Articles – Page 541

European Roundup

October 14, 2008

“So where are you off to this week?” a neighbour asked. “Paris and Munich,” I replied. “Oh, very nice,” he said. Well, perhaps.

Actually, apart from the bus from the airport to the hotel, the hotel in Paris could have been a company event anywhere in the world. It was Freescale’s Paris Technical Forum, where they gather together customers and prospective customers (around 600 people in total) from across Europe and present a series of technical papers and tutorials alongside a small scale exhibition (Technology Lab) with booths from … Read More → "European Roundup"

Exotic Non-Volatiles

A Look at FRAM and MRAM Technologies

by Bryon Moyer

October 7, 2008

[Editor’s warning: this article contains multiple instances of polysyllabic scientific jargon. Reader discretion is advised.]

Two non-volatile memory technologies have been making some low-level play over the last little while, and it’s pretty easy to confuse the two or think that they’re somehow related. One is a relative old-timer; one is a newcomer. But for many designers, they may both be unfamiliar. In fact they have pretty much nothing to do with each other from the standpoint of how they work. The question that remains, however, is whether they … Read More → "Exotic Non-Volatiles"

Tool Integration for ESL Design

by Bryon Moyer

October 7, 2008

Electronic System Level (ESL) design claims to offer not just a quicker path from concept to hardware, but a cost-effective one when targeting platform FPGAs. And yet some hold out on ESL due to concern over the netlist’s quality of results (QoR)—a path from concept-to-silicon is not of much use if it does not meet performance and area requirements.

Going Against the Grain

Mitrion-C to RTL instead of C to RTL

by Bryon Moyer

October 7, 2008

It has long been a dream of big-picture systems engineering visionaries to crack the barrier between hardware and software. Traditionally, the amount of effort required to take software features and accelerate them by turning them into dedicated hardware has been high and not easily done at the last minute when, for example, a coding bottleneck that needs hardware acceleration is uncovered right before release time.

This is, of course, the impetus behind the many flavors of C-to-RTL that have arisen over the years. From the early days of Handel C to the present, much effort has been … Read More → "Going Against the Grain"

Taming C?

by Dick Selwood

October 7, 2008

There is a problem with the C programming language. It is too flexible. While it is this flexibility that makes it attractive to many users, it can also introduce serious problems. And the flexibility is a direct result of its history.

As you will remember, C was developed at Bell Labs in the early 1970s. (It was called C because it was to be an improvement on the B programming language.) Intended to be a machine-independent replacement for assembly language, it gradually built a reputation as an extremely useful general purpose programming language, in an era when … Read More → "Taming C?"

Dynamic Power Reduction in Flash FPGAs

by Jim Turley

October 6, 2008

Actel’s flash-based FPGAs are the low-power leaders in the industry. In addition to utilizing low-power attributes of flash-based FPGAs, you can deploy several design techniques to further reduce overall power.

This application note describes various design techniques to help reduce dynamic power and accomplish this goal easily, presenting several coding scenarios with real-world results. This application note assumes that you are familiar with Actel flash … Read More → "Dynamic Power Reduction in Flash FPGAs"

JTAG Gets an Upgrade

TI and IPextreme Do a cJTAG Risk Start

by Bryon Moyer

September 30, 2008

We all know that time to market is everything. Months matter. Weeks matter. When production takes a long time, it can sometimes make sense to get things started before you are completely sure you’re ready. Wafers might be started before everyone is completely sure that all the i’s have been dotted (although I suspect that happens less these days with masks and wafers costing what they do). Such early wafers are called “risk starts” because they are done with the knowledge that there is a risk that they’ll have to be … Read More → "JTAG Gets an Upgrade"

Embedded Data-Oriented Programming

Can a Methodology Designed for Servers Help?

by Bryon Moyer

September 30, 2008

Embedded applications haven’t historically been known for managing humongous amounts of data. One exception to this is the area of communications, where data packets are inspected, poked, prodded, interrogated, waterboarded, and then sent on. Gee, sounds like a stay at Gitmo. Well, except for the being sent on part.

Because of the amount of work performed on data packets, communications applications have been way ahead of the curve on multicore computing, and they provide a great model for embedded data processing in general. The way the packets are handled creates a significant design challenge to … Read More → "Embedded Data-Oriented Programming"

Full Frontal Attack

Synopsys Takes Direct Aim at Cadence Virtuoso

by Bryon Moyer

September 23, 2008

War is invoked ad nauseum in the discussion of marketing. Partly because there are a lot of legitimate parallels. And partly because war reeks of testosterone and gives us a quick sharp adrenaline boost. This is in contrast to the cold, clammy, creepy feeling evoked by the word “marketing.” One influential book, “Marketing Warfare” by Ries and Trout, defines four kinds of marketing: offensive, defensive, flanking, and guerilla. Summarized, defensive is for the big guys that are too slow and dull to do anything innovative except use their oversized derrières to … Read More → "Full Frontal Attack"

Scouting the Backroads

Actel Invests in ATCA Through Pigeon Point Systems

by Bryon Moyer

September 23, 2008

Conventional wisdom would suggest that the quickest way to get between two places is via the fastest available road. And, with some exceptions, that would generally be a freeway (or “highway” for those of you with a more extensive toll infrastructure and who take umbrage at such roads being called “freeways”). And, of course, that’s where you’ll find most people that are driving from one place to another. And it usually works just fine.

So why would anyone try a route other than the freeway? … Read More → "Scouting the Backroads"