Articles – Page 117

October 23, 2018

They say that practice makes permanent – whether it’s right or wrong. And, for those of us who have been designing printed circuit boards (PCBs) for years or even decades, the adage rings true. Many of our habits and beliefs are born of career-long repetition and reinforcement without benefit of a close critical examination. After all, we’ve designed board after board, and they almost always work correctly, so what’s the point in stepping back and challenging our well-worn norms?

Well, if you haven’t … Read More → "Matters of Integrity"

Photonics: Where Heat is a Good Thing

Mentor Announces LightSuite for Electro-Optical Design

by Bryon Moyer

October 22, 2018

We all know that person. Everyone in the office is wondering why the heat is turned up. They’re not sweating outright, but they have that just-a-tad-too-warm glow going. And then there’s that one person wearing the jacket. The one that can never seem to get warm enough. Everyone else is trying to shed heat; this person needs more. If only there were a way to get heat from the too-hot people to the too-cold person. Alas…

Low power. Cooler dice. They’re pretty much a thing these days. We spend countless hours designing low-power circuits, … Read More → "Photonics: Where Heat is a Good Thing"

Q&A with Xilinx President and CEO Victor Peng

Details of the Versal ACAP Intro and the Company’s “Data Center First” Strategy vs. Intel’s

by Steven Leibson

October 18, 2018

“Strategy is about setting yourself apart from the competition” – Michael Porter, Harvard Business School

Earlier this month, Xilinx announced the 7nm Versal ACAP series of advanced programmable ICs along with a new board-level hardware accelerator for data centers called Alveo. Xilinx President and CEO Victor Peng announced these products during his keynote on October 2 at the Xilinx Developers Forum (XDF) held in San Jose, California. Later that day, Peng sat down with me for 25 minutes to discuss the announcements and his strategy for the business. What follows is a transcript of that … Read More → "Q&A with Xilinx President and CEO Victor Peng"

Get Woke: Sensory Improves Voice Activation

Software Company Fine-Tunes Wake-Word Recognition

by Jim Turley

October 17, 2018

“I know the voices aren’t real, but they have some good ideas.” – anonymous

We laugh when Siri, Alexa, or Cortana misunderstands us and makes embarrassing mistakes, but we cut them some slack because, hey, the technology is only a few years old, right?

Nope. Speech recognition has been around for Read More → "Get Woke: Sensory Improves Voice Activation"

Finance 102: The IPO Roadshow

So, You’ve Decided to Take Your Company Public

by Jim Turley

October 16, 2018

“The IPO is no exit for the entrepreneur; it’s the start of purgatory.” — Vivek Wadhwa

In last week’s installment we talked about various forms of startup financing. You can build your company with money from your own pocket; you can borrow from a few rich angel investors; you can take out a loan from a bank; or you can get VC money. The biggest, hairiest, and most audacious option, though, is to … Read More → "Finance 102: The IPO Roadshow"

Easier Gadget Wireless

One for Coding; One for No Coding

by Bryon Moyer

October 15, 2018

So you’re going to add wireless capabilities to your WidgetMaster-Plus, eh? You did all that work getting the widgety parts working, so now all you need is to slap on an antenna and a wireless thingymawhatcher and it’s out the door, right?

Yeah, well, maybe so, maybe no. There are two phases to getting this done. The first is simply getting the wireless functionality to work, which itself has two aspects: the hardware radio and the software stacks. Either of which you might do yourself or find something … Read More → "Easier Gadget Wireless"

Why does Xilinx say That its New 7nm Versal “ACAP” isn’t an FPGA?

Xilinx Drops More Veils and Reveals More Details but Does Not Tell All.

by Steven Leibson

October 11, 2018

Xilinx has been performing a slow reveal of its new ACAP (adaptive compute acceleration platform) architecture for many months, and the company unveiled much more—including the new “Versal” family name and six (!) new, multi-member series (aka families) of 7nm ACAP devices—at its October 1 Xilinx Developers Forum (XDF), held in San Jose, California. (The company says that “Versal” is a contraction of the words “versatile” and ”universal.”) In his XDF keynote introducing the Versal product lines, Xilinx President and CEO Victor Peng declared that “Xilinx is not an FPGA company; Xilinx is a platform company,” … Read More → "Why does Xilinx say That its New 7nm Versal “ACAP” isn’t an FPGA?"

Finance 101: Lemonade Stand, Inc.

Startup Financing for the Compleat Beginner

by Jim Turley

October 11, 2018

“Venture capital is about capturing the value between the startup phase and the public company phase.” – Fred Wilson, Union Square Ventures

We live in a world of high finance. We don’t necessarily have to enjoy it, but it’s useful to understand it. Not because you’re likely to jump careers from engineering to corporate finance (although you certainly could), but because the world of leveraged buyouts and P/E ratios is likely to affect you personally. Whenever your employer offers you stock options, your startup goes public, or you pick … Read More → "Finance 101: Lemonade Stand, Inc."

ARM Cortex-A76AE Reliably Stays in Lock Step

Processor for Autonomous Vehicles Learns a Few Safety Tricks

by Jim Turley

October 10, 2018

“A man with a watch always knows what time it is. A man with two is never certain.” – Segal’s Law

Another day, another new ARM processor. These guys are like Taco Bell. They keep rearranging the same three or four ingredients to create a surprising assortment of different products. A pipeline here, a new cache there, and you’ve got a whole menu of options. There’s something for everyone, even if it does all taste the same.

One new ingredient in ARM’s kitchen, … Read More → "ARM Cortex-A76AE Reliably Stays in Lock Step"

Altium Disrupts PCB Design

“19” and “365” Break New Ground

by Kevin Morris

October 9, 2018

PCB design is more art than science. A painter beginning a painting has only a concept, and the painter’s work is to transform that concept into a physical realization of canvas, oils, pigments, and brush strokes. There are an infinite number of paintings that could result, and the experience, expertise, intuition, and creativity of the artist give life to the finished work of art. When an engineer sits down with a schematic and begins transforming it into a physical realization of fiberglass, copper, solder and components, there are an impossible number of constraints and tradeoffs … Read More → "Altium Disrupts PCB Design"