Articles – Page 221

February 13, 2013

I try to be good. I really do. I eat my vegetables, help old ladies cross the street, and floss my teeth occasionally. I maintain good computer hygiene, empty the Recycle Bin every week, and back up my important files—occasionally.

I’m a good and obedient Microsoft customer, diligently applying patches, downloading hotfixes, and upgrading to new applications and operating systems on a regular schedule. I even manage to like it. Occasionally.

But Windows 8 has me stymied. Why, O Microsoft, hast thou forsaken me? Where did I go wrong? What have I done to … Read More → "Beaten Up By Bad Bytes"

The Elephant in the Cloud

Plunify Sends FPGA Tools Aloft

by Bryon Moyer

February 12, 2013

The Cloud… Oh, the Cloud. Always right there, the answer to all our IT problems, and yet… and yet… for designers, the promise seems to remain just out of reach as deal-breakers remain to be solved.

We’ve looked at cloud computing before, and we’ve seen new companies enter and leave the cloud. And opinions are … Read More → "The Elephant in the Cloud"

Delivering the Right Power and Performance for 28nm High-End FPGAs

by Jim Turley

February 12, 2013

From process selection through design and into production, the designer’s focus is on having the highest performance at the lowest possible power. Altera’s innovations in power and performance continue to enable designers to create differentiating high-performance systems for their end customers. In particular, Altera’s 28nm high-end FPGAs provide a power advantage by delivering up to 15% lower power while also delivering 1-speed-grade higher performance compared to other high-end FPGAs.

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Implementing Efficient Low-Power PCIe Interfaces with Low-Cost FPGAs

by Jim Turley

February 12, 2013

A history of architectural and process advancements has enabled Altera® Cyclone® V FPGAs to be used in numerous low-cost and low-power applications in the industrial, automotive, military, communication and consumer markets, among others. This white paper outlines a real-life PCI Express® (PCIe®) Gen1x4 reference design including a DDR3 memory controller. It shows just how effective Cyclone V FPGAs are in minimizing total system cost while achieving performance and power targets.

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Seeing Into the Distance

Technology is Giving Us Images in 3D and 4D

by Bryon Moyer

February 11, 2013

It’s been made into a big deal, and you can thank Avatar. Once a goofy movie gimmick that required glasses you wouldn’t get caught wearing anywhere else, 3D suddenly became cool. And, for a while, the best way to turn anything ordinary into something cool was clear: make it 3D.

Well, we’ve gotten a bit older and wiser (OK, older, anyway) and we’ve had time to catch our breaths and internalize the results of endless movies in 3D, TVs in 3D, printers in 3D. (OK, that’s more than a gimmick…) But it’ … Read More → "Seeing Into the Distance"

Secure Your Communications

“You have zero privacy anyway. Get over it.”

by Jim Turley

February 6, 2013

Sun Microsystems’ cofounder Scott McNealy’s quote from January, 1999 (was that really 14 years ago?) was more right than we imagined—or hoped. Online bank accounts get hacked; Twitter gives away user information; customer databases go missing; traffic cameras record our comings and goings; and any number of smaller breaches of our presumed privacy occur every day. In the online world we’ve learned to assume that some sort of electronic record will be kept of our actions, if only because we’re so often reminded of it.

Did you know that Google encrypts your search queries? But … Read More → "Secure Your Communications"

A Matter of Integrity

Cadence Rolls Sigrity and Allegro - Together

by Kevin Morris

February 5, 2013

Board design and layout used to be so simple. All you had to do was make sure that all the metal parts that were supposed to touch did, and all the metal parts that were not supposed to touch didn’t. Handy software tools did all the heavy lifting, and there were about a zillion different possible layout solutions – all of which worked.

That was back in the day – before all this high-speed serial nonsense. Now, thanks to our multi-gigabit lifestyle, just making the metal touch doesn’t cut it anymore. We have … Read More → "A Matter of Integrity"

Completing the Set

Intel Does FinFETs for SoCs

by Bryon Moyer

February 4, 2013

Remember when you were a kid, playing with Legos? You could build tons of things with it – maybe. It depended on the size of your kit. Because the bigger kits had more variety.

If you had only the standard-issue rectangular pieces, you could build lots of walls and such that went straight up, and perhaps some pyramidy things – up to a point. Actually, that was the one thing you couldn’t build them up to: a point. But, well, everything had a rather right rectangular look.

If you really wanted to increase your options, you … Read More → "Completing the Set"

Implementing Digital Processing for Automotive Radar Using SoCs

by Amelia Dalton

January 31, 2013

This white paper shows the feasibility of implementing the digital processing portion of a representative radar system using low-cost Cyclone® V SoC FPGAs. Advantages of this approach compared to a custom ASIC are reduced time to market, field upgradability, the ability to rapidly and easily implement in ARM® Cortex™-A9 microprocessor systems, and available automotive-grade devices.

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Code Like an Entrepreneur

It’s Easy to Get Distracted When You’re Knee Deep in Source

by Jim Turley

January 30, 2013

“So there I was, at 30 thousand feet…” We’ve all told stories that started like that, even if we were never WWII bomber pilots. Every coder who’s been on the job more than a few years has harrowing tales of late-night shifts, bug-hunting expeditions, and miraculous saves at the eleventh hour. We’ve seen good code and bad code and lived to tell the tale. I’m with you, brother. I’ve been there, too.

We’ve all written the occasional snippet of bad code. There are many reasons: the misplaced typo; the invalid assumption; the … Read More → "Code Like an Entrepreneur"