Articles – Page 274

Can Engineers Change the World?

February 24, 2011

The story is often told, by both participants, that when Steve Jobs recruited John Scully from Pepsi to Apple he asked if he wanted to “sell sugar water for the rest of your life or come with me and change the world?” Do engineers change the world?

Firstly, a brief note on terminology. Engineer, in this context, is broadly defined as someone who builds new technology. (Not, as one company in England said a few years ago, a man who will come and retune your television set.) This is perhaps a broader definition than that … Read More → "Can Engineers Change the World?"

Robots With a Sweet Tooth

by Dick Selwood

February 23, 2011

You know a company is making a success of something when their name becomes used as a general term. Google is now a verb, and a synonym for searching the Internet. But the team that has been at the Googleplex in the last few years don’t want to stop there. They seem to have a determination to take over the world, or at least the connected bits of it. Gmail, Google Docs and the Chrome browser are well established. The Chrome OS is a new kind of OS, where a notebook computer uses HTML5 to run all … Read More → "Robots With a Sweet Tooth"

Strategic Considerations for Emerging SoC FPGAs (REVISED)

by Dick Selwood

February 23, 2011

Semiconductor devices that integrate FPGA fabric, hardened CPU subsystems, and other hardened IP—SoC FPGAs—have reached a tipping point that will lead to their broad proliferation in the next decade, therefore offering many options for system designers. These SoC FPGAs complement the decade-long availability of soft-core CPUs and other soft IP for building systems on FPGAs. This white paper describes the emergence of system on a chip (SoC) FPGAs, the drivers behind that emergence, and strategic considerations for executive management and system designers when choosing … Read More → "Strategic Considerations for Emerging SoC FPGAs (REVISED)"

Bringing Light to the Shadows

Lattice Debuts HDR Video FPGA Kit

by Kevin Morris

February 22, 2011

There’s a reason the bad guys are called “shadowy figures.” They like to hide in the near-darkness – to avoid detection. In the course of conducting their criminal acts, they stealthily slink along in the shadows, confident that the auto-exposure on the security cameras will render the devices oblivious to their presence.

Wrong-o, fictitious evildoers.

FPGA-powered high-dynamic-range (HDR) cameras are on duty, and they can see right through your little shade charade.

We’ve all experienced the problem with our vacation photos. If the … Read More → "Bringing Light to the Shadows"

Sound Systems

A look at the world of audio IP

by Bryon Moyer

February 21, 2011

Humans have always communicated by sound. It’s so basic that we take it for granted, whether in our telephones or our stereo systems. By contrast, we fawn and ooh and ah over video. High def this, low power that. Let’s see if we can get a bazillion pixels on a 1-cm x 1-cm screen. OK, no one can see that small, but hey, we can say we did it!

So you’d be forgiven for thinking that all that’s happening in audio is finding new ways to compress files in … Read More → "Sound Systems"

Getting More Grounded

Cadence PDN Tool Tames Tricky Power Networks

by Kevin Morris

February 17, 2011

When doing a digital design, the power network is the last thing you want to worry about. It can’t be that difficult, right? You got your power and your ground and some big ‘ol FR4 acreage with nothing but copper as far as the eye can see…

Well, nothing but copper and a few vias, actually. Oh, and this part here where it gets narrow – and this part over here where there seems to be some nasty resonant frequency that drops the output… Wow, our circuit totally doesn’t work.& … Read More → "Getting More Grounded"

Tabula’s Tools in the Cloud

Taming the Task of FPGA Design Support

by Kevin Morris

February 15, 2011

It would be easy to write off Tabula’s announcement that their Stylus FPGA design tool suite will be exclusively available via a cloud-based service as just trying to be with the “in” crowd. However, no matter how over-used “in the cloud” may seem as a software-delivery buzzword right now, delivering a full-fledged FPGA design tool flow exclusively in the cloud is actually uncharted territory at this point in the industry. Last year, we looked at Tabula’s “3D” FPGAs … Read More → "Tabula’s Tools in the Cloud"

Aloha Time

Tiempo Lets Things Happen When They're Ready to Happen

by Bryon Moyer

February 14, 2011

Hawaii is a different beast.

It may be part of the US, but things operate with mindset unfamiliar to the typical go-go American, as you’ll immediately discover when waiting to get your rental car.

They refer to it quaintly as “Aloha time.”

For instance, the caterer is supposed to set up at 1 PM. By 2 PM no one as showed up yet. Explanation? “They’re on Aloha time.”

Now, this is a problem only if the party is due to start at 2 PM. If, on … Read More → "Aloha Time"

An Android With Real Power

by Jim Turley

February 13, 2011

“Danger, danger, Will Robinson!”

Cue the synthesized theme music and wave your arms. It’s another episode of Android Development Hour!

This week we follow the exciting exploits of Captain Power and his legion of silicon-based life forms. Behind the scenes, Captain Power has formed an alliance with the Android, the all-powerful operating system launched from planet Googleplex. The Android is barely two years old, but already it’s dominating vast segments of the galaxy. Mobile handsets are especially vulnerable, a sector expanding so fast it’s turning blue.

< … Read More →

Out, Damned Spot!

How to Detect Devices Drawing the Life Blood Out of Your Design

by Jim Turley

February 10, 2011

Lurking unseen in CMOS designs, unintended devices may be drawing current. As multiple power domains become common, it’s more likely that unintentional forward-biased diodes are introduced in the design. Forward-biased diodes also can be introduced by circuit design errors or layout design errors in complex circuitry such as digital circuits that contain pass gates and analog circuits.

Forward-biased diodes may draw enough current to cause outright device failure. However, even more worrisome are the ones that don’t draw enough current … Read More → "Out, Damned Spot!"