Editors' Blog

New Emulator Help

Emulators are becoming more important for chip verification. While they used to be valued for in-circuit emulation (ICE) – real-worldish implementations of pre-mask hardware, the driving force now is the ability to execute software on pre-mask SoCs.

But an emulator is a big beast of a machine, and, for two out of the three emulator players, doing an upgrade is an even bigger process because they have to design their own custom chip for the heart of the emulator. Mentor just announced such an upgrade, doubling the speed and capacity of their existing Veloce emulator.

… Read More → "New Emulator Help"

14 nm Waking Up

by Bryon Moyer

Even as we talk about the Common Platform Alliance’s 14-nm plans, others are also out there putting 14 nm into play. In March, imec announced delivery of what they claim to be the industry’s first process development kit (PDK) for 14 nm. Synopsys announced TCAD models for 14 nm about a week later.

These are actually rather different beasts; the imec delivery suggests the process is ready for … Read More → "14 nm Waking Up"

Ready for More Inspection

by Dick Selwood

Not long ago we covered a set of inspection tools announced by KLA-Tencor. They have recently announced yet another inspection tool, which they call CIRCL. The idea is that it’s actually three or four tools in one, with stations for frontside, backside, and edge inspection as well as one for spot check and review all integrated into one cluster, with loaders for up to three lots at a time.

(And yes, apparently backside matters. Years ago when I worked in the fab, … Read More → "Ready for More Inspection"

World’s Smallest Server?

by Dick Selwood

Given all of the effort that goes into building internet capabilities into embedded systems, I was intrigued by a claim to the “world’s smallest device server” from Lantronix, a single-chip solution. After all, why is everyone going through all this effort if there’s already a single chip that does it all?

Well, as might be expected, it’s not everything to everyone – it’s what they call a serial-to-Ethernet converter, although just saying it goes to Ethernet is not really giving it enough credit, since it has full … Read More → "World’s Smallest Server?"

Audio Upgrade

by Dick Selwood

Used to be that there were processors (of the “regular” kind) and there were DSPs. It’s no longer enough to be a DSP: you have to be the right kind. At least that’s how CEVA has rolled out their offering, with one family for communications, one for video and imaging, and one for audio and voice.

They recently announced the latest version of the latter, their TeakLite family. As in other areas that used to seem so … Read More → "Audio Upgrade"

PolyCore Updates Multicore Tools

by Kevin Morris

We took a look at PolyCore’s tools away back when MCAPI had first been approved as a standard for low-level multicore communication in embedded systems.

They’ve just announced an upgrade, and they continue with their goal of abstracting away a lot of the fiddly bits that are necessary to get different processes talking to each other in a multicore setup. In particular, they have structured … Read More → "PolyCore Updates Multicore Tools"

There was another company at Des

by Bryon Moyer

There was another company at DesignWest doing something similar, but not exactly competitive. Nabto puts a tiny webserver into your mobile device or onto your chip that places it behind the corporate firewall. So rather than have to upgrade multiple devices, you just upgrade the primary firewall. If I were a small business with multiple devices, I might prefer Icon Labs, but for a large enterprise, Nabto might be a better choice… or a combination of both.

… Read More →

What’s In a Name

by Bryon Moyer

We’re all still getting calibrated on sensors, and we can sometimes get tripped up on terminology. In discussions about their sensor fusion IP, Movea explicitly included some definitions to make sure we were aligned.

Most prominent is their finessing of the mythical 9-axis or 9-DoF sensor. They do this by distinguishing between true degrees of freedom and axes. Spatial motion involves only six true degrees of freedom: 3 dimensions linear and three dimensional rotational. That’s all there is. The problem is that when accelerometers ( … Read More → "What’s In a Name"

Drifting Towards Hardware

by Bryon Moyer

In touting their sensor fusion product offering, Movea announced their MotionCore IP in a manner that sounded like they were developing hardware. While that’s not strictly true, they are packaging up their IP in ways that intentionally make it easier for hardware developers to implement hardened versions of the cores. They target three implementations:

– software only, optimized for time to market; this is the primary implementation at present;

Atmel Takes On the Actual Screen

by Amelia Dalton

We’ve talked about Atmel’s touch activities before, both with respect to their controllers and their stylus venture (which also features their controllers). To date, they haven’t been overtly participating in the business of creating actual touchscreens.

But, behind the scenes, they’ve spent the last couple years developing a new projected capacitance (P-CAP) technology</ … Read More → "Atmel Takes On the Actual Screen"