Articles – Page 68

Got FPGA? Got Test!

July 15, 2021

I was just chatting with the chaps and chapesses at Testonica. These little scamps offer a wide range of services, including test and measurement (T&M) and design for test (DFT) analysis, FPGA-based development, embedded software development, and electronics hardware design. The thing that really caught my attention, however, is their technology to use a board’s FPGA to self-test that board.

It turns out that half of the folks at … Read More → "Got FPGA? Got Test!"

Xilinx Brings AI to FPGA EDA

by Kevin Morris

July 14, 2021

For decades, FPGA companies have been bragging about how their devices can be used to accelerate all sorts of compute-intensive functions, and they have built a large market for themselves convincing design teams that they can handle the toughest problems with aplomb – speeding up execution and reducing power demands.

“Hey!” said this one guy in the back.”How come you don’t accelerate your own design tools, then?”

This always started a bout of hand wringing and doubletalk and then a marketing person would … Read More → "Xilinx Brings AI to FPGA EDA"

Boolean Logic Problem Finally Solved

Modeling a Circuit’s “Sensitivity” was Harder Than Everybody Thought

by Jim Turley

July 13, 2021

One of the first things we learn in Computer Science 101 is how to reduce and simplify logic truth tables. If you’ve got a bunch of input bits feeding an array of logical OR, AND, and XOR gates, the first thing you want to do is figure out which bits are significant and which are “don’t care.”

With a simple enough circuit and a bit of practice, you can just eyeball it. If a two-input OR has one input true, the other input doesn’t matter. Similarly, a two-input … Read More → "Boolean Logic Problem Finally Solved"

Internet for Everyone: a Parable

In Which Our Hero Tries Connecting to the 21st Century

by Jim Turley

July 12, 2021

Introduction: A friend of mine recently moved to the suburbs and found that distance from the city is inversely proportional to progress. Here is his firsthand dispatch, smuggled out of suburban Portland, Oregon, barely 15 miles from Intel. If a cell tower falls in the forest and there’s no one there to hear it…

This is a case study in internet (un)availability in places deemed inconvenient for service providers. Internet connectivity used to be something of a luxury, part of what you sacrificed if you wanted to … Read More → "Internet for Everyone: a Parable"

I See Zebus and Zebras Everywhere!

by Max Maxfield

July 8, 2021

It’s funny how, the older you get, things seem to increasingly circle around. You start off thinking you are heading in a new direction, and then you suddenly find yourself back where you started. I don’t know about you, but just re-reading the previous sentence reminds me of the lyrics to Time by Pink Floyd — the part that goes, “And you run, and you run to catch up with the sun but it’s sinking, racing around to come up behind you again. The … Read More → "I See Zebus and Zebras Everywhere!"

Microchip TimePictra Masters Time

GPS Can Do a Lot More Than Navigate to The Store

by Jim Turley

July 7, 2021

What do GPS, cloud data centers, power substations, the Department of Homeland Security, and Microchip all have in common?

A very clear sense of time.

I’ve often thought that Microchip has the world’s best company name. It’s so descriptive. Tell any random stranger that you work at Microchip and it instantly answers all sorts of follow-up questions. It’s right there in the name, isn’t it? The company makes microchips.

Except when it doesn’ … Read More → "Microchip TimePictra Masters Time"

RIP, Cloud-Connected Devices

Paid-up Products Disappear Under Our Noses

by Jim Turley

July 5, 2021

Clouds are ephemeral, passing quickly from sight, carried away on the lightest of breezes. Apparently, so are cloud-based products.

Consumer giant Samsung has decided to deep-six its entire SmartThings product line, starting with users’ home hubs. As of last week, SmartThings hubs stopped working. They’re essentially bricked because, like all cloud-based services, they sail upon the whim of the host company. Samsung decided it didn’t want to build and support SmartThings products anymore, so it simply blew them away.

This, despite the … Read More → "RIP, Cloud-Connected Devices"

Accelerating C/C++ Without Tears or Tribulations

by Max Maxfield

July 1, 2021

Just to make sure I have your attention, let’s start with the conclusion and then I’ll tell you how we got there. Is that OK with you? Good. In that case, the conclusion is that the clever folks at CacheQ have come up with a cunning solution that can take your regular single-threaded C/C++ code and compile it in such a way as to achieve multi-threaded acceleration on CPUs with multiple physical cores, all without any effort, pain, tears, trials, or tribulations on your part. Interested? If so, read on…

Your Car: 25 GB/Hour of Personal Data

Otonomo Makes it Their Business to Track, Sell Your Whereabouts

by Jim Turley

June 30, 2021

What defines creepy? Is it a dark abandoned house with creaking floors and a history of mayhem? A doll with eyes that seem to follow you? A backwoods loner with a chainsaw?

Or is it your car? Your car takes you to work, to your friends’ houses, to your favorite vacation spots, and back home again. It goes everywhere with you — or you with it. It’s your closest companion, along for every ride, every adventure, and every misadventure. So what would happen if this close companion blabbed to a … Read More → "Your Car: 25 GB/Hour of Personal Data"

Lattice Launches CertusPro-NX

Sets the Bar on Mid-range FPGA

by Kevin Morris

June 29, 2021

There is an interesting side effect of Moore’s Law’s relentless march, where some technologies atrophy even though they are still extremely relevant and applicable in the mainstream. Take, for example, the case of the 100K LUT FPGA. Not that many years ago, a 100K LUT FPGA was solidly in the high-end, and numerous applications took advantage of the generous helping of flexibility and hardware programmability that such a device brought to the table. At that time, the big FPGA vendors charged a premium for these devices, and customers lapped them up with glee.</ … Read More → "Lattice Launches CertusPro-NX"