Articles – Page 3

Efinix co-packages FPGA with SDRAM to shrink board-level real estate footprint

May 12, 2025

Efinix has just done designers a solid. The company’s new Ti180J484D1 FPGA incorporates a 2Gbit LPDDR4X SDRAM die co-packaged with the FPGA die, which creates a System in Package (SiP) device that results in a smaller footprint on your circuit board. In addition, you won’t need to worry about the precise pcb trace-length matching that’s required to properly connect the DDR SDRAM to the FPGA. Efinix has handled that for you already. The idea’s similar to those high-end FPGAs from other vendors that package HBM (high-bandwidth memory) DRAM stacks with … Read More → "Efinix co-packages FPGA with SDRAM to shrink board-level real estate footprint"

Artificial Intelligence (AI) Meets Networks-on-Chip (NoCs) in More Ways Than One

by Max Maxfield

May 8, 2025

Way back in the mists of time that we used to call 2023, I wrote (well, waffled) a column about Network-on-Chip (NoC) technology (see Who Needs a Network-on-Chip (NoC)? Everyone!). Suffice it to say that this was in the days before the punctuation police forbade me from using exclamation marks in my titles (thankfully, I’m not bitter).

Well, even though this was but two short years ago, all I can say is that NoC technology has progressed in leaps and … Read More → "Artificial Intelligence (AI) Meets Networks-on-Chip (NoCs) in More Ways Than One"

Is the world ready for Platypus, Zero ASIC’s open eFPGA IP? CEO Andreas Olofsson is betting that the answer is “Yes”

by Steven Leibson

May 7, 2025

Embedded FPGA (eFPGA) IP is not new. Several companies including Achronix, Efinix, Flex Logix, Menta, and QuickLogic have been offering FPGA cores for integration into ASICs and SoCs for a while. ASIC designers use eFPGA cores to help future-proof their designs. The eFPGA can be used to patch bugs or add features as needed. These abilities help to avoid a costly and time-consuming re-spin of the ASIC. It’s a difficult bit of IP business with a limited market, chiefly used by semiconductor developers in the defense and aerospace segments. Analog Devices (ADI) bought all of … Read More → "Is the world ready for Platypus, Zero ASIC’s open eFPGA IP? CEO Andreas Olofsson is betting that the answer is “Yes”"

Microchip launches sub-$1, dual-core AVR microcontroller for functional safety applications

by Steven Leibson

May 5, 2025

Several microcontroller vendors used the time around Embedded World 2025 to introduce some truly interesting devices. I’ve already written about the TI MSPM0 microcontroller family and the WCH CH570 microcontroller (see “TI says its MSPM0 is the world’s most teeny, tiny 32-bit microcontroller. It’s smaller than a grain of white rice and costs 16 cents.” and “A 10-cent RISC-V microcontroller from China? Why not?”), and now it’s Microchip’s turn with a new family of 8-bit AVR microcontrollers designed to help comply with advanced safety requirements including ASIL C and SIL 2.

AI-Based PCBA Machine Vision Solution Ensures Supply Chain Integrity

by Max Maxfield

May 1, 2025

I wish you could visit me in Max’s World, where everything is bigger, brighter, and more colorful. The birds sing sweeter (and in harmony), the flowers are more fragrant, the butterflies are more brillacious—a neologism of brilliant and bodacious that I just invented—and the beer flows plentifully and cold. Most importantly, everyone is nice, kind, honorable, and trustworthy. No one would even dream of doing anything naughty.

Unfortunately, like you, I am forced to spend my waking hours in the real world where naughtiness is the order … Read More → "AI-Based PCBA Machine Vision Solution Ensures Supply Chain Integrity"

Everything You Wanted to Know About LFSRs (But Were Too Afraid to Ask)

by Max Maxfield

April 29, 2025

I don’t really recall when I first ran across the concept of the binary. I think I must have been around six years old. I remember getting a lined pad and pencil and starting to capture the sequence: 0, 1, 10, 11, 100, 101, 110, 111, 1000… until I’d filled the entire pad. I also remember being surprised that I hadn’t “reached the end” of the binary count sequence (it was some time before I wrapped my brain around the fact that the integers [in any base] went on forever).

Similarly, I’ve been enthused by … Read More → "Everything You Wanted to Know About LFSRs (But Were Too Afraid to Ask)"

A 10-cent RISC-V microcontroller from China? Why not?

by Steven Leibson

April 28, 2025

Just as I was finishing my previous article about a new TI microcontroller that was smaller than a grain of white rice and sold for 16 cents in thousand-unit quantities, I learned of another new microcontroller based on a proprietary implementation of the 32-bit RISC-V processor ISA that sells for 10 cents (presumably in volume). This new microcontroller from WCH, aka Nanjing Qinheng Microelectronics, a Chinese chip and IP vendor based in Nanjing, China. (“WCH” appears to be an abbreviation for “WinChipHead.”) The microcontroller is the WCH CH570, which has 12 Kbytes of on-chip SRAM and 240 Kbytes of Flash EEPROM … Read More → "A 10-cent RISC-V microcontroller from China? Why not?"

Quantum Simulations of New Materials for the 21st Century

by Max Maxfield

April 24, 2025

We are surrounded by a multiplicity of materials, from metals and alloys to crystals, glasses, and ceramics; from polymers and plastics to organic and living-derived substances; and let’s not forget natural materials like stone and exotic materials like aerogel.

The amazing thing to me is that all these materials are formed from different combinations of the same small group of elements. For example, while living organisms and other objects can contain traces of many elements, a core group does the heavy lifting; only six elements—carbon (C), hydrogen (H), oxygen (O), nitrogen ( … Read More → "Quantum Simulations of New Materials for the 21st Century"

TI says its MSPM0 is the world’s most teeny, tiny 32-bit microcontroller. It’s smaller than a grain of white rice and costs 16 cents.

by Steven Leibson

April 21, 2025

Today, I want to discuss the incredible shrinking microcontroller. Early microcontroller vendors packaged their offerings in 40-pin DIPs. They were physically small for what you got then, but huge now. These microcontrollers shared several common features: a lame and very proprietary 4- or 8-bit processor architecture designed more to fit on the die than to deliver much performance, a trivial amount of RAM (64 bytes, 128 bytes if you were lucky), and not much more EPROM (perhaps 1 or 2 Kbytes) to store code and permanent data. Even with such extremely limited features, these early microcontrollers ushered in a new era … Read More → "TI says its MSPM0 is the world’s most teeny, tiny 32-bit microcontroller. It’s smaller than a grain of white rice and costs 16 cents."

It’s a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad 48V World

by Max Maxfield

April 17, 2025

It seems that many of our electronic systems (communications, computing, automotive, industrial, etc.) are transitioning from 12V to 48V. How are you going to power yours? (Don’t worry, that’s a trick question because I’m about to expound, explicate, and elucidate like an Olympic champion.)

For some reason, I currently find the phrase “It’s a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad 48V World” bouncing around my bonce. Since we’re already on the subject, the 1963 movie, Read More → "It’s a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad 48V World"