Articles – Page 147

March 1, 2017

Looking at the agenda for the 2017 edition of the annual DVCon – arguably the industry’s premiere verification conference, one sees precisely what one would expect: tutorials, keynotes, and technical sessions focused on the latest trends and techniques in the ever-sobering challenge of functional verification in the face of the relentless advance of Moore’s Law.

For five decades now, our designs have approximately doubled in complexity every two years. Our brains, however, have not. Our human engineering noggins can still process just about the same amount of stuff that we could back when … Read More → "Expanding the Scope of Verification"

Our Bots, Ourselves

Does Responsibility for Bots Lie with the Programmer or the User?

by Jim Turley

February 28, 2017

“You cannot escape the responsibility of tomorrow by evading it today.” – Abraham Lincoln

Doctor Frankenstein, I presume.

It seemed like such a simple thing. Typical, really. Totally not news. Yet another company had suffered a data breach, leaking its customers’ private information all over the interwebs. Names, credit cards, everything. You know the drill. You’ve probably been subject to such a leak yourself. Sadly, such events aren’t even remarkable anymore.

Except…

This one was a bit different because it involved robots. Okay, nothing so dramatic as clanking … Read More → "Our Bots, Ourselves"

Shining Light through the Backside

A Hybrid Laser that Plays Nice with CMOS

by Bryon Moyer

February 28, 2017

Looking to build some circuits that use light instead of electrons to make them super speedy? Well, you’re in good company, but you’d better buckle up: we’re still in early days on this stuff. All the pieces are there in concept, but we’re still figuring out how to integrate everything in a cost-effective, manufacturable manner. A recent IEDM conference paper pointed to one possible solution to a practical problem: getting a laser onto silicon.

To get started on this adventure, you need to bring together four critical components:

A light … Read More → "Shining Light through the Backside"

Security: Hard and Soft

Next Up: A Tortoise That Checks Your Chip for Flaws

by Jim Turley

February 22, 2017

“We will bankrupt ourselves in the vain search for absolute security.” – Dwight D. Eisenhower

I hate writing about security. I hate it because I wish it were unnecessary. There was a time when engineering meant making a product that did what you wanted it to do. Now it means spending a bunch of time making it not do what other people want but you don’t want. This sucks.

Most of the problem with implementing security features is guessing where the vulnerabilities are. How do you fix a bug you’ve … Read More → "Security: Hard and Soft"

Radio FPGA!

Xilinx Announces RFSoCs

by Kevin Morris

February 21, 2017

CQ CQ CQ – Calling CQ. This is 5G calling…

We’ve all heard it. 5G is coming. Maybe not soon, but as soon as we can get all those pesky technical issues worked out. Which pesky technical issues would those be? Glad you asked. It turns out that cramming a previously unfathomable amount of bandwidth over an unprecedented number of individual connections into each and every cell tower using millimeter wavelengths and 2 dimensional massive multiple-input multiple-output (MIMO) antenna arrays – and doing all of that within acceptable power and footprint constraints – is a really … Read More → "Radio FPGA!"

Network Timing in Your Car

Of Oscillators and IEEE 1588

by Bryon Moyer

February 20, 2017

It’s a quaint tradition, born out of decades of action thrillers summoning teams of protagonists to execute some very precise (and unlikely) plan. As the caper commences, before they disperse, they execute the final ritual: synchronizing watches.

Seems silly these days; quartz and electronics have long ago given us watches that keep excellent time, with no need for constant resetting. What with cell phones doubling as watches, our timing is even better coordinated.

But that last step isn’t simply one of better electronics: for most of us, it represents the availability of a … Read More → "Network Timing in Your Car"

The Abacus Conundrum

How Hard Can it Be to Count Chips?

by Jim Turley

February 15, 2017

“Like dreams, statistics are a form of wish fulfillment.” – Jean Baudrillard

One of the questions we often get asked here at EE Journal Galactic Headquarters and Bait Shoppe is, “What is Company X’s market share?” or the corollary question, “How big is the total market for microcontrollers, CPUs, and FPGAs?”

After charging our customary consulting fee, plus tax and 18% gratuity, and after deducting for mileage, food, lodging, client entertainment, and out-of-pocket expenses, our reply is generally, “We don’t know.”

Huh? Aren’t you guys supposed … Read More → "The Abacus Conundrum"

FPGAs Race for the Bottom

Intel, Microsemi Debut New Families

by Kevin Morris

February 14, 2017

There is an awful lot of chest beating in the FPGA world. Xilinx and Intel (Altera) have always taken great biennial pride and few prisoners when it comes to building and bragging about the biggest, baddest, fastest, farthest-out slabs of silicon that a few billion dollars worth of semiconductor fab can crank out. Getting to market before the other guy with a high-end Virtex or Stratix family, released on the latest and greatest FinFET-having, low- or high- or we-don’t-care-anymore-K dielectric, tiniest-geometry, most-exotic process has always been the source of utmost pride for the pair of programmable … Read More → "FPGAs Race for the Bottom"

Tales of Voice Recognition

Towards Cleaner Audio… Or… Not?

by Bryon Moyer

February 13, 2017

Five or so years ago, motion was getting all the MEMS and sensor love. Everything was about inertial sensors and what you could do with them to keep from getting lost.

Well, times have changed, and the flavor-of-the-month has changed with it. I noted recently the focus on audio at last fall’s MEMS Executive Congress, and, in the months since then, the industry seems to have doubled down on that focus – especially when it comes to voice recognition.

How Does Scatter/Gather Work?

Promises of Single-Cycle Access Are True, But…

by Bryon Moyer

February 9, 2017

There’s a memory access technology out there that makes some pretty bold promises. If you take only the top-level messaging away, it sounds like, well, magic. And if you think through it a bit more, you start to squint your eyes and go, “Hmmmm… How is that even possible?”

The technology is called “scatter/gather,” and my goal was to ferret out exactly what this means and what you should expect when using it – and, in particular, understanding the promise of “single-cycle access.”

We’ll start with a quick review of the concept, sharpen … Read More → "How Does Scatter/Gather Work?"