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Library Science

ICs are made primarily with transistors, adorned here and there with the odd resistor or capacitor. The intentional ones, that is. Yes, the parasitics are everywhere. And we’re excepting DRAMs here. Their capacitors are odd, but in the bizarre sense, not in the rare sense.

And yet most IC designers never touch a transistor. Particularly digital designers. For them, transistors are buried deep below layers of abstraction, hidden safely inside the library, where all is dark and mysterious. Transistors can be summoned by describing behaviors in, say, C, from which they can be morphed into … Read More → "Library Science"

Clash of the Tiny Titans

For those of you old enough to remember, “Let’s get small” was a line that got big laughs. Nowadays it’s a serious business plan. Small, light, and power-efficient chips are all the rage. Especially the power-efficient part. Hypermiling hybrid owners have nothing on today’s microprocessor designers, who are wringing every last erg out of every last joule. How’s that for nerd appeal?

Today’s case in point is Microchip’s new NanoWatt XLP microcontrollers. The “NanoWatt XLP” part is just Microchip’s … Read More → "Clash of the Tiny Titans"

The Presence of Giants

American Football has the Super Bowl – but that just honors the best team for a single year. Baseball – the “world” series – but that only covers one country. The Academy Awards – outstanding achievements in motion pictures worldwide, still just for a single year. The Olympics honor the best of the best in a number of activities once every four years. The America’s Cup – up for grabs about every three* (*subject to legal review.) We, however, were gathered for something much bigger than all those put together, and it was all in celebration of achievement in engineering.

The … Read More → "The Presence of Giants"

Does Noise Analysis Accuracy Really Matter?

There have been a lot of new faces springing up in the timing and signal integrity (SI) analysis market over the past few years, and the trend appears to point toward products that deliver quick and reasonably good timing signoff, with some signal integrity analysis tacked on as an afterthought. This prompted us to ask: Just how important is noise analysis accuracy and quality?

To answer this question, we first looked back at the history of noise analysis and how it evolved from being a nice-to-have security blanket to an integral … Read More → "Does Noise Analysis Accuracy Really Matter?"

More Than A Zen Thing

If a bug exists in a design and nobody notices, it is still a bug?

This question is more than just a play on the more familiar sylvan conundrum. And its answer is actually more nuanced than you might think. It transcends what would appear to be a simplistic peaceful Zen interlude to an otherwise hectic design schedule. Its subtlety keys off of what is meant by the word “notices.”

There are two ways in which a bug could be noticed. The one that matters, the most important one, the one … Read More → "More Than A Zen Thing"

How Many Different Ways Can You Be Positive?

One of the interesting things about the current economic situation (crisis, downturn, reset – put your chosen word in here) is how different companies all say that while the situation is difficult for everyone else, it isn’t really troubling them because…

And at the Globalpress conference in March, there were a lot of good reasons being touted about why a particular speaker’s company was going to survive, thrive, be ready for the recovery. (And add your own chosen word in here too.).

One good reason came from Tanner EDA. The company supplies analog, … Read More → "How Many Different Ways Can You Be Positive?"

Chef’s Menu

For many of us, ordering the exact FPGA tools that we need to do our job has been frustrating at times:

“We’d like to start with some spring rolls, please.”

“Yes sir, and who are they for?”

“We’d like to share them. They come six to an order, right?”

“Yes sir, they do, but you may not share.  Each person has to order their own.”

“Ah, well, (winks) I’ll have the six spring … Read More → "Chef’s Menu"

Network Hardware & Internet Communities

MontaVista and QNX Open Up Open-Source

Open-source software development is all about community. “Crowd sourcing” of content and talent is all the rage these days, and various social media have made it easier to collaborate with people you’ve never met. Little wonder, then, that software companies have opened their virtual doors to all comers.

A case in point is MontaVista, a long-time supporter of open-source Linux, especially for embedded systems. The company has launched Meld, … Read More → "Network Hardware & Internet Communities"

Programmers Appreciate a Good Stack

Stack size is a matter of personal preference. Most programmers like large, well-endowed stacks that stretch the memory fabric to nearly overflowing. Others like to squeeze in smaller but perfectly formed ones with no wasted space. Whatever your predilection, handling an appropriately sized stack is usually done by feel instead of by the numbers. But that’s about to change.

Measuring stack size is the tricky part. It can be hard to get your arms around the problem. Most of us will just eyeball a passing stack and declare it too big, too small, or just … Read More → "Programmers Appreciate a Good Stack"

Bringing it Together – Some of It Anyway

 

The EDA world is rife with point solutions. No sooner might you think it’s time to stitch together a unified flow when some new requirement of some new technology makes some new point tool necessary for effective design.

And so it goes; an IC design environment might have a dozen or two (or more) tools that must be invoked at one time or another. It’s not a flow, it’s more like an artist’s palette, with all the capabilities laid out in a more or less unstructured … Read More → "Bringing it Together – Some of It Anyway"

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