Articles – Page 33

Lattice announces CrossLinkU-NX FPGA with USB 3.2 to Unlock Video Applications

November 1, 2023

Lattice has marked some new territory in the low-end FPGA market with the CrossLinkU-NX FPGA. While AMD and Intel have signaled renewed interest in this market by previewing the future appearance of the low-end Spartan UltraScale+ and Agilex 3 families respectively, Lattice has been busy rolling out new members of its low-end CrossLink family. The latest addition, called the CrossLinkU-NX FPGA, specifically targets video applications for the industrial and automation markets, and, even more specifically, targets video applications that communicate to host processors on the edge via USB 3.2.

Like the other … Read More → "Lattice announces CrossLinkU-NX FPGA with USB 3.2 to Unlock Video Applications"

Is This the Future of Chiplet-Based Design?

by Max Maxfield

October 31, 2023

Do you think chiplets are tasty? I think I’ve just seen the future of chiplet-based design—well, one possible future—and it looks finger-licking good to me. Just to make sure we are all tap-dancing to the same skirl of the bagpipes, let’s start by setting the scene. For the purposes of these discussions, we will take the term integrated circuit (IC) to refer to a honking big ASIC, ASSP, SoC… that sort of thing.

A monolithic IC is one that is built on a single piece of … Read More → "Is This the Future of Chiplet-Based Design?"

Spectacular Spintronics (Mechanical Electronics) Now Available Worldwide

by Max Maxfield

October 30, 2023

It seems like a lifetime away that my chum Paul Boswell and his wife Alyssa launched their Spintronics Kickstarter. I just checked through the archives to discover that I last wrote about this on 20 May 2021. “O-M-G,” is all I can say. Where does the time go?

Getting Spintronics up and running took a lot more effort than was originally anticipated (all this was detailed in the numerous Kickstarter updates). Once everything was tickety-boo, Paul and Alyssa—in the form of … Read More → "Spectacular Spintronics (Mechanical Electronics) Now Available Worldwide"

What? NOR Flash Just Got Even Sexier?

by Max Maxfield

October 26, 2023

As you may have gathered from my recent Logic Diagrams and Machines column, I spend more time than perhaps I should cogitating and ruminating on the past, pondering the imponderable and effing the ineffable. One of the topics I often contemplate is what would happen if I inadvertently wandered into a timeslip and found myself transported back to the late 1930s or early 1940s (my uncle was never the same after it happened to him).

We discussed some … Read More → "What? NOR Flash Just Got Even Sexier?"

Ambiq’s Low-Power AI Cancels Speech Noise Like Magic

by Steven Leibson

October 23, 2023

The nice thing about magic is that you need not know how the magic works to apply it. For example, in Harry Potter’s world, Hogwarts students learned to use spells and incantations that invoked magic without knowing the underlying physics (metaphysics?) of that magic. Too science-fictiony for you? Then grok this. You don’t need to understand immersion or EUV lithography to design with the integrated circuits produced by these magical applications of real-world physics. For 99.99% of us, digital logic abstracts away almost everything happening in the real world and leaves us in the near-pristine … Read More → "Ambiq’s Low-Power AI Cancels Speech Noise Like Magic"

Before Computers Were Logic Diagrams and Machines

by Max Maxfield

October 19, 2023

I often think about ancient civilizations. I’m sure you do too. I cogitate and ruminate on all the people who lived, loved, and died, and I’m saddened by the fact that we no longer remember their names. In many cases, we aren’t even aware that their civilizations existed (I base this on the fact we seem to keep on discovering previously unsuspected cultures and empires).

I learn something new every day. For example, I just discovered that, while all Sumerians were Mesopotamians, not all Mesopotamians were Sumerians. … Read More → "Before Computers Were Logic Diagrams and Machines"

Don’t React, PreAct!

by Max Maxfield

October 17, 2023

Is it just me, or are things becoming even more exciting than they already were? I’m not sure if it’s just because I’m getting older, or if it’s all down to the world spinning faster. How old am I? Well—let’s put it this way—I’m so old that the kids next door believed me when I told them one of my chores when I was their age was to shoo the dinosaurs out of our family cabbage patch (this is obviously a joke because my family never owned a cabbage … Read More → "Don’t React, PreAct!"

Intel Heats Up and Expands its Agilex FPGA family

by Steven Leibson

October 16, 2023

Last month, just before Intel FPGA Technology Day (IFTD) 2023, the company made several announcements regarding its flagship Agilex FPGA families. The announcement reminded me of an old English rhyme about the things a bride needs: something old, something new, something borrowed, and, of course, since we’re talking about Intel here, something blue. … Read More →

It’s Time to Learn More about Timing

by Max Maxfield

October 12, 2023

As I wrote in a recent blog, not knowing all the stuff I don’t know didn’t come easy. I’ve had to read a lot of books to get where I am today. This was in the context of a recently published book by Lawrence M. K. Krauss: The Known Unknowns: A Brief Account of What We Know and What We Don’t Know About the Cosmos. As I said in my blog, I was proud to discover that I already didn’t know pretty much all of Lawrence’s “Known Unknowns.”

< … Read More →

Accelerating and Reducing the Cost of Semiconductor Process Development

by Max Maxfield

October 10, 2023

Before I turned to the dark side to become the world’s greatest technical writer of my generation (at least, according to my mom), I used to be a real engineer. As I’ve mentioned in earlier columns (and to anyone I can persuade to listen), my first job was as a member of a design team creating central processing units (CPUs) for mainframe computers.

“Birds of a feather flock together,” as they say, so it’s no surprise that I’ve ended up talking to other CPU designers about their creations over … Read More → "Accelerating and Reducing the Cost of Semiconductor Process Development"