Articles – Page 123

July 10, 2018

Ross Freeman, co-founder of Xilinx, invented the FPGA in 1984. In the 34 years that have passed, FPGAs have been wildly successful and are certainly among the most important electronic devices ever conceived. But during that entire history, tracing the evolution of FPGAs from dozens of LUTs to millions, the FPGA has been the optimal solution for … exactly zero applications.

Don’t get me wrong. FPGAs do one thing exceptionally well: Flexibility. FPGAs can often do what no other device can, bridging gaps between otherwise-incompatible protocols, reconfiguring themselves on the fly to adapt to changing requirements and circumstances, and … Read More → "Is AI the Killer FPGA Application?"

A New ASIC for AI

eSilicon Launches neuASIC

by Bryon Moyer

July 9, 2018

Anytime the new cool thing comes around, all the cool engineers have to figure out the best ways to make it work. And we embark on a natural progression – or perhaps succession is a better word – sort of the way a depression along a river changes from pond to wetland to meadow.

In this case, the succession all about the conflict between flexibility and cost. (And performance.) In general, you can get either performance or one or both of the other two. The thing is, though, that, if the best … Read More → "A New ASIC for AI"

Xilinx Hits the Road with Daimler

SoCs to Power Automotive AI Applications

by Kevin Morris

July 5, 2018

In what appears to be another win for Xilinx’s formidable Zynq SoC FPGA platform, Xilinx and Daimler announced a collaboration on “an in-car system using Xilinx technology for artificial intelligence (AI) processing in automotive applications.” We say this “appears” to be a win for Zynq because Zynq isn’t mentioned by name in the very-vague press release. It does say, however, that the solution is “powered by a Xilinx automotive platform consisting of system-on-a-chip (SoC) devices and AI acceleration software.” We believe the SoC devices will be some member(s) of the Zynq … Read More → "Xilinx Hits the Road with Daimler"

Maybe You Can’t Drive my Car (Yet) Part 3

What Will our Robotic Masters Think When They Find Out That We Cheat?

by Steven Leibson

July 5, 2018

“I’m not bad. I’m just drawn that way.” – Jessica Rabbit

In the last installment of this article series (see “Maybe You Can’t Drive My Car (Yet) Part 2”), the NTSB had just reported preliminary findings regarding the fatal crash of a Tesla Model S in Silicon Valley near the difficult intersection of US 101 and California State Highway (SH) 85. Briefly, the NTSB report said:

Intel’s x86 Turns 40: Full of Vigor or Doddering Retiree?

Teleology and the Effects of Randomness on Computer Architecture

by Jim Turley

July 3, 2018

Forty years ago, the calendar on the kitchen wall said it was 1978. People were taping All in the Family on their Betamax VCRs, the Nobel Prize for Literature went to Isaac Bashevis Singer, Animal House and Jaws 2 were filling movie theaters, and the Western world was, to its everlasting shame, in the grip of disco music.

Meanwhile, in Santa Clara, … Read More → "Intel’s x86 Turns 40: Full of Vigor or Doddering Retiree?"

More Tools in the Cloud

Cadence and Elastifile Debut

by Bryon Moyer

July 1, 2018

Seems like it wasn’t long ago that we did a piece on EDA in the cloud. And yet here we are again, with yet more developments. One comes from an EDA vendor, the other from a company focused on the cloud infrastructure needed to handle EDA in the cloud. We’ll take them in that order.

Cadence’s New Cloud Approach

A long while … Read More → "More Tools in the Cloud"

Goodbye to All This

A Valedictory from England*

by Dick Selwood

June 28, 2018

This is a part of my goodbye to an active role in the world of electronics, a world I have been a part of, as a PR person and a journalist, for nearly 40 years and, if you add on previous use of computers, including using teletypes on ARPANET, for nearly 50. In a few days, I will close down my commercial activities, and, although I will be looking at writing a book on an aspect of electronics history (inspired by the NaNoWriMo challenge my friend showed me recently), … Read More → "Goodbye to All This"

Microchip Makes Two Small Firsts

First Dual-Core dsPIC; First Cortex-M23 with TrustZone

by Jim Turley

June 27, 2018

“Roses are red / Violets are blue / I’m schizophrenic / And so am I” – Oscar Levant

Two heads are better than one, and everyone’s stuck their head into the multicore business. Even little $1 microcontrollers have dual processor cores now, including those from MCU titan Microchip.
Just this week, Microchip announced two new (and unrelated) devices, both of which can claim a small first in the industry. One, the dsPIC33CH, is the company’s first dsPIC device to have two cores. Previously, all dsPIC chips were single-core only. Over on the other side of … Read More → "Microchip Makes Two Small Firsts"

The EDA Enigma

55 Years of Identity Crisis

by Kevin Morris

June 26, 2018

The fifty-fifth Design Automation Conference (DAC) is underway in San Francisco this week. Just let that number settle in for a minute or two. That’s right, EDA existed before Moore’s Law. Back when folks could cram only a handful of transistors on an integrated circuit, there was already a conference dedicated to the development of software tools to design them.

That’s how important design automation is.

The Moore’s Law miracle – five decades of exponential … Read More → "The EDA Enigma"

MEMS Design Contest Winners

The Winning Projects

by Bryon Moyer

June 25, 2018

Two years ago at the annual DATE conference in Europe, a MEMS design contest was announced. Sponsored by Reutlingen University, Coventor, X-Fab, and Cadence, the goal was to stimulate creative ideas for MEMS technology. The sponsors each had a part: Coventor and Cadence provided tools for the design process, and X-Fab signed up to build the winning design. Reutlingen University helped with the organizing efforts.

Well, the winners were recently announced, and we’re going to look through the projects of the top … Read More → "MEMS Design Contest Winners"