative workflow that met performance, power, and time-to-market goals with minimal engineering resources.

Cognitive Systems Corp.

Oleksiy Kravets

Chief Technology Officer