Articles – Page 49

Another Huge Step Forward for Machine Vision

October 14, 2022

Captain's log, stardate 22276.3: I’m happy and sad, baffled and bewildered, and dazed and confused. The day is yet young, so everything is pretty much par for the course. One reason I’m happy is that the SyFy channel recently started a new series called Reginald the Vampire. Although this may not be the best vampire show ever, it’s an interesting take on things, and I’m looking forward to seeing how it pans out. … Read More →

Movellus Intelligent Clock Network IP Trades Transistors for Lower Timing Skew and Better IC Design Margins

by Steven Leibson

October 12, 2022

Power distribution and clocks are the essential infrastructure of chip design. Since the earliest days of the integrated circuit, power has been distributed on top of the chip through metal traces that are intermixed with the signal traces. Multiple manufacturers are now investigating back-side power distribution, which require through-silicon vias. Meanwhile, clock distribution hasn’t changed much, but Movellus would like to change that with its new, intelligent approach to on-chip clock networks.

Taking one step back, our industry is wedded to synchronous logic design. Although a few design teams … Read More → "Movellus Intelligent Clock Network IP Trades Transistors for Lower Timing Skew and Better IC Design Margins"

Can Any Emerging Memory Technology Topple DRAM and NAND Flash?

by Steven Leibson

October 10, 2022

During its recent quarterly financial update on July 28, Intel announced that it was winding down its Optane Persistent Memory business using what amounts to a footnote in its earnings report. (See “Optane, We Hardly Knew Yeh.”) The writing had been on the wall. There was one fab making production Optane chips based in Lehi, Utah owned by Micron, and Micron sold the fab to Texas Instruments earlier in the year. You can bet that Texas … Read More → "Can Any Emerging Memory Technology Topple DRAM and NAND Flash?"

Nova Desktop PCB Printer: Print anything. On Everything.

by Max Maxfield

October 6, 2022

It seems like only a couple of days ago that I was waffling on about how time seems to go quickly when you get older in my column SiLC’s FMCW LiDAR Can Perceive and Identify Objects More Than a Kilometer Away. Actually, now I come to think about it, it was only a couple of days ago, but that’s not the … Read More → "Nova Desktop PCB Printer: Print anything. On Everything."

How to Train Your Robot: Rosie the Robot Vacuum Joins Our Family

by Steven Leibson

October 5, 2022

As I write this article, Rosie the robot vacuum cleaner is taking its third try at mapping my home. Rosie is our name for an Ecovacs Deebot N8 Pro+ vacuum. We purchased Rosie from Amazon on the recommendation of Veronica, who lives next door. Rosie was on sale that day for $420, which is $280 off of the list price. The robot’s about the diameter of a large dinner plate and perhaps three inches thick. She has a pair of large and grippy rubber drive wheels in the rear that are part of a dead-reckoning navigation system … Read More → "How to Train Your Robot: Rosie the Robot Vacuum Joins Our Family"

SiLC’s FMCW LiDAR Can Perceive and Identify Objects More Than a Kilometer Away

by Max Maxfield

October 4, 2022

I’ve told this tale before, and I’ll doubtless tell it again because I think it’s worth the retelling. When I was a kid (think Charlie Brown), my mom had a fulltime job (which was unusual for ladies at that time), so I spent the halcyon days of summer when we were out of school up the road at my Auntie Barbara’s house hanging out with my cousin Gillian (think Lucy because she was mean LOL).

As an aside, one day whilst getting into our usual mischief … Read More → "SiLC’s FMCW LiDAR Can Perceive and Identify Objects More Than a Kilometer Away"

Intel Takes Control of Communications Hill with Analog-Enabled FPGA Portfolio

by Steven Leibson

October 3, 2022

If you drive south from downtown San Jose, California on US 101, you’ll soon see a commanding hill rising high above the city’s suburban landscape. A huge monolith commands the crest of this hill. Several large microwave horns once perched upon this tower as if it were a concrete throne. Some remain. The microwave tower was part of the AT&T Long Lines telephone network. The former Xilinx campus, now AMD, is close to this landmark. One of the company’s device families – the Zynq UltraScale+ RFSoC – has figuratively sat alone upon the concrete … Read More → "Intel Takes Control of Communications Hill with Analog-Enabled FPGA Portfolio"

When Supercomputers Meet Beer Pong

by Max Maxfield

September 29, 2022

My head is currently swirling and whirling with a cacophony of conceptions. This maelstrom of meditations was triggered by NVIDIA’s recent announcement of their Jetson Orin Nano system-on-modules that deliver up to 80x the performance over the prior generation, which is, in their own words, “setting a new standard for entry-level edge AI and robotics.”

One of my contemplations centers on their use of the “entry level” qualifier in this context. When I was coming up, this bodacious beauty would have qualified as the biggest, baddest supercomputer on the … Read More → "When Supercomputers Meet Beer Pong"

Intel Introduces Two Monolithic Agilex FPGA and SoC Families, Part 1

by Steven Leibson

September 27, 2022

This week at the Intel Innovation event held in Silicon Valley, Intel previewed not one but two new families in its Agilex FPGA and SoC product lines: the Intel Agilex D-series FPGAs and SoCs and a to-be-named FPGA and SoC family formerly known as “Sundance Mesa.” High-end Intel Agilex devices have been fairly successful and, as they often do, customers requested additional Agilex FPGA family members with new features and different characteristics to better fit an even wider range of application requirements.

These new capabilities are increasingly important as customers … Read More → "Intel Introduces Two Monolithic Agilex FPGA and SoC Families, Part 1"

O-M-Gosh, I’ve Been Zeked! (Part 2)

by Max Maxfield

September 22, 2022

In my original O-M-Gosh, I’ve Been Zeked! column, I introduced 11-year-old Zeke who is currently engaged in using professional electronic design automation (EDA) tools to design radio frequency (RF) circuits to be used in conjunction with a giant helical antenna he’s building with the goal of communicating with the astronauts on the International Space Station (ISS). (Phew! I’m afraid that sentence got away from me towards the end.)