Articles – Page 163

April 11, 2016

Tired of spending all that time doing verification? Yeah, well, everyone is, so get in line for the “Can I Finally Be Done Verifying – PLEEEEZ??” window, where you can submit your coverage numbers and see whether you get a weekend or you get sent back to the lab for more verification.

Verification productivity has always been a hot topic, ever since it was figured out that you guys spend about 70% of your silicon efforts on making sure that the other 30% was done correctly. Mentor Graphics recently made a couple of announcements intended to provide some relief for … Read More → "Mentor and Verification Productivity"

Hiding In Plain Sight

One Company Has its Hands in Almost All of Our Products

by Jim Turley

April 6, 2016

“I guess I’m just hopelessly fascinated by the realities that you can assemble out of connected fragments.” – Junot Diaz

If you were told that there is a high-tech company that can boast, “virtually every electronic device in the world is produced using our technology,” who would you think of first? Are we talking about a chip company like Intel, Microchip, Freescale, or Toshiba? Surely they’re not in every device in the world. Maybe it’s a software company like Microsoft or Google’s Android? They’re popular, yes, but not … Read More → "Hiding In Plain Sight"

Integrity Simplified

Mentor Upgrades HyperLynx

by Kevin Morris

April 5, 2016

These days, the metal on your PCB has to do a lot more than just connect a few dots. With the pervasiveness of high-speed serial interfaces and other signals that put a premium on signal integrity (SI), most board designs can’t get away with simple-minded placement and routing anymore. And, with the compression and perforation of power planes, we can’t take power integrity (PI) for granted either.

The situation is only getting worse. New protocols and standards for high-speed interfaces like DDR4, multi-gigabit Ethernet, and PCI Express put even more strain … Read More → "Integrity Simplified"

Yet Another Wireless Protocol

Synapse Takes 802.15.4 in a Different Direction

by Bryon Moyer

April 4, 2016

[Editor’s note: this article has been updated at the end. In addition, new information from more recent products meant a change to the current used and the update model.]

The wild and wooly world of wireless is still bubbling with new things. We’ve become accustomed to three contenders for short- to medium-range wireless: WiFi, BlueTooth, and ZigBee. And we saw before that there is a profusion of longer-range, lower-power protocols vying for primacy.

Well, today the plan was to look at … Read More → "Yet Another Wireless Protocol"

We are Teaching the Wrong Lessons

Giving a Computer to All 11-12 Year Olds is Not the Answer

by Dick Selwood

March 31, 2016

I had planned to write about new advanced technologies (quantum computing and the like) and to report on SEMI’s Industry Strategy Symposium Europe, but instead, I have been distracted by the announcement that all British children in school year 7 – that covers children between 11 and 12 years old – are being given a computer. The aim is to re-enforce the government diktat that “all children should learn to code”. All the talking heads that are being rolled out to support this initiative state, as an unchallenged fact, that coding is as important as English for someone in the early 21^{st</ … Read More → "We are Teaching the Wrong Lessons"}

Math Works Harder

MATLAB Upgrades Boost Design Creation

by Kevin Morris

March 30, 2016

“Verilog and VHDL are the most natural and efficient ways for me to express my design intent.” — No one. Ever.

Whether we’re doing FPGA or ASIC design, or programming the latest DSP, most of us don’t start out our project with regular hardware description languages. In fact, if we’re developing or tuning an algorithm, or if we’re somehow applying math to our problem, a great many of us do the early work in MATLAB. It makes sense. … Read More → "Math Works Harder"

EUV Becomes an Answer Instead of a Question

Dramatic Mood Change at SPIE Advanced Litho

by Bryon Moyer

March 28, 2016

The mood was dramatically different from prior years. Hope was in the air, and there was a distinct sense that the long sought-after achievement might actually be within reach.

If I tell you that the venue for this altered state was the SPIE Advanced Litho conference, then you can probably guess what I’m talking about: EUV. (OK, that and the spoiler title…) The tenor of the presentations, and even comments from the audience, were completely different from last year and prior years.

EUV has been discussed as the next big lithography step since I … Read More → "EUV Becomes an Answer Instead of a Question"

Why We Work: a Documentary

Fiduciary Responsibility Extends in All Directions

by Jim Turley

March 25, 2016

“Management is doing things right; leadership is doing the right things.” – Peter Drucker

Why do you go to work? Is it because you’ve found your life’s calling and can’t imagine doing anything else? Or is it because you just need a steady paycheck, and you don’t care who provides it? Do you consider your current position as merely a convenient source for on-the-job training before you bust out and go it alone? Did you inherit father’s company? Or is it because you’re flirting with the receptionist?

Debugging to the Tenth Power

We’re Totally Unprepared to Judge the Security of Our Own Devices

by Jim Turley

March 23, 2016

“We’re boned.” – Bender Rodriguez

Debugging code is hard enough. Now we’re taking on a whole new level of software sanitation.

By that I mean security features – anti-hacking, backdoors, encryption, anti-malware, and so on. I hate the term “cybersecurity,” but that’s a pretty succinct description of what we’re all expected to add to our devices now. And we’re totally unprepared for it.

Fact is, most hardware and software developers (and their bosses) haven’t got the first clue about how to build in security. We might as … Read More → "Debugging to the Tenth Power"

Fiduciary Irresponsibility

The Needs of the Few Outweigh the Needs of the Many

by Kevin Morris

March 22, 2016

The corporate world has a well-established legal principle called “Fiduciary Responsibility” or “Fiduciary Duty.” Simply put, it is the legal duty to act “solely in another party’s interests.” The most common example of Fiduciary Responsibility affecting the lives of most corporate-employed engineers is that of a director to the shareholders. In a corporation, directors are elected or appointed to the board by the shareholders, and they have the authority to implement corporate policy.

As fiduciaries, directors owe a duty to their “principals,” who, in the case of corporations. are the shareholders. This … Read More → "Fiduciary Irresponsibility"