Articles – Page 257

August 31, 2011

“It was a team effort!”

The group assembled nods in agreement. Most human accomplishment today is the product of some form of collaboration. Even those of us who like to envision ourselves as super-self-sufficient independents would find ourselves immediately faced with the severity of our solo limitations if dropped into the wilderness naked without tools or supplies. Everything we do is on the shoulders of others, or the shoulders of shoulders of shoulders of others. This applies to ideas as well as to the physical world. Every “original& … Read More → "Dibs!"

A Maze of Twisty Little Passages

An Attempt at Understanding the Basics of DO-254

by Bryon Moyer

August 29, 2011

We recently invoked the fear of slipshod software programming as we attempted to slog through the maze of safety-critical standards facing software engineers.

But guess what: programmers aren’t the only ones capable of turning out shoddy goods. Hardware engineers can, also. But, unlike the software world, the focus in the hardware world seems to be more squarely on one standard: DO-254.

DO-254 appears to have much in common (other than origin) with DO-178. So much so, in fact, that I … Read More → "A Maze of Twisty Little Passages"

Balancing Power, Performance, and Cost with Arria V FPGAs

by Amelia Dalton

August 25, 2011

If you ever had to make the tough decision between performance and power, watch this webcast. Our Arria^® V FPGAs have been optimized to ensure you have the performance you need at the lowest power. Get insight into the Arria V FPGA architecture, the I/O and transceiver capability, and how we help you reduce the cost of your entire system.

Learn how:

Hardened memory controllers give you 80 percent … Read More → "Balancing Power, Performance, and Cost with Arria V FPGAs"

Meeting the Low Power Imperative at 28nm (REVISED)

by Amelia Dalton

August 25, 2011

This white paper describes how Altera’s 28nm devices enable product developers to control power consumption in today’s increasingly power sensitive applications.

… Read More →

Best Practices for FPGA Prototyping of MATLAB and Simulink Algorithms

by Bryon Moyer

August 25, 2011

As the complexity of modern FPGAs and ASICs increases, engineers are discovering that verification using HDL simulators alone is not enough to fully test system-level design requirements in an efficient and timely manner.

Many engineers are now deploying FPGAs for algorithm acceleration and prototyping. Using FPGAs to process large test data sets enables engineers to rapidly evaluate algorithm and architecture tradeoffs and test designs under real-world scenarios without incurring the heavy time penalty associated with HDL simulators. System-level design and verification tools like MATLAB and Simulink enable engineers to realize these benefits by rapidly … Read More → "Best Practices for FPGA Prototyping of MATLAB and Simulink Algorithms"

Measuring Air

Browser Benchmark Diagnoses End-to-End Connections

by Jim Turley

August 24, 2011

How fast is your browser? Not fast enough, I’m sure. But pinning down the actual speed of a Web browser is a tricky thing. It might be fast at rendering images but be stuck with a slow TCP/IP stack. Or it may be quick at interpreting JavaScript applets but suck at Flash animation. If you’re a programmer, creating and debugging an embedded browser is a big, complex project that opens up a whole big stack of interrelated bits and pieces that can go wrong.

To help you wade through this complexity, the … Read More → "Measuring Air"

Accelerate Your Video Design with an FPGA and IP Cores

by Bryon Moyer

August 22, 2011

What do you do when your product requires fast turnaround for a simple display? Or what alternative do you have when your end product demands higher throughput with advanced video processing, compared to the one that only needs a simple display?

Watch this 20-minute webcast to find out how FPGAs can offer you a customizable solution and quick intellectual property (IP) integration to build your video design faster – whether you need simple format conversion or advanced digital video processing.

ARMed and Dangerous

An Outsider’s View of the ARM Cores

by Bryon Moyer

August 22, 2011

Are you in or are you out?

If you’re out, this is for you. If you’re in, it’s a review.

It’s an ARM core decoder of sorts.

You see, whenever a company like ARM or Intel generates a universe of its own, two things happen. One is that it carries a long legacy, courtesy of its long history. And, as things change, or as the roadmap undergoes strategic alterations, what might have been simple starts to become complex. The burden of acknowledging the past weighs … Read More → "ARMed and Dangerous"

Embedded Device Security in the New Connected Era

by Amelia Dalton

August 18, 2011

Rapid growth in the intelligence and interconnectedness of embedded devices is accompanied by an upward spiral in security threats. Attacks on these devices are being perpetrated not only by the usual suspects, but by a new breed of hackers supported by organized crime, nation states, and terrorist organizations. Device developers must respond by taking a more holistic approach to device security—one that considers security issues at every layer of the development stack—from silicon to virtualization to the operating system, the network and communication stacks, and the application layer.

Securing Embedded Devices</ … Read More → "Embedded Device Security in the New Connected Era"

Shut Up and Drive

In-Vehicle Entertainment Systems to Double by 2015

by Jim Turley

August 17, 2011

“Remember when the radio was the best part of your car?”

Remember when that advertising slogan ran? It was about 1975, I think, in a TV commercial for a mix tape (remember those?) that recaptured top tunes from the 1950s and 1960s. Not my demographic, I’m happy to say, but I understand the sentiment. Upgrading the lousy factory in-dash radio was the first thing I did on all my old cars, and just about the only bit of automotive surgery I was qualified to perform. While the cool kids added limited-slip differentials, coil-over shocks, … Read More → "Shut Up and Drive"