Articles – Page 114

December 11, 2018

Before becoming professional engineers, most of us designed and built things as a hobby. It’s rare to find an engineer who jumped right into engineering school without at least some background of tinkering and experimenting. And, when we did those projects, we had full control. We could choose whatever part we wanted or needed. We didn’t have to deal with management, manufacturing, procurement, approved parts libraries, second sources, distributor line cards, or any of the other myriad constraints that tie the creative hands of just about every working professional engineer on the … Read More → "Who Chooses Components and Tools?"

Communication Solves Flash Unpredictability

HCC Embedded Launches a Failsafe Flash Translation Layer

by Bryon Moyer

December 10, 2018

That flash thumb drive you have in your pocket is a beast of a memory. We store so much stuff in so little space; that form factor has completely democratized the storing of masses of data that would once have been assigned to a giant data center of yore. And all in your pocket now.

Of course, this comes at a cost. This is NAND flash, and when your main goal is to minimize memory area – and maximize capacity – you must trade some things off. Most notably, you can’t randomly access an individual cell – or word … Read More → "Communication Solves Flash Unpredictability"

A Fab for All Reasons

Semiconductor Fab Chases Materials for Persistent Memory Derby

by Steven Leibson

December 6, 2018

Last week, I discussed the industry’s pursuit of Persistent Memory (PM) as a way to reduce mass storage (SSDs and HDDs) latency. (See “What Will Replace DRAM and NAND, and When?”) In that article, I mentioned some of the many candidate technologies in the PM Derby. Figure 1 is a graphic from Intermolecular (IMI) with a detailed list of PM technologies under development. The graphic shows the various candidate … Read More → "A Fab for All Reasons"

Achronix Accelerates eFPGA

7nm Speedcore Gen4 Brings Big Improvements

by Kevin Morris

December 5, 2018

Perhaps when the most important problem is a nail, every solution starts to look like a hammer. With the ramping explosion in AI and machine learning, countless companies are trying to climb on the bandwagon, morphing and melding their existing technologies in an attempt to come up with a differentiated solution that will capture a meaningful share of this mind-boggling emerging opportunity. Everybody from EDA vendors to cloud data centers to GPU companies, FPGA companies, IP companies, and boutique semiconductor startups are spinning stories about how their technology is the key to unlocking the potential of AI.

OneDrive II: The Extended Test Drive

Microsoft’s Cloud Service Doesn’t Improve with Age

by Jim Turley

December 4, 2018

“Familiarity breeds contempt.” – popular proverb

December has come. Winter and the Christmas season are approaching, and it’s a time for goodwill, a forgiving attitude, and hopeful thoughts of peace and happiness, when we all…

Nope, I can’t do it. I’ve been using Microsoft’s OneDrive cloud service for about six months now, and it hasn’t put me in a generous mood. … Read More → "OneDrive II: The Extended Test Drive"

That Buzz in your Pocket

Boréas Lays Out a Lower-Power PZ Haptics Driver

by Bryon Moyer

December 3, 2018

Today we’re going to talk about – um… hang on a sec, my phone is buzzing……… OK, sorry, I’m back. Um, so, yeah, haptics. Generically, it’s what we do on equipment to lend not only a sense of sound and sight for feedback, but also touch. And that touch angle has many forms – like when your phone vibrates.

But it also impacts, for instance, how a device gives tactile feedback regarding pushed buttons, as we discussed Read More → "That Buzz in your Pocket"

What Will Replace DRAM and NAND, and When?

Persistent Memory’s Advantages Present an Irresistible Lure

by Steven Leibson

November 29, 2018

Long, long ago, back when Richard Nixon was president of the United States of America, magnetic cores were the dominant computer memory technology. In fact, magnetic cores were essentially the only practical memory technology for two decades. Although we had hand-woven rope memory for ROM, only the Apollo space computers and the HP 9100 desktop calculator used it. My 1954 “Britannica Book of the Year”—a real book, made from dead trees—says that RCA Laboratories announced a working core memory in 1953 that used a 100×100 grid of wires to control 10,000 ferrite toroids.

Redpine Signals Enters the MCU Arena

New Wireless MCU Aims to Outdo Incumbents

by Jim Turley

November 28, 2018

“The history of innovation is the story of ideas that seemed dumb at the time.” – Andy Dunn

Innovation vs. inertia. It’s a familiar struggle in our business. Do you create something entirely new by throwing away everything that came before, or do you leverage the existing ecosystem and build incrementally? There are plenty of examples of either strategy working – or failing – so it’s easy to rationalize your decision, no matter which route you take.

On the one hand, CPU designers say we should ditch … Read More → "Redpine Signals Enters the MCU Arena"

Validate Twice, Build Once

Mentor Xpedition Raises PCB Validation Ante

by Kevin Morris

November 27, 2018

As electronic system design has evolved, the practice of designing in specialized silos has broken down. Challenges such as signal integrity for multi-gigabit signals has forced co-design that spans every level of design from system to board to package to IC. Other issues, including thermal, power, RF, EM, and many more, have exacerbated this effect. As much as we wish we could just design our PCB in isolation, the cold hard tendrils of modern reality snake their way into our project and ensnare us at every turn.

Similarly, the idea … Read More → "Validate Twice, Build Once"

Batteries as a Service

GTS’s High-Touch Service: Boon or Overreach?

by Bryon Moyer

November 26, 2018

Batteries have woven themselves intimately into our lives. But are they friend or foe? They’re obviously friends when they let us move around with untethered gadgetry. But when we need them now and they aren’t charged, they’re less friendly. And when we try to recharge them and they will no longer take a charge, they’re downright evil.

OK, so yes, we’re talking about rechargeable batteries here. No one’s coming to your rescue when you … Read More → "Batteries as a Service"