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A Measure of Respect

Ours is a networked world. Anything that’s anything is connected to the Internet. No matter how unrelated, things somehow manage to get from here to somewhere completely different. Like the way your bank account password can magically appear in some server in an obscure corner of Russia. Or how some exalted prince in an exotic distant land like, say, Nigeria, actually knows who you are and trusts you enough to handle his money!

But it wasn’t ever so, and the infrastructure for hooking things onto the internet was once meticulously created from scratch … Read More → "A Measure of Respect"

Modular Linux

A lot of press releases that drop into my email in-box are often, to be totally objective, pretty run of the mill. Naturally, I know that, for the guys building it, selling it and using it, the new release of software, the smallest widget, the fastest gizmo, or whatever, is important. But unless you are running product pages, as a journalist you just make a mental note and then consign the release to the delete file. But occasionally a release comes along that causes you to stop in your tracks. A little earlier this year there was a real … Read More → "Modular Linux"

A Measure of Respect

Ours is a networked world. Anything that’s anything is connected to the Internet. No matter how unrelated, things somehow manage to get from here to somewhere completely different. Like the way your bank account password can magically appear in some server in an obscure corner of Russia. Or how some exalted prince in an exotic distant land like, say, Nigeria, actually knows who you are and trusts you enough to handle his money!

But it wasn’t ever so, and the infrastructure for hooking things onto the internet was once meticulously created from scratch … Read More → "A Measure of Respect"

IP Inexact

Intellectual property (IP) is, in our modern edition of the SoC design world, the equivalent of the opposite gender (in our modern equal-opportunity-exasperation world): you can’t live with it and you can’t live without it. The thought of bundling up the results of some great achievement to share with your peers (or better yet, superiors?) was once a nice thought, something to do if you had some time. You could even spare someone a bunch of work that way. Or, if you were lucky, actually sell it.

There are, of course, a couple … Read More → "IP Inexact"

MIPS, Mario, TV, and Trends

This week, MIPS Technologies announced that it’s scored another TV set-top box design win. Specifically, the company proudly bragged that NXP (formerly Philips Semiconductors) is using the MIPS 24K processor core in its PNX85500 HDTV chip. It’s the first TV chip to be fabricated in 45-nm technology, a significant if short-lived distinction.

With all appropriate kudos to MIPS and NXP, the more interesting story here is why NXP chose to use a MIPS processor. The short answer is, because they had used MIPS before. In a word, inertia.

Inertia … Read More → "MIPS, Mario, TV, and Trends"

Locking Down Power

We’ve talked a lot in the past about the process node tango danced by the two largest FPGA companies. With each step, one leads and the other follows – usually with a twist. Unlike the traditional tango, however, we often have the lead changing with each subsequent move – a scheme certain to confuse most dance fans, but a situation that makes the FPGA market far more interesting. Also, unlike in the traditional tango, both dancers are doing their dead-level best to knock the other one off their feet. That makes things really exciting – from our perspective, at least.

< … Read More → "Locking Down Power"

Working Towards Independence

Everyone’s trying to make their code run faster. Since we can’t count on processors simply doing the work for us by running faster, we have to resort to other means. For code that’s going to run on SoCs, there are a couple primary choices: add more cores and have them run in parallel or have some of the code execute in dedicated hardware.

The whole parallel thing has been bandied about for years now, and no one has found a way around the fact that it’s really hard to … Read More → "Working Towards Independence"

Obscurity and the Illusion of Security

Eric Raymond, prominent voice in the open-source movement and author of The Cathedral and the Bazaar, stated it well: “Any security software design that doesn’t assume the enemy possesses the source code is already untrustworthy.” Decades earlier, Claude Shannon was even more succinct: “The enemy knows the system.” Security experts call this Kerckhoffs’ Principle, in honor of a 19th century mathematician who first formulated it for cryptosystems. The underlying assumption is that any security-critical flaw will be found and exploited sooner or later, so at best, secrecy buys you only some delay.</ … Read More → "Obscurity and the Illusion of Security"

What Do We Do About Multicore?

I’m always suspicious when a PowerPoint slide says we’re at a turning point in history. It strikes me as egotistical to think that today is somehow qualitatively different from yesterday. Sure, chips always get faster and software always gets more complex – how is that an inflection point? You’re just trying to sell me something, aren’t you?

The exception to this self-imposed rule is multicore microprocessors. I really do think that multicore is a game-changer. It makes hardware design different, it makes software design different, it makes EDA and … Read More → "What Do We Do About Multicore?"

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