Fish Fry – Page 58

September 25, 2014

The music is loud, the rhythm – infectious, but it’s the backbeat that has us tapping our toes and coming back for more. We’re all jamming to the same IoT tune, but what keeps the cadence in 4/4 time? My guest this week is Phil Callahan from Silicon Labs and we discuss this dance called IoT, from the internet infrastructure laying down its chord progression to the super cool demo solos Silicon Labs will be showing at this year’s X-fest. Also this week, we check out another musical melody that has finally revealed…the sound of … Read More → "The Beat Goes On"

Shifting Left

Designing Code, Breaking Code, and the Verification in Between

by Amelia Dalton

September 19, 2014

Like the venerable Kenny Rogers once said, “You have to know when to hold ‘em, know when to fold ‘em…” In the verification game, much is the same. You have to know how to make the code, and you have to know how to break it. In this week’s Fish Fry, David Hsu (Synopsys) joins us to discuss the challenges of static verification and formal verification, how to “shift left”, and how to make code just to break it. Also this week, we investigate how hierarchical timing analysis may solve your sign-off timing troubles once and and … Read More → "Shifting Left"

All’s Fair in Love and Power (Consumption)

Fairchild’s New Foray into Smart Power

by Amelia Dalton

September 11, 2014

Any engineer who is worth his or her salt probably knows the illustrious (and occasionally infamous) tale of Fairchild Semiconductor and the creation of Silicon Valley. Fairchild is certainly one of the most important companies in electronics history. But, what has Fairchild done for us lately? This week my guest is Saj Sahay of Fairchild Semiconductor, and we discuss three megatrends driving innovation in electronic design. It turns out Fairchild Semiconductor is back – with a bold new mission – and they’re doing some really cool stuff in the area of “Power Systems in Package”. As a bonus, we also … Read More → "All’s Fair in Love and Power (Consumption)"

On The Hunt: Part One

HLS and Sub-atomic Particle Jitter

by Amelia Dalton

September 5, 2014

Dateline: The 5th of September. Time: 2100 hours. We’re on the hunt. No, we’re not hunting the mysterious Yeti, the Loch Ness monster, or heck even the ever-elusive EUV. This time, we’re looking for some HLS. My guest this week is Mark Milligan from Calypto. Mark joins Fish Fry for the very first time to bring HLS into the light, into the world, and into the caring hands… of Google? Oh yes. Also this week, we delve into the deeply nerdy realm of sub-atomic particle jitter and investigate how the U.S. Department of … Read More → "On The Hunt: Part One"

The World According to FRAM

TI’s FRAM MCUs and ADI’s X-fest Demos

by Amelia Dalton

August 29, 2014

In this week’s Fish Fry, we take a fast tour of the world, with interesting stops in FRAM, high-speed ADCs, and remote RF transceivers. Don’t know what FRAM is? Fear not. Will Cooper from Texas Instruments tells us all about this amazing not-so-new non-volatile memory technology, which is really cool – even if I don’t quite agree with his basketball loyalties. Then we’re off to analog land with Robin Getz from Analog Devices where we chat about remote RF transceivers, high-speed ADCs, motor control demos, and a whole lot more. Check it out!

< … Read More →

A Horse of a Different Color

Advanced vs. Established Process Geometries

by Amelia Dalton

August 19, 2014

It’s time to saddle up and ride into the semiconductor sunset! Whether you’re hitchin’ your wagon to a young whipper-snapper node, or lassoin’ a long-in-the-tooth workhorse process, the time it takes to get your IC design up and out of the corral may depend more on the software you use to verify your design than on the silicon itself. In this week’s Fish Fry, Mary Ann White (Synopsys) and I get down to the very heart of semiconductor design: process geometries. We have ourselves a good ol’ time chatting about challenges of FinFET designs, the tricky … Read More → "A Horse of a Different Color"

Driving Innovation

Model-based Design and Physics-based Acceleration

by Amelia Dalton

August 15, 2014

In this week’s Fish Fry, we’re taking the wheel, putting the pedal to the metal, and riding off into the EE sunset. My first co-pilot in the Fish Fry bucket seat is Noam Levine. Noam navigates us to a special place called Model-based Design. We discuss how this design methodology can help move your next design into the fast lane where you might even bypass a prototyping stage or two. Next up in our fast flying EE road trip is a saunter down Semiconductor Lane with Tom Flynn of Coventor. Tom and I investigate physics-based … Read More → "Driving Innovation"

Lean Green Energy Harvesting Machine

PMICs and Biofuel Micro Trigeneration

by Amelia Dalton

August 5, 2014

In the venerable words of Kermit the Frog, “It’s not that easy being green“, but in this week’s Fish Fry we’re going to show you that being green may be getting a whole lot easier. We examine a new Micro Trigeneration Prototyping system coming out of the University of Newcastle that aims to cool, heat, and provide electricity to your home using unprocessed plant oils. Tom Sparkman (Spansion) and I also explore Spansion’s super green new … Read More → "Lean Green Energy Harvesting Machine"

FPGA Fiesta!

Lattice's iCE40 Ultra and Xilinx at
X-fest 2014

by Amelia Dalton

August 1, 2014

Bienvenido a Fish Fry! Welcome to this week’s field programmable Fish Frying festivities. First to join the podcastin’ party is Joy Wrigley from Lattice Semiconductor. Joy and I discuss how FPGAs are breaking into the IoT scene and why low power will make all the difference in tomorrow’s mobile designs. Joining the fun next is Barrie Mullins from Xilinx. Barrie and I chat about how Vivado is playing a bigger role in this year’s X-fest and why this conference isn’t just for FPGA designers.

</ … Read More → "FPGA Fiesta!"

From the Cradle to the Cloud

Education Meets High Tech

by Amelia Dalton

July 24, 2014

This week Fish Fry is all about technological innovation in education. From kindergarten to college, from Malaysia to Texas, we look into recent technological advances that aim to even the educational playing field in the United States and across the globe. My first guest is Scott McDonald (Rorke Global Solutions). Scott unveils Rorke’s new digital learning system and discusses with me how Rorke was motivated to break ground on this high tech education revolution. (We also throw in some basketball trash talk.) Keeping with our education theme, Silicon Cloud International CEO Mojy Chian … Read More → "From the Cradle to the Cloud"