Articles – Page 71

April 13, 2021

It’s the season of rebirth. The sun is out. Flowers are in bloom. Birds busily build nests while semiconductor verification teams emerge from their long winter hibernation, ready to tool up for the challenges of the next process generation. Billions of unverified gates give shelter to countless bugs awaiting anxious design teams as they prepare for summer’s tape-outs and struggle to bring new software up on wobbly legs.

Yep, the first emulators and prototyping platforms of spring have arrived, and – failing to be greeted with their own shadows – … Read More → "The First Emulators of Spring"

Parsing Google v. Oracle: What’s It Really Mean?

Long-Running Code Copyright Case Seems Finally Settled

by Jim Turley

April 12, 2021

It’s okay to duplicate an API, even if you have to snarf 11,500 lines of somebody else’s code to do it.

That’s the gist of the ruling from the United States Supreme Court in the long-running case of Google v. Oracle. Left unanswered is the larger question of whether software is even protected by copyright in the first place. But if it is, cloning an API falls under the heading of “fair use.”

It may seem a bit odd to us amateur … Read More → "Parsing Google v. Oracle: What’s It Really Mean?"

ID for the IoT? We Need the IDoT!

by Max Maxfield

April 8, 2021

When most people hear the term “counterfeiting,” their knee-jerk reaction is to think of currency, the counterfeiting of which is as old as the concept of money itself. Around 400 BC, for example, metal coins in Greece were often counterfeited by covering a cheap-and-cheerful material with a thin layer of a more precious metal.

Or take the original American colonies. Throughout northeastern America, Native Americans would employ shell beads known as wampum as a form of currency. White shells came from quahog (a large, rounded edible clam found on the Atlantic coast of North America), while blueish/purplish-black … Read More → "ID for the IoT? We Need the IDoT!"

AMD Details Potential Ryzen Attack Vector

Publishes New Side-Channel Vulnerability in Zen 3 Processors

by Jim Turley

April 6, 2021

It’s not a bug, it’s a feature, if you publish it in the manual, right? AMD has taken a “white hat” approach to a possible security risk in its newest Zen 3 processors by publishing a white paper that describes the problem. Although there’s no known exploit in the field, AMD appears to be heading off any problems by detailing how, when, and where the problem might occur, and what … Read More → "AMD Details Potential Ryzen Attack Vector"

ARMv9: Fashionably Late

Latest Update to ARM Architecture Aids Security, AI, Performance

by Jim Turley

April 3, 2021

Silicon Valley is like Milan. One is the US center of high tech, the other is the fashion capital of Italy. The Valley has its product rollouts and Milan has its runway shows. Both are glamorous, slick, professionally produced events designed to generate excitement but tell you almost nothing about the actual product. They’re teases; entertainment for the press corps documenting the industry’s every move.

So it was that last week nearly a hundred of my colleagues and I assembled – virtually, of course – to witness the carefully choreographed … Read More → "ARMv9: Fashionably Late"

Want to Learn AI? But Where to Go?

by Max Maxfield

April 1, 2021

I once worked for a large computer manufacturer that considered itself to be a “big cheese” in its headquarters’ hometown. For some reason, the folks who donned the undergarments of authority and strode the corridors of power decided to have a blitz on the local media channels — including newspapers, radio, and television — to remind the hoi polloi as to who we were and what we did. At the end of this campaign, the bigwigs (those sporting the biggest wigs) sponsored a survey and were chagrined to discover that — when questioned — the vast majority of local residents … Read More → "Want to Learn AI? But Where to Go?"

Micron Bails, Intel Does Optane Alone

Nonvolatile 3D XPoint Memory has Been Slow to Take Off

by Jim Turley

March 31, 2021

There are a lot of ways to do nonvolatile memory. I mean, a lot of ways. There’s flash memory, of course, but also magneto-resistive memory, phase-change memories, resistive RAM, ROMs, PROMs, EPROMs, EEPROMs, ferroelectric memories, holographic memories, battery-backed SRAM, spinning hard disks, floppy disks, knots on a piece of string… You get the idea.

Very few of these interesting and innovative technologies ever succeed in the market. The high failure rate isn’t because the technologies don’t work. … Read More → "Micron Bails, Intel Does Optane Alone"

Heresy and Horror Ahead at Intel

New CEO Pat Gelsinger Aims to Set Intel on an Unaccustomed Path

by Jim Turley

March 29, 2021

As the helmsman of the Ever Given, ~~currently~~ recently stuck sideways in the Suez Canal, can attest, turning a massive ship is no easy task. And there’s no bigger vessel in our industry than the S.S. $INTC, otherwise known as Intel Corporation.

Intel is probably the only semiconductor company in the world that … Read More → "Heresy and Horror Ahead at Intel"

Cyber-Security’s So-So Soup; Cyber-Resiliency Rocks!

by Max Maxfield

March 24, 2021

In my previous column — Yay! Finally! A Way to Secure the Supply Chain! — we considered a cunning concept from the crafty chaps and chapesses at Lattice Semiconductor. As you may recall, the idea is to use the Lattice SupplyGuard service to pre-load MachXO3D or Read More → "Cyber-Security’s So-So Soup; Cyber-Resiliency Rocks!"

Cameras, License Plates, and You

Automated License Plate Readers Spur Privacy Concerns

by Jim Turley

March 22, 2021

So, there I was, fiddling around with networked cameras again, when I discovered that it’s really easy to read car license plates. So easy, in fact, that a lot of people are worried about the side effects. It’s another case where technology has outstripped public will.

Cameras are really stupid, which you already knew. They have no idea what they’re looking at, and they have no concept of depth perception. … Read More → "Cameras, License Plates, and You"