Articles – Page 94

February 4, 2020

“A great man is… an inspiration and a prophecy.” – Robert Green Ingersoll

If a centaur is supposed to be a combination of two separate beasts, then nothing could make a more appropriate mascot for Centaur Technology’s latest microprocessor. The tiny Austin-based company has created a dual-DNA, nine-headed creature that runs both x86 server code and hugely accelerated machine-learning (ML) processes. It’s a match made in mythology.

The new chip is called simply CHA (which doesn’t stand for anything), and … Read More → "Centaur Produces Nine-Headed, Two-Species Monster"

Ultimate Guide to Switch Debounce (Part 2)

by Max Maxfield

January 30, 2020

As we discussed in Part 1 of this miniseries, when we operate a switch, it may bounce multiple times before coming to rest in its new state (see also my Switch Types and Switch … Read More → "Ultimate Guide to Switch Debounce (Part 2)"

Promoting Design Hygiene

What do EDA tools and Preventive Dentistry Have in Common?

by Jim Turley

January 28, 2020

“Don’t sweat the petty things and don’t pet the sweaty things.” – George Carlin

In economic terms, you always want to give the easiest jobs to the lowest-paid employees. Save the hard stuff for the expensive and highly trained specialists. Ideally, you want each person working on a task they’re just barely qualified to perform; anything else is a waste of their talents and the company’s money. You don’t hire brain surgeons to dig … Read More → "Promoting Design Hygiene"

Specialty Tech for the Mainstream

GlobalFoundries Conveys Delicate Positioning

by Bryon Moyer

January 27, 2020

The upshot: GlobalFoundries, having foregone the bleeding edge, has positioned itself as offering specialty technology – but, if you look at the numbers, it’s for the mainstream.

Last year, we looked in depth at GlobalFoundries’ decision to stop chasing after the most aggressive silicon nodes – 7 nm and below – for reasons that we documented then. Last fall, they presented where they are a year later and how they view themselves approaching the … Read More → "Specialty Tech for the Mainstream"

Ultimate Guide to Switch Debounce (Part 1)

by Max Maxfield

January 23, 2020

They taught me a lot of things at university. Unfortunately, they neglected to mention the topic of switch bounce. If you are a practicing engineer working with electronic systems, you will almost certainly have run into this problem. If you are new to the field, you can be assured that the delights of switch bounce are lurking out there waiting for an opportunity to bid you a cheery “Hello!” Be afraid; be very afraid.

If they think about it at all, most non-engineers visualize the operation of a switch as … Read More → "Ultimate Guide to Switch Debounce (Part 1)"

The Originality Myth

Hey, I Thought of That

by Kevin Morris

January 22, 2020

Every engineer I’ve ever asked has said the same thing happens to them on a fairly regular basis. They’ll see an online announcement or presentation on some cool new application, piece of gear, or clever Kickstarter product and think (or say), “Hey, I thought of that several years ago.” It’s a frustrating feeling, that some throw-away thought you had in the shower four years earlier is now someone else’s big “home run” invention – one that could make the world a better place, might make many people wealthy, and, who knows, may spawn … Read More → "The Originality Myth"

Killing Off Products for Fun and Profit

by Jim Turley

January 21, 2020

“I have never killed a man, but I have read many obituaries with great pleasure.” – Clarence Darrow

Product longevity may not be dead, but those who hold it dear have been asked to assemble.

Google, Best Buy, Microsoft, Spectrum Cable, and others have all unilaterally bricked products in customers’ hands. Even virtual crooks in Liberty City aren’ … Read More → "Killing Off Products for Fun and Profit"

Neural-Net Inference Benchmarks

MLPerf Announces its Inference Suite

by Bryon Moyer

January 20, 2020

The upshot: MLPerf has announced inference benchmarks for neural networks, along with initial results.

Congratulations! You now have the unenviable task of deciding which neural-network (NN) inference engine to use in your application. You want, of course, the fastest one. And it needs to run at the edge on a battery-powered device. All you have to do is compare all of the options out there to see which works best!

But here’s the thing: there’s an enormous amount of variability … Read More → "Neural-Net Inference Benchmarks"

Not Your Grandmother’s Embedded Systems

by Max Maxfield

January 16, 2020

As I mentioned in a recent column — [Electronic] Ghosts of Christmas Past and Future — the fact that we have just drifted into the year 2020, which means we are now 1/5th the way through the 21st century, is giving me pause for thought about how fast technology is changing. Take a moment to think about all the developments that have taken place over the past 100 years or so. How do you think things will change … Read More → "Not Your Grandmother’s Embedded Systems"

Silexica Bridges the HLS Gap

The New “Computing” Comes of Age

by Kevin Morris

January 15, 2020

Today, we call it “acceleration” – the use of specialized hardware to optimize compute tasks that do not perform well on conventional von Neumann processors. We have entered an “age of acceleration” driven primarily by the explosion in AI technology. Countless startups are engaged in developing chips with alternative architectures that accelerate and parallelize various types of compute-intensive algorithms. As a result, we are living in a heterogeneous computing world with processors and accelerators working side by side on a new generation of applications. It is possible, even likely, that this proliferation of acceleration will subsume our … Read More → "Silexica Bridges the HLS Gap"