Articles – Page 158

July 20, 2016

“Begone, Prince of Insufficient Light!” — Dogbert

Imagine describing electronics, and electrons, to an 8-year-old. “Electrons are really tiny little particles that move through the wires, see? And they can turn switches on and off, and do stuff, and… uh… perform magic tricks.”

Every word of that description is inaccurate, but it kinda, sorta, gives newcomers the flavor of how electronics works. Like religion, it doesn’t have to be true to be helpful.

Now imagine describing photonics. To anyone. For most beginners, we simply replace the word “electron” with “photon” and … Read More → "A Light at the End of the Tunnel"

To Err is Human

Holding Technology Accountable

by Kevin Morris

July 19, 2016

When a Tesla automobile using the new “Autopilot” feature struck a semi trailer resulting in the death of the driver, the inevitable questions began: “Should Tesla disable the feature?”, “Are self-driving cars a good idea?” Of course, the driver was using the feature beyond its recommended envelope. But the incident highlights an interesting quirk of humans. We want to make our own mistakes. When human error – particularly our OWN human error – causes a problem, we are brimming with forgiveness. After all, it could happen to anybody, really. It was a momentary lapse of concentration. We were tired. … Read More → "To Err is Human"

When Galaxies Collide

Synopsys TCAD and Coventor Start to Overlap

by Bryon Moyer

July 18, 2016

Astronomy bestows lavish breathless anticipation upon one of the great events of the universe: two galaxies running into (or through) each other. The thing is, it happens breathtakingly slowly – each stately galaxy spinning away, the distance between them slowly evaporating. Watching it is something of a sampling exercise: see where they are; nap for a couple of centuries. Wake, see that, yup, they’re a little closer; nap. Wake again, grab a new beer, and doggonnit if they aren’t just a wee bit closer yet. Basketball it’s not.

Well, we may have something of a … Read More → "When Galaxies Collide"

From Boards to Systems

Mentor PADS Expands Scope

by Kevin Morris

July 13, 2016

For decades, the various companies who market printed circuit board (PCB) design software had it all wrong. The products available to us were defined not by what the customers actually needed, but by how the EDA companies could maximize revenues. The issue was this: smaller companies and individuals needed capable PCB design tools at a price they could afford. Giant corporations needed cutting-edge capabilities – at just about any price.

EDA companies responded in what seemed like a reasonable way. They began selling two levels of board design tools. “Enterprise” PCB design tools boasted … Read More → "From Boards to Systems"

Summer Sand Dollars

Being a Collection of News Tidbits from Across the Industry

by Jim Turley

July 12, 2016

“Deep summer is when laziness finds respectability.” – Sam Keen

It’s summertime, which means half of your cow-orkers have ambled out of the office, everyone in France is on vacation or on strike (or both; it’s hard to tell sometimes), and you’d probably rather be on some remote beach having someone fetch you another umbrella drink.

Let’s take a look at what your industrious colleagues have been doing while you were slathering on SPF50.

General Micro’s Blackhawk
Over in the Los Angeles area, the 100 … Read More → "Summer Sand Dollars"

New Low-Power Sensors

An Always-On Mic and a Less-Hungry Gyro

by Bryon Moyer

July 11, 2016

It’s how we do new technology: first, get something that works. Almost anything will do, as long as it’s not egregiously out of whack on key parameters. Next time around, you can start honing second-order specs.

Sounds like software? No, with software you literally do the honing with live updates on the product you’ve already released. With hardware, you mostly release the first version, which becomes the first generation. The next generation of new product is where you start refining.

We went through a wave of new … Read More → "New Low-Power Sensors"

POS: Porsche, Oracle, and SPARC

Oracle’s Newest SPARC S7 Processor Makes More of Less

by Jim Turley

July 7, 2016

“The older I get, the faster I was.” – popular racing driver’s adage

Some engineering designs, like some felons, are just born bad. Others start out bad but eventually turn themselves around and come out fine. And some become spectacular successes, despite their inauspicious beginnings.

Take the Porsche 911. It is perhaps the world’s most iconic sports car, immediately recognizable all over the world. After more than 50 years, the 911 retains its odd egg-shaped body style and peculiar rear-engined architecture. It started out as a terrible idea, really, probably fueled by too many … Read More → "POS: Porsche, Oracle, and SPARC"

Hamster Wheel

The Ever-elusive Perfect Engineering Environment

by Kevin Morris

July 6, 2016

Let’s make one thing perfectly clear right off the bat. Engineering is not an assembly line.

Life would be much simpler and cleaner if we could just start with a pile of widgets that needed to be engineered, quickly and methodically remove and engineer each one, and smoothly transfer it to the neat and tidy “engineered” stack. If one engineer could engineer 5 widgets per hour and we had 8 work hours per day, that would be forty widgets per engineer-day of output. A team of ten engineers could therefore engineer four hundred widgets … Read More → "Hamster Wheel"

Ansys’s Big Data Platform

SeaScape for SeaHawk and Other Tools to Come

by Bryon Moyer

July 5, 2016

Hey there! Well it looks like you’ve just launched a full-chip analysis of your project, so… well, you’re gonna have some time on your hands. While you’re awaiting results, let’s talk about some ways that we might reduce that spare time (assuming that you’re not counting on that spare time for getting other things done – or just relaxing).

EDA has always struggled with run times. And that’s because EDA tools have a huge job, taking big designs (some might not seem big today, but in their day, they were) and identifying … Read More → "Ansys’s Big Data Platform"

The Human Factor

IoT Takes People Out of the Loop

by Kevin Morris

June 29, 2016

The imminent IoT is the final phase of a computing revolution that began decades ago.

First, it was all about processor speed. From our puny 8-bit 1MHz microprocessors to today’s 64-bit multi-core multi-gigahertz behemoths, the pursuit of MIPS and FLOPS led us from machines that could barely run the most rudimentary programs to multiprocessing beasts that can crunch data at unimaginable speeds. Over time, however, processor performance gradually faded from the spotlight. Now, the incremental capability we gain with a doubling of processor speed is comparatively insignificant, and the focus in processor design has switched from … Read More → "The Human Factor"