Whether the need is for quieter blower fans in air conditioning systems, or greater efficiency under dynamically changing load conditions for an electric car drive-train, performance and cost goals for permanent magnet synchronous motor (PMSM or BLDC) controllers become more challenging by the day.
… Read More → "Using FPGAs for Trapezoidal Motor Control"Since the early years of embedded processor design and FPGA design, silicon advancement and design techniques for each have evolved independently. In the real world there are many FPGA designs without embedded processors and many embedded systems that neither have nor need an FPGA. This leads to two very distinct design flows, styles, and engineering disciplines. The relatively recent addition of SmartFusion® customizable system-on-chip (cSoC) devices adds the complexity of analog into the mix.
… Read More → "Design Made Easy With the SmartFusion Customizable System-on-Chip and State of the Art Software Tools"Reliability of communication is essential in networking applications. The goal of five nines (99.999%) in network availability translates to less than six minutes in downtime in a year for the entire network. Among the many impacts on system reliability are the effects of ionizing radiation on electronic circuits. This radiation can cause memory elements in electronic circuits to change state. When this happens in the configuration memory of SRAM-based FPGAs, it can cause a change in the functionality of the circuit, greatly impacting system reliability. Designers of networking applications … Read More → "Understanding the Impact of Single Event Effects in Networking Applications"
The whole point of an FPGA is flexibility. We could also mention integration and say instead that the whole point of an FPGA is flexibility and integration. But then there is cost savings. So the whole point of an FPGA is flexibility, integration and cost savings. Yet there is also power reduction. And then there’s security.
… Read More → "SmartFusion Customizable System-on-Chip: Intelligent, Innovative Integration"As kids we’re taught “don’t judge a book by its cover” and that “appearances can be deceiving.”
But we also learn that “beauty is only skin deep” and that “you get only one chance to make a good first impression.” With all these dueling aphorisms, what are we supposed to believe?
With embedded design and development, outward appearances and first impressions do matter – a lot. More and more, the outwardly visible parts of your product will determine its success. In fact, a … Read More → "Getting All GUI"
Engineering is a beautiful blend of science and art, discovery and creation, discipline and imagination.
For those who are pure scientists, there is only discovery. The truth is out there, and they seek merely to uncover it. Scientists do not create science. Mathematicians do not make math. These practitioners simply unearth the treasures of truth that were there all along, bringing them to light and casting them in a new understanding.
For those who are artists, there is only creation. Artists seek to communicate ideas and emotions by creating that which has never existed … Read More → "Abstracting Out"
If an embedded system can move while operating, is it still an embedded system, or is it now a mobile device?
This is a question I wouldn’t have even thought to ask except that it randomly came up within the last month and I found myself alone in the answer I gave. I thought, “Yes.” No one else did; they created a separate market for mobile.
Now there are a couple of reasons why mobile might deserve its own market. The most obvious is that the mobile market may have grown … Read More → "Are Mobile Devices Embedded Systems?"
The title this week is borrowed from the book by Neil Gershenfeld, which includes one of the best descriptions of embedded systems that I’ve ever read. It’s also a good introduction to microcontrollers and embedded software for your nontechnical friends who wonder what you do for a living.
Part of what we do, of course, is to plot world domination by cybernetic organisms. I, for one, welcome our robot overlords and always do my part to hasten their ascendancy. And what good is a robot army without a good means of communication? If … Read More → "When Things Start to Think"
We all knew it was coming, but Tabula “officially” announced this week that they are producing their next yet-to-be-announced family of FPGAs on Intel’s 22nm Tri-Gate process. As one of the worst-kept secrets in the programmable logic industry, the Intel-Tabula relationship hardly comes as a surprise. The announcement was widely leaked about a year ago when Achronix formally announced a similar relationship with Intel.
What does it all mean?
We talked with Dennis Segers – Tabula’s CEO, to find out. “We’ve been in development with Intel for … Read More → "Tabula Taps Intel"
Semiconductor technology just gets curiouser and curiouser as feature sizes shrink. In real life, that means that EDA tools have to work harder and harder to figure out what’s going on and help engineers implement enormously complex designs. As usual, the problem can be boiled down to things that didn’t use to matter becoming a problem.
Of course, at the extremely tiny level anticipated by technologies like carbon nanotubes, things change completely. But that’s still research. Leading-edge designs today are still … Read More → "Real-World Issues at 28 nm"
