Articles – Page 57

March 2, 2022

Gordon Moore celebrated his 93rd birthday at the beginning of this year (January 3). Moore and seven co-conspirators including Robert Noyce, collectively dubbed the “Traitorous 8,” left Shockley Semiconductor Laboratory en masse and founded Fairchild Semiconductor in 1957. In 1965, as Fairchild Semiconductor’s R&D Labs Director, Gordon Moore published a very short article titled “Cramming More Components onto Integrated Circuits< … Read More → "Happy Birthday to Gordon Moore"

Microchip tries to lure Xilinx Spartan-6 users with PolarFire, SmartFusion2, and IGLOO2

Adam Taylor Started the Ball Rolling and Microchip Picked it Up

by Steven Leibson

February 28, 2022

Last week, I wrote an article about Adam Taylor’s White Paper titled “Migrating Spartan 6 Design to 7 Series & Beyond.” In that White Paper, Taylor discusses many considerations for migrating from AMD-Xilinx Spartan-6 FPGAs to Spartan-7 FPGAs. The question arises because Xilinx introduced the Spartan-6 FPGA family in 2009, more than a decade ago, and because the 45nm process technology used to make Spartan-6 devices is getting rather long in the tooth. The company-recommended … Read More → "Microchip tries to lure Xilinx Spartan-6 users with PolarFire, SmartFusion2, and IGLOO2"

Artix UltraScale+ (Xilinx) + XEM8320 (Opal Kelly) = SYZYGY’s Time to Shine

by Max Maxfield

February 24, 2022

I have a tale to tell with so many fabulous facets that I’m hard pushed to know where to start. We could come at this from so many different directions. I’ll tell you what — let’s just bite the bullet, as it were, and plunge headfirst into the fray with gusto and abandon. So, pull up your socks and hold hard onto your hat. Are you ready? Here we go…

Let’s start with … Read More → "Artix UltraScale+ (Xilinx) + XEM8320 (Opal Kelly) = SYZYGY’s Time to Shine"

Something’s Coming but I Can’t Say What!

by Max Maxfield

February 22, 2022

I just received an unusual briefing, and now I’m sitting here at the start of this column looking at a blank page thinking to myself, “So, how do I go about explaining this one?” What we’re talking about here is a next-generation processing chip that’s based on a new processing architecture. Known as a hierarchical learning processor (HLP), this technology is intended to be a game-changer for tasks like artificial intelligence (AI) training, high-performance computing (HPC), and metaverse processing (don’t ask, I’ll tell you later).

Spartan-6 vs Spartan-7: Should I Stay or Should I Go?

Adam Taylor Helps You Decide Whether to Migrate from Xilinx Spartan-6 to Spartan-7 FPGAs

by Steven Leibson

February 21, 2022

Xilinx announced the Spartan-6 FPGA family in 2009, based on a 45 nm IC process technology. Over time, the Spartan-6 LX family grew to encompass FPGAs with 3.84K to 147K logic cells, as many as 576 I/O pins, 180 DSP slices, and 268 18-Kbit Block RAMs. Spartan-6 LXT FPGAs provide the same range of logic resources as the Spartan-6 LX family members, while providing as many as eight GTP transceivers, each capable of operating at 3.125 Gbps, and one PCI Express end point, capable of operating at 2.5 Gbps. (Note: That’s the PCIe 1.0 data rate per lane.)

Equipping Machines with Extrasensory Perception

by Max Maxfield

February 17, 2022

I was just perusing and pondering the official definition of extrasensory perception (ESP). This is also referred to as the “sixth sense” based on the fact that most people think we (humans) are equipped with only five of the little rascals: sight, hearing, touch, taste, and smell.

As an aside, we actually have many more senses at our disposal, including thermoception (the sense by which we perceive temperature*), nociception (the sense that allows us to perceive pain from our skin, joints, and internal organs), proprioception (the sense of the relative … Read More → "Equipping Machines with Extrasensory Perception"

Intel Foundry Services (IFS) Appears To Go All In On RISC-V

IFS and Intel Capital Point Part of a $1 Billion Investment at RISC-V

by Steven Leibson

February 14, 2022

After CEO Patrick Gelsinger announced Intel Foundry Services (IFS) and Intel’s IDM 2.0 strategy, many people have said that Intel’s IFS announcement was like an old 1950s hair-dye TV commercial: Do they, or don’t they? In this case, instead of hair coloring, the question is whether Intel was really serious about becoming a true foundry. Here’s what Intel said back on March 23, 2021:

“Intel announced plans to become a major provider of U.S.– and Europe-based foundry capacity to serve the incredible global demand for semiconductor manufacturing. To … Read More → "Intel Foundry Services (IFS) Appears To Go All In On RISC-V"

Verifying Cache and System Coherency in 21st Century Systems

by Max Maxfield

February 10, 2022

In computing, the term “cache” refers to a hardware or software component that stores data in such a way that future requests for that data can be served faster. Since I’m a hardware design engineer by trade, and since this column largely focuses on maintaining the coherency of hardware caches, let’s commence by forgetting that beasts such as software caches even exist.

I don’t know about you, but I’ve forgotten already (I don’t like to boast, but I’m getting better and better at forgetting … Read More → "Verifying Cache and System Coherency in 21st Century Systems"

The Story of the Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Printer

It Can Take a Long Time to Connect a Printer to a Computer Over WiFi

by Steven Leibson

February 9, 2022

This is the story of a printer.
It’s a bad printer.
It’s a very bad printer.
It’s no good.
It’s horrible.
It’s terrible.
It’s the Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad HP Printer.

This story was going to be my New Year’s story. However, as events unrolled, I discovered that the printer problems … Read More → "The Story of the Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Printer"

Are TOM Displays the Future of Consumer AR?

by Max Maxfield

February 8, 2022

I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again, I think that one of the biggest game-changers heading our way is the combination of artificial intelligence (AI) and augmented reality (AR). Together, these two tantalizing technologies are going to change the ways in which we interact with our systems, the world, and each other.

Before we plunge into the fray with wild abandon — which really is the only way to plunge into a fray (plunging into a fray with meek forbearance, for example, is almost certainly fated to … Read More → "Are TOM Displays the Future of Consumer AR?"