October 2011 – Page 2

Tool Company Becomes Cloud Company

October 14, 2011

Continuing with our ongoing coverage of EDA in the public cloud, there’s another company that isn’t just starting to make use of the cloud: it’s completely tied its identity to the cloud in a way that entirely masks the original value proposition of the tools it makes.

The company is Nimbic.

Never heard of them?

How about PhysWare? Well, you might not have heard of them unless you’ve been involved in the world of field … Read More → "Tool Company Becomes Cloud Company"

Cavium’s Comms Integration

by Kevin Morris

October 12, 2011

Communications chips have typically been dedicated to a specific piece of the complicated comms technology puzzle everywhere except in handsets, where space drives integration. But now, pieces that used to reside in separate chips are starting to come together. We saw that recently with Netlogic, and now Cavium has declared further integration in their just-announced OCTEON Fusion family, albeit for a different application: a “base station on a chip.”

It combines their MIPS-based multicore architecture with baseband DSP cores, hardware accelerators for … Read More → "Cavium’s Comms Integration"

Optical Enhancements

by Kevin Morris

October 11, 2011

Earlier this year we looked at Synopsys’s optical modeling tools, including their CODE V toolset. They recently announced an update with a number of enhancements for a variety of scenarios. It’s illustrative of the range of applications that such a tool finds itself addressing.

First, they’ve enabled complex fields to be input to the tool. This means that light sources such as photonic elements and multi-mode lasers can be analyzed using the output of waveguide modeling tools.
While … Read More → "Optical Enhancements"

Jump-Starting Connected Devices

by Amelia Dalton

October 10, 2011

We looked at Imagination Technologies’ FlowWorld concept this summer. That effort put in place a cloud portal for a variety of services to be accessed by wireless connected devices.

They’ve now announced a new board they call the MiniMorph to complement that effort. It features a Toumaz Xenif TZ1090 processor, which integrates the CPU, WiFi, and audio subsystem (along with other peripheral support blocks) in a single chip.

The idea here is to take another step in lowering … Read More → "Jump-Starting Connected Devices"

I should clarify one thing here,

by Amelia Dalton

October 7, 2011

I should clarify one thing here, since I’ve had some offline correspondence about this. When discussing the use of emulation, I referred to needing it when running the “actual design.”

In my context (or in my mind) I was contrasting that to the architectural level modeling done prior to detailed design.

In other words, you should interpret “actual design” as RTL or gate-level, where the alternative to emulation is simulation (which is problematic when running through billions of cycles).

… Read More →

Yield Correlations Get Continued Focus

by Amelia Dalton

October 7, 2011

Yield enhancement has never been easy, but it just keeps getting harder as process technologies get more complex. Figuring out where you’re losing dice actually takes a lot of number crunching and correlation between widely disparate types of data.

First you’ve got your basic yield information as embodied in a wafer map. But one wafer doesn’t a trend make; it takes lots to develop the statistics to suggest where systematic problems might lie.

Isolating a particular type of failure, you can then do things like figure out what possible … Read More → "Yield Correlations Get Continued Focus"

Happy Ada Lovelace Day! http

by Amelia Dalton

October 7, 2011

Happy Ada Lovelace Day!

http://findingada.com.

… Read More →

Tektronix Moves Further Into the Chip

by Bryon Moyer

October 6, 2011

We were keeping track of Veridae as they came onto the scene with their debug technology, starting with Clarus, adding Corus, and Certus (even as their strategy and branding were morphing based on customer input). And then Tektronix swooped them up.

I talked with Tek’s TMM Mike Juliana about the new Embedded Instrumentation Group that formed as a result … Read More → "Tektronix Moves Further Into the Chip"

Steve is one of the few people w

by Bryon Moyer

October 6, 2011

Steve is one of the few people who has ever convinced hard-nosed engineers that design is not an optional extra, but integral to how well a product performs and sells. Without his vision the world would have even more bland boxes and ho-hum interfaces.

… Read More →

Steve Jobs Dies

by Bryon Moyer

October 5, 2011

Apple announced today that Steve Jobs has died. Their website says:

“Apple has lost a visionary and creative genius, and the world has lost an amazing human being. Those of us who have been fortunate enough to know and work with Steve have lost a dear friend and an inspiring mentor. Steve leaves behind a company that only he could have built, and his spirit will forever be the foundation of Apple.”

As one who has spent time in both engineering and marketing in the electronics industry, I feel that Jobs had an uncanny … Read More → "Steve Jobs Dies"