Articles – Page 265

May 25, 2011

The world of PC boards – or, as they seem to be more widely called in the official literature, “printed wiring boards” or PWBs – has been a conservative one. For the most part, things are still done today like they were a few decades ago. Sure, dimensions have gone down, and we can do many, many more layers, and we can put passives on the back side, but, except for the bleeding edge, we pretty much do things the old-fashioned way: etch metal off of a board made out of some kind of resinous material, glue … Read More → "Packing Them In"

Are You Into Soft Core?

Altera, MIPS, and Another Company Release the MP32 Processor

by Jim Turley

May 24, 2011

“Pssst! Hey, buddy… wanna download some wild new soft core—for free?”

If you’re tempted by that offer, Altera has got a deal for you. The company that brought you HardCopy FPGAs hasn’t forgotten its softer side. There’s a market for soft-core IP, too, and not just as a gateway for the hard stuff. Some people actually prefer it. And for them, we present the MP32.

The MP32 is Altera’s new 32-bit, MIPS-compatible microprocessor specially designed to run inside standard … Read More → "Are You Into Soft Core?"

Does the Hype Get in the Way of the Message?

by Dick Selwood

May 23, 2011

I know most of you reading this are engineers and consequently never allow emotion to get in the way of logical decision making. So it would be unlikely that you would not take something seriously, just because the razzmatazz surrounding it was overstated: you wouldn’t react, either positively or negatively to marketing hype, would you? You would just evaluate the product on its technical merits, wouldn’t you?

All too often the marketing and PR teams try desperately to make extravagant claims to hide the essential ho-hum nature of the announcement. I have … Read More → "Does the Hype Get in the Way of the Message?"

The Isolated Life

by Bryon Moyer

May 19, 2011

[Editor’s note: this is the fourth in a series of articles derived from a session at this year’s ISSCC that focused on sensors and energy harvesting. The prior article dealt with X-ray detectors. For more details you are referred to the ISSCC proceedings.]

When you put a bunch of kids in a room to play, there’s always the risk that something will go wrong, but, for the most part, if the kids are reasonably similar in size … Read More → "The Isolated Life"

The Vision Thing

New Tools at ESC Emphasize Presentation, Visualization

by Jim Turley

May 18, 2011

“If I could find it, I could fix it!”

So ran the advertising copy for a new logic analyzer, circa 1995. The sentiment is a familiar one. Programmers are generally smart people, and if they know where a bug is, they can usually swat it in short order. The problem is finding the bug in the first place—or even knowing that there is one.

This was a recurring theme at last week’s Embedded Systems Conference (ESC) event in downtown San Jose. A number of companies with whom I met showed … Read More → "The Vision Thing"

Board Market Mysteries

Unraveling the Paradox of PCB Tool Rankings

by Kevin Morris

May 17, 2011

We talk a lot about chips around here – custom ICs, FPGAs, embedded processors, memories – silicon gets a good bit of coverage in the pages of EEJ. However, all that silicon has to eventually get parked and connected up somewhere, and that somewhere is usually on a PCB.

Unlike chips, unless you’re shipping your product with a standard board or module, you have to design the board yourself, specifically for your product. That means, although we spend way more time talking about design tools for the creation of custom and customized chips, most … Read More → "Board Market Mysteries"

Kissing or Cussing Cousins?

Will FinFET and FD-SOI technology battle or co-exist peacefully?

by Bryon Moyer

May 16, 2011

What’s the difference between a FinFET and a FD-SOI transistor?

90°.

Admittedly, that’s the abridged version. And it would be met by howls of protest by the proponents of FinFETs and of FD-SOI transistors. Along with that right-angle rotation comes a ton of technology, accompanied by the skirmishing that comes with vested interests and big unknowns.

The stakes have been ratcheted way up this week with Intel’s blockbuster announcement of imminent FinFET – er & … Read More → "Kissing or Cussing Cousins?"

Better FPGAs, Sooner

by Bryon Moyer

May 12, 2011

FPGAs built on the latest 28-nanometer (nm) manufacturing processes can host designs as complex as a five-million-gate ASIC. That’s good news for designers who need to implement a lot of complex logic in an FPGA for deployment into a production system, quickly iron out bugs and then get to production fast. And it’s good news for an estimated 90 percent of ASIC designers who use FPGAs to check their work in physical prototypes.

The challenge in working with these large FPGAs has become a familiar issue for ASIC designers in the past few years & … Read More → "Better FPGAs, Sooner"

Let’s Get Small

Intel’s 22nm Technology Announcement is Big, But Not That Big

by Jim Turley

May 11, 2011

Intel really has two businesses: selling microprocessors and manufacturing silicon. The two are related in obvious ways, but they’re not actually the same thing. Most of Intel’s competitors, including AMD, Texas Instruments, MIPS, IBM, nVidia, ARM, and others create microprocessors but they don’t manufacture them. Meanwhile, semiconductor foundries like TSMC, Global Foundries, SMC and others manufacture silicon but don’t (usually) design chips. Intel is one of the few companies that do both.

That’s important because it means Intel has to grow in two dimensions at once. It& … Read More → "Let’s Get Small"

Altera’s New Power Tool

Qsys Takes Embedded Design on FPGAs to the Second Generation

by Kevin Morris

May 10, 2011

One thing was crystal clear in last week’s Embedded Systems Conference in San Jose. FPGAs with embedded processors are about to take over the world.

Now, we don’t really mean the WHOLE world here – just the part of it that involves flexible embedded processing systems, of course. Still, if you look at embedded systems in use today, you’ll usually find some kind of programmable logic device sitting next to the processor. FPGA companies – being what they are – looked at all those boards and thought to themselves, “Hey, … Read More → "Altera’s New Power Tool"