Articles – Page 217

April 24, 2013

A pair of new DRAM interfaces broke cover recently, and both promise to make engineers’ lives tougher – no, wait, easier! Sorry. Easier because the new interfaces make memory faster and more power-efficient (both good things), but tougher because it’ll be harder to decide which one you want. And they’re definitely mutually exclusive.

One interface comes from the Hybrid Memory Cube Consortium, a nonprofit group of DRAM makers and DRAM users (that’s a large group) that collectively work on defining how hybrid memory cubes should work. The other comes from Rambus, the decidedly for-profit company … Read More → "Day of the DRAM"

The Rise of MathWorks, the Fall of EDA

Two Routes Into FPGA Tools

by Kevin Morris

April 23, 2013

Since Einstein, we’ve come to realize that more and more things depend on relativity. This is true not just in physics, but also in more human arenas like marketing and sales. Our perception of something like – FPGA tool prices, for example – might depend on whether we’re coming from an EDA background – which says that high-quality design tools cost tens- to hundreds-of-thousands of dollars for a license, or from a mass-market software background – which says that software goes for tens to hundreds of dollars a pop.

Both of these are valid perspectives. … Read More → "The Rise of MathWorks, the Fall of EDA"

Quasi-Plenoptics

DigitalOptics Uses MEMS to Compete with Lytro

by Bryon Moyer

April 22, 2013

It’s damn sexy. You go to a picture online and you click anywhere and, “Boom,” that bit comes into focus. The first time I saw it, I was seduced, but I couldn’t escape that question: how do they do it?

The first embodiment of something like this came courtesy of Lytro; it’s what some refer to as 4D vision, although the formal name is “plenoptic.” The idea is that the camera captures all of the light information from all directions … Read More → "Quasi-Plenoptics"

TI Tiva Tames Tricky Timing Tasks

TI Microcontrollers Update the Cortex-M4 Family

by Jim Turley

April 17, 2013

You know, it’s getting really hard to keep all these new ARM chips straight. I mean, who doesn’t make ARM-based microcontrollers these days? Last I looked, ARM had more than 100 licensees – a hundred! – and most of those companies are cranking out chips for you and me. What’s a poor engineer to do?

Rejoice, that’s what. Choice is good, and by golly, the massed ARM armies are providing us with a lot of choice. Engineers and programmers never had it so good. Well, as long as you like the ARM … Read More → "TI Tiva Tames Tricky Timing Tasks"

Three Legged Stool

Process, Tools, and IP

by Kevin Morris

April 16, 2013

No matter what we’re trying to design these days, we depend on three fairly distinct elements to get our system, circuit, board, or chip working and ready for action. It doesn’t really matter what you’re designing, either. It can be a single IP block, a subsystem-on-a-chip, a whole custom chip, a board, a box with many boards, or a whole complex system made up of many different major components. In each case, we need the supporting process technology, the right tools to do the design work, and the IP that allows us to add … Read More → "Three Legged Stool"

Grenoble News

An EDA DATE in the French Alps

by Dick Selwood

April 15, 2013

DATE used to be a smaller version of DAC: a significant trade show with a small conference. Companies took large stands to show off the latest and greatest in EDA, and it was often used to pre-announce news for DAC. It alternated between Paris and Munich, both destination cities.

Today DATE is very different. It has become a deeply technical and mainly academic research-based conference, with a small show attached. It alternates between Dresden in Germany and Grenoble in France. Why, you might ask, Grenoble? It is not the easiest of places to get to, surrounded as … Read More → "Grenoble News"

Got MILF?

Microprocessors I’d Like to Find, 2013 Edition

by Jim Turley

April 10, 2013

It’s springtime, the groundhog has seen his shadow, Easter is behind us, and a young man’s thoughts turn to… microprocessors.

Every embedded system includes a microprocessor or two, and few things will affect the performance of your system as much as that chip. We all have our favorite CPUs (and a few least-favorite CPUs), but rarely do we find that perfect chip: the one that has absolutely everything we want, just the way we want it. Maybe if we create an imaginary checklist of all the things we’d like to see, one of the … Read More → "Got MILF?"

The Bell for Round Two

Xilinx Upgrades Vivado

by Kevin Morris

April 9, 2013

The big battle in FPGAs has traditionally been fought at the chip level. For years, we have endured press release skirmishes over who had 20% lower power or 10% more LUTs on their devices. FPGA companies’ boom and bust years hinged largely on who got to market first with next-process-node silicon. This Moore’s Law arms race has escalated for over two decades, with staggering costs. Today, if you don’t have a 9-figure sum to invest, you’re not going to have FPGAs on the next process node.

In parallel to the silicon race, … Read More → "The Bell for Round Two"

A Lovelorn Gyroscope

by Bryon Moyer

April 8, 2013

This is a tale that starts out looking like a standard prince-meets-princess-after-a-long-search story. Alas, it’s not as tidy as it promises to be.

Once upon a time, a man named Jobs decided that his phones needed gyroscopes. Being the man he was, no one would question his wisdom (since all were convinced that it was always wisdom and never arrogance or hubris). And so, accompanying an accelerometer and other bits novel to a phone, a gyroscope was duly installed.

It and all of the other sensors in the Jobs phone and those that followed … Read More → "A Lovelorn Gyroscope"

UEFI: Boot, Boon, or Bane?

Linux Lawsuit Shines Uncomfortable LIght on UEFI Standard

by Jim Turley

April 3, 2013

My learned colleague Bryon Moyer pointed out to me a recent news item regarding a lawsuit by a Linux user group that is suing Microsoft for anticompetitive practices.

Now before we start, let’s take a moment here to check our preconceptions at the door. If, after reading the words “Linux” and “Microsoft” you’ve already decided who’s the good guy in this lawsuit, then shame on you. Engineering is supposed to be a data-driven profession. An honest engineer wouldn’t draw conclusions based on zero evidence. If we were as quick to judge other individuals, … Read More → "UEFI: Boot, Boon, or Bane?"