Articles – Page 156

August 31, 2016

“…then we hold the world ransom for one million dollars!” – Dr. Evil, “Austin Powers”

When you think of a “megaprocessor,” what do you imagine? An ultra-high-performance machine, one step up from a supercomputer? The ultimate computing architecture, powerful enough to simulate all the world’s weather? A parallel processing machine? Maybe a massive neural network?

It’s bound to be big, right? Like, room-sized big. And really, really fast. Like, 20-KHz fast.

Wait, what?

That’s right, James Newman’s enormous “Megaprocessor” runs at an astonishing 20-KHz clock frequency, … Read More → "It May Be Big and Bulky, But It’s Slow!"

The Quiet FPGAs

Microsemi Soldiers On Silently

by Kevin Morris

August 30, 2016

We don’t hear much about Microsemi in the FPGA world these days. In fact, it would be pretty easy to forget that the company – primarily known for it’s high-reliability mil-aero offerings – is in the programmable logic business at all. With the loud footsteps of Xilinx and Intel/Altera resonating in the hallways, the steadfast persistence of Achronix gnawing at some of their most important markets, and Lattice’s transition to a consumer electronics focus, it’s easy to let the memory of the interesting and capable FPGA families formerly associated with the Actel brand fade … Read More → "The Quiet FPGAs"

Matching Patterns

Mentor Discusses DRC’s Newer Cousin

by Bryon Moyer

August 29, 2016

When you look at someone’s face, what do you see?

I suppose that depends on who you are. Many people are good at picking up the details. Eye color is a big one that can sometimes get you in trouble if you don’t catch it. Other people aren’t so big on the details, but they can generate overall impressions based on a “look.” Your intrepid reporter would place himself in the latter category – seeing similarities in looks between people that others don’t see at all while missing the eye color.

At … Read More → "Matching Patterns"

Something in the Air

Ultrasonics Brings Touch to the Human Machine Interface

by Dick Selwood

August 24, 2016

When you are next in a hospital, watch the medical staff as they get into a lift. The odds are they will call out the floor they want and someone non-medical will press the button. This is not because they are lazy but because studies have shown that hospital lift buttons have more bacteria on them than toilet seats. Clearly a sensor that recognises a wave of the hand or a pushing gesture as a signal to choose a floor would be a good replacement for a physical button, but how do you know whether your gesture has been … Read More → "Something in the Air"

News Flash: Hell Still Not Frozen Over

The Intel/ARM Agreement is a Smaller Deal Than It Sounds

by Jim Turley

August 23, 2016

“Nature’s great masterpiece, an elephant; the only harmless great thing.” – John Donne

You don’t often see the names “Intel” and “ARM” used together in a sentence without words like “rival” or “competitor” in between them. They’re like oil and water, cats and dogs, Dodgers and Giants.

But, just this week, we saw the lion lie down with the lamb. What’s this? Intel and ARM are working together? Intel will be making ARM processors? It’s the end of the world as we know it!

But I feel … Read More → "News Flash: Hell Still Not Frozen Over"

Flash for IoT, Automotive, and Mobile

Micron Launches New NAND Products

by Bryon Moyer

August 22, 2016

Memory is memory, right? OK, OK, yeah, there’s different types. DRAM, SRAM, non-volatile (typically NOR and NAND). But, within each family, memory is memory. Right?

Well, maybe not. Micron had a couple of NAND announcements, and the features they highlighted were definitely targeted at specific markets: consumer IoT (CIoT), industrial IoT (IIoT), automotive, and mobile. So – perhaps density aside – why would it matter where the memory is going? Let’s take a walk through the situation to see.

Bulking up NAND

Micron’s first Read More → "Flash for IoT, Automotive, and Mobile"

Big Data Moves to “Electronics”

Optimal+ Covers Board, System Manufacturing

by Bryon Moyer

August 17, 2016

Last year, right around this time, we took a look at a company called Optimal+. They were harvesting reams of semiconductor test data so that analysts could rummage through, looking for clues to manufacturing tweaks that could improve yield or throughput without compromising quality. With latency of up to around 10 minutes, it provided something close to real-time feedback.

And any new learnings could be tested on mounds of historical data to see “what would have happened” had the new rule been in place. … Read More → "Big Data Moves to “Electronics”"

Next Door to Genius

Was Microsoft Built on Pirated Software from Digital Research?

by Jim Turley

August 17, 2016

“If you can’t say something nice about someone, come sit right here by me.” – Alice Roosevelt Longworth

This story is part grave digging, part mythology, part forensic analysis, and part courtroom drama. It’s new and it’s old. It’s about computers and it’s about people; good guys and bad guys; intrigue and betrayal. And it’s all true. Well, most of it, anyway.

Some of you already know the story – or think you do – and it starts like this. A computer science professor named Gary Kildall, working out of … Read More → "Next Door to Genius"

Mentor’s Latest Xpedition

Expediting System Design

by Kevin Morris

August 16, 2016

Respin! Respin! Respin! Are you afraid yet? For three decades, the electronic design automation (EDA) industry has relied on that fear. They learned way back in the 1980s that the quickest path to the biggest budget when selling software tools was through fear of the dreaded, career-limiting IC design respin. Want to sell me something that makes my engineers more productive or my designs more optimal? Meh… Maybe. Want to sell me something that prevents me from taking the blame for a respin on my project? How much money do you need?

New Inspectors Are Afoot

KLA-Tencor and AMAT Announce New Systems

by Bryon Moyer

August 15, 2016

At Semicon West this year, inspection seemed to be all the rage with two of the big equipment makers. Both KLA-Tencor (KT) and Applied Materials (AMAT) had new inspection stories, which we shall inspect today.

The motivator on all of them is – let’s see if you can guess this: complexity. Complexity and noise. Um, complexity, noise, and the increasingly tiny defects that now matter. OK, amongst the motivators are such diverse elements as complexity, noise, increasingly tiny defects, and an unmitigated desire to move wafers through the fab as quickly as possible.

KLA-Tencor … Read More → "New Inspectors Are Afoot"