Jim Turley

Cadence’s Faster Debug Idea

May 19, 2015

Cadence is proposing a new way to approach debug. It’s almost an obvious way, except that this isn’t how most debug has traditionally been done. The real reason this hasn’t been done before is simple: data. We’ll come back to that in a sec.

Their point is that, for most debug today, you have to anticipate where problems are likely to crop up and then manually instrument your code with “printf” statements (or the equivalent) so that you get some visibility into what’s going on … Read More → "Cadence’s Faster Debug Idea"

Faster NoC Tuning

by Jim Turley

May 12, 2015

In a sleepy little town of 4 or 5 houses, you can be pretty informal about how mail arrives at its destinations. People can come pick it up at the post office, or the postmaster can drop it off on the way home, or whatever works. But once you get too many houses, you have to get organized: create routes and schedules and hire delivery folks to handle deliveries in a more structured manner.

That’s what’s happened with SoCs: the ad-hoc interconnect schemes of yore are giving way to networks-on-chip (NoCs) so that the complex … Read More → "Faster NoC Tuning"

Intel/Altera Agreement (Partially) Tells the Tale

by Jim Turley

May 4, 2015

We did a lot of speculation in our recent articles about the rumored Intel bid to buy Altera. One of the areas of most intense speculation was the 2013 agreement the two companies signed – for Intel to manufacture 14nm FPGAs for Altera.

More than two years after that deal was signed, Intel is rumored to be making an offer to buy Altera for upwards (maybe far upwards) of $10B. But, is the existing 2013 agreement potentially weakening Intel’s bargaining position?

The key parts of the agreement that we thought could be … Read More → "Intel/Altera Agreement (Partially) Tells the Tale"

AMD Pulls the Plug on SeaMicro

by Jim Turley

April 17, 2015

One-third of a billion dollars doesn’t go as far as it used to. AMD acquired SeaMicro in 2012 for $334 million, hoping to jump into the hot (at the time) market for “microservers,” machines that use a lot of small microprocessors instead of just a few big ones. Now, AMD has killed off the entire product line and reassigned the staff.

SeaMicro wasn’t one of the many ARM-based server startups. Instead, it used small x86 processors to make its microservers, an obvious selling point for AMD. Nevertheless, AMD is moving forward with its ARM-based server chips, including … Read More → "AMD Pulls the Plug on SeaMicro"

Getting Onto the IoT

by Jim Turley

April 16, 2015

Today we talk IoT enablement. Two sources with different goals.

The first one is a platform called iChipNet from ConnectOne (we’ve seen their modules before). And it’s brought to you by a concern for interoperability, which they see as a big barrier to IoT adoption.

When we think “interop,” often we think about hardware compatibility – sensors from different sources working with hubs and brokers and what not, humming away like a well-tuned orchestra. But … Read More → "Getting Onto the IoT"

Tanner to Join Mentor: Outsider Gets a Crew

by Jim Turley

March 31, 2015

Way back in 2009, we took a look at Tanner – an EDA company marching to its own beat. They always seemed – and continue to seem – apart from the pack. We talk about the Big 3 in EDA – Synopsys, Cadence, and Mentor – and lots of little startups. Back then, there were a few other medium-sized companies & … Read More → "Tanner to Join Mentor: Outsider Gets a Crew"

Intel Buying Altera? We Totally Called It.

by Jim Turley

March 27, 2015

Rumors abound today that Intel is in negotiations to buy Altera – a deal that could be worth over ten billion. If so, it would be the largest acquisition in Intel’s history.

We have no confirmation from either company that such a deal is in play, but we did a pretty thorough analysis of the situation last June in this article:

https://www.eejournal.com/archives/articles/20140624-intel/

What do you think?

… Read More →

New Membranes, ASICs, and Packages for Akustica

by Jim Turley

March 26, 2015

Akustica recently announced a round of microphone design and manufacturing improvements, as embodied in two new high-signal-to-noise (SNR) microphones. They’ve redesigned the microphone membrane, the accompanying ASIC, and, in one case, the package. Yeah… that doesn’t leave much untouched.

They’re not being completely open about exactly what the changes are in detail, but the membrane change involves new materials (undisclosed) and tweaks … Read More → "New Membranes, ASICs, and Packages for Akustica"

The world wins, again

by Jim Turley

March 16, 2015

We work in an environment where we regularly say that we using technology to try to change the world for the better. Then the world turns around and shows you that it is far stronger than you think. It always faintly amuses me that a massive airliner can be seriously delayed by a head wind, but this ceases to be funny when the wind system is called Katrina, Sandy or the latest, Pam.

The world turned round and gave us another slap in the face last Thursday – not on the scale of Pam but still a … Read More → "The world wins, again"

A MEMS Autofocus

by Jim Turley

March 11, 2015

Change may be coming to the world of camera autofocus. Traditional smartphone autofocus uses a voice coil to move the lenses and change the focus. While this has obviously worked, a company called poLight thinks it could work better. In particular, faster and smaller.

They’ve fashioned a MEMS autofocus module. By goosing a couple of piezoelectric electrodes on a thin plate of glass, they can warp the glass – and therefore change the surface of a polymer block, turning it into a lens. The amount of actuation determines the curvature and hence the focus.

< … Read More →