Real time emulations: Foundation and applications

The mesoscopic properties of the state-of-the-art nanoscale devices and the emerging petascale computing and storage systems have one thing in common: they function at scales that are orders of magnitude larger than what can be simulated in standard industry and academic laboratory settings. For many decades, CAD and verification communities have successfully developed and used emulations to overcome and complement the shortcomings of simulations for logic verification. Physical prototyping and 2D/3D silicon emulation of the increasingly complex systems holds a significant promise to overcome the limitations of computer modeling and simulations. While the potential opportunities are plenty, much research is required for prototyping and building effective, relevant and indicative emulation platforms.