Articles – Page 516

IP Mates, IP Stars and IP Trolls

May 12, 2009

A mate in the pub.

It’s a regular problem: there is something you think you need, you are a bit hazy about what it is called, and you can’t define it precisely enough to get a decent hit when Googling. Then in conversation with a mate in the pub (translation: friend in a bar), he says, “What you want is a widget-handler, and you can get it from Fred’s Wonderful Widgets.”

Warren Savage, of IPextreme, is hoping to move into the role of the mate … Read More → "IP Mates, IP Stars and IP Trolls"

So You Want to Be an Entrepreneur

Part 1

by Jim Turley

May 12, 2009

You’re a smart guy (or gal; forgive the pronoun). You’re a clever engineer. You design good products. Better than those dweebs in Marketing deserve, really. And what’s up with the Sales department? Don’t they understand anything about how their product – your product – actually works? Nobody understands good technology better than you do.

Are you tired of being the smartest person in the room? Are you ready to stop working with bozos and strike out on your own? Got a head full of good ideas that need to … Read More → "So You Want to Be an Entrepreneur"

So You Want to Be an Entrepreneur

Part 2

by Jim Turley

May 12, 2009

“Think different,” says the popular ad slogan. Despite the poor grammar, it’s a good lesson for engineering startups. Becoming a techno-tycoon means suspending some of your normal engineering instincts and thinking like a businessperson. That doesn’t mean you have to dumb-down; it does mean you’ll have to think differently… and about different things. In this week’s installment we’ll examine some of the thinking and rethinking that goes into creating your own startup.

Need to Cut Cost, Risk, Time?

Choose the Right FPGA Design Solution

by Kevin Morris

May 12, 2009

Many project teams move from ASICs to FPGAs to avoid high NRE costs, and to reduce the risk of re-spin and shorten time-to-market. But while FPGA technology offers these advantages, the development process itself requires equal attention. In fact, some ASIC/ASSP proponents argue that a large part of the design cost is incurred during the development phases including architectural exploration, design, and verification, thereby reducing the cost savings and time-to-market benefits of switching from ASICs to FPGAs.

For this reason, executives and project managers need to carefully consider their concept-to-PCB development approach. Is the process predictable, … Read More → "Need to Cut Cost, Risk, Time?"

Fusion Finds its Groove

Actel Sees Applications for FPGA/Analog Hybrid

by Kevin Morris

May 12, 2009

Many times, we create a new technology with the knowledge that it has tremendous potential but without a clear idea of how it will ultimately be used. Or, we create a solution to one problem only to find later that our invention was even more useful in some completely different area. We throw our new creation out to the public and are amazed when someone comes up with a far more clever way to use it than we had ever envisioned.

This may be the case with Actel’s “Fusion” family of analog-capable FPGAs. Sure, the … Read More → "Fusion Finds its Groove"

Library Science

Magma’s SiliconSmart, Now With Functional Recognition

by Bryon Moyer

May 5, 2009

ICs are made primarily with transistors, adorned here and there with the odd resistor or capacitor. The intentional ones, that is. Yes, the parasitics are everywhere. And we’re excepting DRAMs here. Their capacitors are odd, but in the bizarre sense, not in the rare sense.

And yet most IC designers never touch a transistor. Particularly digital designers. For them, transistors are buried deep below layers of abstraction, hidden safely inside the library, where all is dark and mysterious. Transistors can be summoned by describing behaviors in, say, C, from which they can be morphed into … Read More → "Library Science"

Clash of the Tiny Titans

by Jim Turley

May 5, 2009

For those of you old enough to remember, “Let’s get small” was a line that got big laughs. Nowadays it’s a serious business plan. Small, light, and power-efficient chips are all the rage. Especially the power-efficient part. Hypermiling hybrid owners have nothing on today’s microprocessor designers, who are wringing every last erg out of every last joule. How’s that for nerd appeal?

Today’s case in point is Microchip’s new NanoWatt XLP microcontrollers. The “NanoWatt XLP” part is just Microchip’s … Read More → "Clash of the Tiny Titans"

The Presence of Giants

2009 Inventors Hall of Fame Induction Tells a Story

by Kevin Morris

May 5, 2009

American Football has the Super Bowl – but that just honors the best team for a single year. Baseball – the “world” series – but that only covers one country. The Academy Awards – outstanding achievements in motion pictures worldwide, still just for a single year. The Olympics honor the best of the best in a number of activities once every four years. The America’s Cup – up for grabs about every three* (*subject to legal review.) We, however, were gathered for something much bigger than all those put together, and it was all in celebration of achievement in engineering.

Does Noise Analysis Accuracy Really Matter?

by Bryon Moyer

April 28, 2009

There have been a lot of new faces springing up in the timing and signal integrity (SI) analysis market over the past few years, and the trend appears to point toward products that deliver quick and reasonably good timing signoff, with some signal integrity analysis tacked on as an afterthought. This prompted us to ask: Just how important is noise analysis accuracy and quality?

To answer this question, we first looked back at the history of noise analysis and how it evolved from being a nice-to-have security blanket to an integral … Read More → "Does Noise Analysis Accuracy Really Matter?"

More Than A Zen Thing

A Look at Functional Qualification

by Bryon Moyer

April 28, 2009

If a bug exists in a design and nobody notices, it is still a bug?

This question is more than just a play on the more familiar sylvan conundrum. And its answer is actually more nuanced than you might think. It transcends what would appear to be a simplistic peaceful Zen interlude to an otherwise hectic design schedule. Its subtlety keys off of what is meant by the word “notices.”

There are two ways in which a bug could be noticed. The one that matters, the most important one, the one … Read More → "More Than A Zen Thing"