Articles – Page 191

September 11, 2014

We recently took a look at one side of vibration: the side that uses it to diagnose nascent illness in manufacturing equipment. And I hinted at a second side, which is what we’ll look at today. The previous discussion was about detecting and decoding vibrations. This one will be about leveraging vibration to harvest energy.

Yes, not a new concept, and we’ve talked about it before, but our prior focus has largely been on Read More → "A Self-Sufficient Sensor Node"

Be a Better Programmer

Fewer Bugs and a Happier Boss, All at the Same Time?

by Jim Turley

September 10, 2014

We all say we want to learn new things, but the first part of learning is admitting your ignorance. Little kids in elementary school have no problem with this. They’re learning new things every day – every minute – so absorbing new information comes naturally.

But as we get older and gain some measure of competence in our careers, our hobbies, and the world in general, we also tend to ossify. We don’t want to learn because we don’t want to acknowledge that we’re inexpert. Learning a new language means preparing to make a thousand … Read More → "Be a Better Programmer"

Going Vertical

Ecosystem for Interposer-based Design?

by Kevin Morris

September 9, 2014

We’ve talked a lot lately in these pages about the impending demise of Moore’s Law. Consensus is that, somewhere around the half-century mark, one of the most astounding prophecies in human history will have finally run its course. Next year, we’ll have a round of FinFET devices that will be so exotic and expensive that only a handful of companies will be able to use them. In the decade that follows, we may or may not reach 10nm and 7nm production – using either esoteric unlikelies like EUV or extreme-brute-force multi-patterning techniques – to solve just … Read More → "Going Vertical"

IoT Standards

Is the Time Right to Calm the Chaos?

by Bryon Moyer

September 8, 2014

OK, so, the Internet of Things (IoT) is hot and heavy, and everyone and their cuzzins are putting “IoT” on their press releases so that editors will read them. And some of those folks are actually developing technology for the IoT.

But, even within the sphere of legitimate development, there are notes of caution: there is a whiff of chaos in the system that’s a bit too strong for some folks. They want standards. To be sure, that’s not everyone. In particular, some companies enjoy having proprietary technology that locks customers out of using anything … Read More → "IoT Standards"

¡Viva el Nodo de 28nm!

The Impact of the Longest Lived Semiconductor Node

by Bryon Moyer

September 4, 2014

We’ve spilled a lot of ink on 14/16nm FinFET here at EE Journal. It is exciting stuff: bleeding-edge process technology and a fabulous new transistor structure; heck, it’s 3D without the glasses. There is no doubt that FinFET will be a difference maker in some high-profile products. As reality sets in, however, there is growing doubt with regards to the breadth of FinFET applicability. FinFET will make the transition from bleeding-edge to leading-edge, but it may not make the transition to mainstream anytime soon … perhaps never.

FinFETs certainly sound golden. Like most golden … Read More → "¡Viva el Nodo de 28nm!"

The Overachieving Middle Child

MIPS I6400 Introduces 64-bit to the Midrange

by Jim Turley

September 3, 2014

“Bifurcate” is a word you don’t get to use very often. Yet it’s a familiar concept in our industry. Mobile operating systems have bifurcated into the choice between Android and iOS. On the desktop, it’s Windows or MacOS. Verizon or AT&T. Home Depot or Lowes. ARM or x86.

In all of these cases, the big pie chart is pretty much equally divided between two major players, with a thin sliver of “other.” In the desktop environment, the “other” slice of the pie includes Linux: it’s there, but it’s not really … Read More → "The Overachieving Middle Child"

There’s a Processor in My FPGA!

Hey, There’s LUT Fabric in my SoC!

by Kevin Morris

September 2, 2014

The idea of processors and FPGAs working together is exactly as old as the idea of FPGAs. Perhaps older, in fact, because even the prehistoric pre-FPGA PLDs often showed up on CPU boards – palling up with the hot processors of the day (which boasted 8 full bits of bone-crushing capability – at speeds of over a megahertz!) Of course, those programmable devices were mostly doing “glue logic” work – connecting up things that weren’t easy to connect otherwise.

Since those early days, processors and programmable logic have enjoyed a long and romantic partnership – spending long … Read More → "There’s a Processor in My FPGA!"

Optimization Moves Up a Level

Mentor’s RealTime Designer Rises to RTL

by Bryon Moyer

September 1, 2014

There are a lot of reasons why we can create so much circuitry on a single piece of silicon. Obvious ones include hard work developing processes that make it theoretically doable. But someone still has to do the design. So if I had to pick one word to describe why we can do this, it would be “abstraction.” And that’s all about the tools.

In fact, my first job out of college came courtesy of abstraction. Prior to that, using programmable logic involved figuring out the behavior you wanted, establishing (and re-establishing) Boolean equations that described … Read More → "Optimization Moves Up a Level"

Superstar

The Truth About Engineering Talent

by Kevin Morris

August 28, 2014

People who are sports fans often watch in amazement when a superstar athlete gets a contract worth tens of millions of dollars. “Why,” they ask, “is kicking or throwing a ball worth that kind of money? And with millions of talented people who spend their entire lives practicing this sport, why is this particular one deserving of that kind of compensation?”

We all wonder this.

Then, we realize that, in many cases, most of the crowd gathers primarily to watch the performance of that one superstar. Take him or … Read More → "Superstar"

Cheap Chips

ASICs for the Rest of Us

by Dick Selwood

August 27, 2014

We all know the story: ASIC starts are falling as the costs of the design tools, the mask sets and the manufacturing process are all going through the roof. Don’t even think about starting an ASIC design unless your budget is measured in millions of dollars. The development process is going to require a large team of engineers. The only way you can make money with an ASIC is to sell many hundreds of thousands of devices, and that normally implies consumer markets. But ASICs take months to years of development – a development cycle that can be longer … Read More → "Cheap Chips"