Taming Process Development
July 28, 2009
– You mean we’ve got to do another run?
– Yeah, we decided we didn’t quite check enough temperature points, so we’ve got one more experiment here optimizing that.
Hardware Innovation is Dead
July 21, 2009
Back in the days of the dot-com boom, I used to go to processor conferences several times a year. Every one of these events was packed full of wild and wacky hardware innovations. Nobody had more ideas than FPGA designers. In a remarkably short period of time, FPGAs were transformed from generic “sea of gates” devices into complex SoCs. They added more and more hardwired features: memory, DSP blocks, high-speed I/O, and even processor cores.
As if this weren’t enough, FPGAs made dramatic improvements in power and cost. Some … Read More → "Hardware Innovation is Dead"
Mixing it Right for Mixed Signal
July 21, 2009
Clearly there is a real and growing demand for mixed-signal devices. Technology advances are ensuring high-performance analog-rich designs can be fabricated more cost effectively. The inexorable shift to smaller geometries on standard digital CMOS processes has encouraged more foundries to exploit still-viable, larger nodes for mixed-signal processes. Meanwhile, other foundries, entirely focused on mixed-signal, are developing new BiCMOS, RF CMOS and SiGe processes. Production capacity and process choice for mixed signal devices is increasing to meet growing demand. Variations for low power, low voltage, high voltage and high frequency provide plenty of choice for the discerning mixed signal device … Read More → "Mixing it Right for Mixed Signal"
At the Dawn of the Universe
July 21, 2009
We take a lot for granted in this world. When we got here, stuff was more or less just working. We’ve managed to bend a lot of that to our will since then, and we’ve done so by mastering a wide variety of reliable physical laws. We’ve managed to destroy some of it (and threaten to destroy more) often because we have not yet mastered yet more of those laws (or because someone could make a quick buck, but that’s a different topic). We live in a universe that has the … Read More → "At the Dawn of the Universe"
Facts & Figures
July 21, 2009
It’s a slow news day here at Embedded Technology Journal, so we’re taking this summertime opportunity to review a bit of our world by numbers. Perhaps some of these illuminating factoids will give you some good business ideas. Or just help you win a bar bet.
• According to Microsoft’s own research conducted as it was developing Vista, the second most-popular computer activity is playing games. In terms of time spent in front of the computer, the only thing that trumps games is surfing the … Read More → "Facts & Figures"
Throwing Down the Gauntlet
July 14, 2009
Aldec is offering a full-blown, mixed-language HDL simulator for $1995.
It might seem strange to have a feature article about a price reduction. After all, we don’t usually see a story come across the AP newswire with a headline like “Heirloom Tomatoes on Sale for $2.99/lb.” The price of commodity items is well understood to be the product of a magic brew that includes supply, demand, manufacturing and shipping costs, package design, and a host of other intangibles – hardly newsworthy.
So, why is this interesting?
There are two reasons.
< … Read More → "Throwing Down the Gauntlet"
That’s with a “B”
July 14, 2009
From the day we are old enough to articulate polysyllabisms, we are fascinated with big numbers. The concept of “big,” of course, being relative. Some older cultures are thought to have had three quantifiers: one, two, and many. Which is suggested in the resemblance between the French words for “three” (trois) and “very” (très). (Here you have to think the real old Europe.)
But we’ve moved beyond that. Way beyond that. Why, in my day, a million dollars was a lot of money. Being a millionaire meant … Read More → "That’s with a “B”"
So You Want to Be an Entrepreneur
July 14, 2009
Entrepreneurship and innovation are all about zigging while everyone else zags. You’ve got your engineering skills down, but what about that dreaded word, marketing? In a world where Pet Rocks sell by the millions, and where buggy and expensive operating systems outsell small, inexpensive, and reliable ones, marketing clearly plays a big role. There’s no need to sell your soul – just know how to sell your product.
In this week’s installment, we examine “the curse of knowledge.” That’s what happens when you know more about your … Read More → "So You Want to Be an Entrepreneur"
That’s with a “B”
July 14, 2009
From the day we are old enough to articulate polysyllabisms, we are fascinated with big numbers. The concept of “big,” of course, being relative. Some older cultures are thought to have had three quantifiers: one, two, and many. Which is suggested in the resemblance between the French words for “three” (trois) and “very” (très). (Here you have to think the real old Europe.)
But we’ve moved beyond that. Way beyond that. Why, in my day, a million dollars was a lot of money. Being a millionaire meant … Read More → "That’s with a “B”"
Taming Variability
July 7, 2009
Back in the dark ages, when I first moved into the semiconductor realm, I used to compare the process geometries with the thickness of a human hair – which caused gasps of disbelief in a lay audience. Holding up a four-inch wafer of 16K SRAMS alongside a transistor can with its three wires, then explaining the many hundreds of thousands of can equivalents that were contained in the wafer, usually also caused gasps.
At a recent presentation I heard Kelin Kuhn, an Intel Fellow and a dynamic speaker, explain that a 32nm memory cell was dwarfed by … Read More → "Taming Variability"
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