Articles – Page 547

August 26, 2008

8:59 AM – Buzzword Bob calmly climbs aboard his ergonomically efficient office throne. His was special-ordered – not the standard-issue sort of desk chair found in all the other engineers’ cubicles. He flicks on his flat-screen monitor (wouldn’t dream of leaving it on sucking power all night) and types his 10-character password to log on. Bob was the first in the department to have a flat-screen. Since he was sure he was sensitive to something about the CRTs, he had early-adopted the LCD screen when it first hit the market (at a premium price, of course). When … Read More → "Buzzword Bob"

A New Analog Golden Age?

by Bryon Moyer

August 19, 2008

Of course analog engineers themselves had a different view. Increasingly they saw EDA tools bring automation to digital circuit design, particularly in layout. They, on the other hand, still had to design by hand and by intellect, since they were dealing with much more complex issues than a stream of zeroes and ones, highs and lows. And, unlike for digital, there was only a handful of universities providing training in analog technologies.

Sometime at the end of the twentieth century, things started to change. Suddenly analog and mixed signal started getting above itself. Handheld consumer devices, like … Read More → "A New Analog Golden Age?"

Flash Flood

We Never Thought...

by Kevin Morris

August 19, 2008

Flash was great for storing small amounts of data. It was even pretty cool when we could pop a small card into our early digital cameras and save our low-res images with reasonable speed and security. It was expensive, but we were willing to pay the big premium because it could uniquely solve the non-volatile storage problem for certain classes of mobile devices. Flash seemed like a novelty, though, and those of us that knew all the evil quirks and kluges under the hood held a healthy respect for the potential of the technology to bite … Read More → "Flash Flood"

My IP

Brain for Rent

by Kevin Morris

August 19, 2008

A couple of weeks ago, one of our sister publications – Embedded Technology Journal – ran a controversial article called “Let’s Abolish All Patents.” The article made the case that patents (at least in their present incarnation) inhibit progress, stifle innovation, and – in the wrong hands – serve almost the opposite of their intended purpose.

Most of us in engineering have been through the process at least once – meeting with the folks in the nice suits as they speak somewhat condescendingly about our responsibilities as the creators of technology to protect the bank accounts … Read More → "My IP"

A Better Flytrap

DDR3 Controllers Hit the Market for SoCs and FPGAs

by Bryon Moyer

August 12, 2008

That DDR memories work at all seems like a miracle. I mean, it’s like someone woke up one morning and said, “Hmmm…. You know, high-speed serial interconnect has complicated timing when you try to align a bunch of lanes… there HAS to be a way to take those concepts and make it even trickier to design.”

Here you’re taking a bank of memories and sending them data and address and clock and command and DQS signals, and all in “eye-diagram” territory. Skews and … Read More → "A Better Flytrap"

Energy: It’s Not Your Average Power

by Dick Selwood

August 12, 2008

Energy. You read about it in the newspapers, hear about it from political pundits, and pay for it every month in gas, electric, and fuel bills. Airlines and automakers blame their financial woes on energy costs, and developing nations try to become energy-independent. There’s a lot of energy spent on, well, energy.

The same is true of electronic design. The energy consumption of a chip, system, or assembly is a big deal to many engineers. Handheld systems need to balance performance and features against current drain and battery life. At the opposite extreme, the designers … Read More → "Energy: It’s Not Your Average Power"

Disruptive Technology?

by Dick Selwood

August 12, 2008

“Engineers don’t have time to have fun anymore. We plan to put some of that fun back into their working lives.” Richard Terrill, VP of Marketing at XMOS, sums up one aspect of the philosophy of the company. We talked about XMOS about a year ago and will do so again, because if the people there have got it right, small companies with big ideas will once again be able to create innovative products without incurring corresponding big costs. The driving force behind XMOS is aimed at overturning the current way in which systems are … Read More → "Disruptive Technology?"

Cooler, Lighter, Faster

Actel Debuts Military-grade Flash FPGAs

by Kevin Morris

August 12, 2008

We’ve all heard that time is money. Also, given today’s energy market, we are painfully aware that power is money. By the transitive property, we can therefore infer that power is time. And, if we’re designing electronics for military and aerospace applications, it will come as no surprise that power is weight. Why? Because if your device consumes too much power, you have to start adding things like heat sinks and fans and bigger power supplies – all of which add weight and cost. Adding fans also … Read More → "Cooler, Lighter, Faster"

When the Walls Get Too Thin

by Bryon Moyer

August 5, 2008

“But melord, the walls on the castle are thick, sir. There be but two ways to breach them, one being through the attaining of prodigious amounts of speed and energy and bounding therewith over the walls, and the other being the attaining of similar energies and smashing through. Both means may, my liege, be considered as unlikely as the migration of coconuts, for the walls be both high and strong. Verily, there may be one more purported way of breaching the wall, but only an the wall be thin enough, whereby one standing on the outside … Read More → "When the Walls Get Too Thin"

Does Harry Use Tools?

by Dick Selwood

August 5, 2008

In England there is a phrase used to describe a significant sub-class of embedded engineers – “Fred in a shed.” It is the guy who works for himself and carries out contract work for a range of different people. I prefer to think of him as a sub-set of “Harry the Hairy Hacker.” You must all know him – even when he is in part of a multi-national company and not in a shed. He has war stories of how he single-handedly saved a project by coding in machine code for 48 hours without a break, and then, … Read More → "Does Harry Use Tools?"