Articles – Page 143

May 22, 2017

You’ve driven it for a decade or more. It’s taken you on-road and off-road. It’s brought you to the corner store and across the country. It’s got over 200,000 miles on it, and it’s still running fine. The thing is, you know you’re going to need to upgrade one of these days. Will the car die and force you into a decision? Or will you be able to plan ahead for a managed transition?

After all, you haven’t had a car payment in years, and new cars, well, they have all … Read More → "Silicon Jersey Barriers"

Update Time: What Happened Next?

Revisiting Two Fast Changing Topics

by Dick Selwood

May 18, 2017

I am revisiting the subject of a couple of articles. We publish stories about things that we feel are interesting and important, but, in most cases, they are only snapshots of an evolving process. So, today, I thought it was worth looking at two subjects where the evolution is particularly rapid.

I originally wrote about RISC-V last December. RISC-V is an open-instruction-set architecture (ISA), originally from Berkeley. Designed as an alternative to ARM and Intel architectures, it is gaining ground in a number of implementations, including in Microsemi’s FPGAs and some other single-core implementations. It has 16 … Read More → "Update Time: What Happened Next?"

Disruption Case Study #43K673S2

Home Security Systems are Popular, So Why Isn’t That Business Growing?

by Jim Turley

May 17, 2017

“Security is mostly a superstition… Life is either a daring adventure, or nothing.” – Helen Keller

It’s tough spying on yourself. Lots of homeowners have installed security cameras in and around their houses, hoping to catch burglars on video. And more are coming; home security is a booming business, with growth rates in the 20% range.

So, if the home-security business is booming, why are home-security companies declining?

Dedicated home-security firms like ADT are seeing a 4% CAGR decline in installations, according to … Read More → "Disruption Case Study #43K673S2"

Cloaks and Daggers and Logic Probes

Engineering Defies Marketing

by Kevin Morris

May 16, 2017

He looked nervously around the bar as we chatted, probably hoping to see nobody he recognized. We weren’t exactly handing off nuclear codes or kompromat dossiers, but I could tell he didn’t want to be seen talking to me (the press) nonetheless. “We switched PCB layout tools two years ago,” he quietly explained – his eyes continuing to dart toward the door. “So far, it’s been working pretty well. Both tools are stable and the new company’s support seems a little friendlier.”

Right.

The “big secret” here was that a medium-sized systems … Read More → "Cloaks and Daggers and Logic Probes"

Intentional Attacks

Finding IoT Device Security Holes

by Bryon Moyer

May 15, 2017

Hey, everyone – have you heard? Security: it’s a thing. Of course, the internet is a thing, and, well, things are things, and the internet of things is a thing… but security on the internet of things (IoT)? Yeah, that’s still a work in progress, with dreams of becoming a full-fledged thing when it grows up.

I know, the interwebs have used untold amounts of digital ink in the service of security. Although, truth be told, most of that ink is used in pieces reminding us that security is important and that the lack thereof is … Read More → "Intentional Attacks"

Pyramid or House of Cards

Will EDA Endure for the Ages?

by Kevin Morris

May 10, 2017

Building a pyramid takes a very long time and a huge number of people. The first stones are the foundation, of course, and, as the layers slowly increase, those seminal pieces are often buried and forgotten – deep inside the ever-evolving structure. Ever so quietly, they continue their duties, even as they and those who placed them fade from memory.

Our technological pyramid isn’t quite so predictably behaved. We haven’t obscured the technique for creating a PN junction. MOSFET transistor design is not yet a lost art. Today’s engineers do not … Read More → "Pyramid or House of Cards"

Want to Buy a Processor Architecture?

MIPS is Up for Sale, as Imagination Tries to Stanch Its Hemorrhaging

by Jim Turley

May 9, 2017

“Zealots assume the last 5% of their plan will be taken care of by their own greatness or momentum or divinity.” – Keith Olbermann

What do the Golden State Warriors and Imagination Technologies have in common?

Momentum.

No, wait… that’s not right. The Warriors have momentum and Imagination… just doesn’t. While some b-ballers have the hot hands, Imagination can’t seem to catch a break. It’s a shame, really. They’re all-star material. A good team. Strong players. A good record. But they just somehow never caught fire and got … Read More → "Want to Buy a Processor Architecture?"

Cadence EDA Update

Three Verification Announcements

by Bryon Moyer

May 8, 2017

Seems that news of the improved performance of EDA tools comes in waves. We covered some Mentor stories recently; this time it’s Cadence’s turn. And there are three things to talk about – all related to verification.

Speeding Simulation

Let’s start with the venerable art of simulation. Cadence points out that, many years back, simulation involved live execution of scripts – which took too long. So the era of compiled simulation began, and, well, that’s … Read More → "Cadence EDA Update"

Watching the Wheels Go Round

Autonomous, Robotic Race Cars Make Good Sport – and Engineering

by Jim Turley

May 3, 2017

“Change does not roll in on the wheels of inevitability, but comes through continuous struggle.” Martin Luther King, Jr.

Hey, at least it’s “mobile.” At Mobile World Congress in Barcelona, in amongst all the shiny new cellphones and tablets, was a new product that weighed in at 2,150 pounds (975 kg), consumes up to 1200 kW, and can go almost 200 MPH.

No, it’s not the new Surface tablet falling off a cliff. But it is a new platform, of sorts. It’s the … Read More → "Watching the Wheels Go Round"

Walking the (Heterogeneous Multiprocessing) Talk

When Will EDA Tools be Accelerated?

by Kevin Morris

May 2, 2017

For years now, marketing folks at companies who make things like GPUs and FPGAs have been painting a beautiful picture of a gleaming future – a future where dogs and cats get along, unicorns frolic on the lawn, and accelerated computing brings orders of magnitude improvements in computational throughput and, particularly, performance-per-watt. It’s a grand story, and the only thing that’s kept it from becoming reality is the minor challenge of finding hardware engineers to re-write all of the software in the world in RTL (or something like that).

Of course, that vision has not yet … Read More → "Walking the (Heterogeneous Multiprocessing) Talk"