Articles – Page 559

May 30, 2006

Everyone knows the ECO. It is a classic case of an acronym acting as a euphemism. Reducing a problematic situation to an established process represented by a simple trio of letters diverts attention from the underlying blunder. “Have Susan process Charlie’s ECO before we bring up that final prototype” sounds much, much more palatable than “Thanks to Charlie’s monumental screwup, Susan will have to attach a big red jumper wire that will now gleam like a beacon of stupidity from the back of the board on every one of our first million units.”

Getting the Kit

Celoxica Highlights Trend with RC340 for Digital Video

by Kevin Morris

May 30, 2006

The kit was a pre-packaged pathway to success. With the kit, you could shave off months to years of ramp-up learning, multiple purchases to get the right compatible tools and materials, and tons of research to learn exactly the right process that would yield acceptable results. The kit had everything you needed except a dollop of creativity. Crack open the package and you could be up and whatever-ing like a near-pro in no time flat.

Today, if Megan wanted to develop a high-throughput embedded video application like HDTV infrastructure, robotic vision, or video compression, her folks would … Read More → "Getting the Kit"

Altera’s Quartus II 6.0

Tools Turn up the Heat

by Kevin Morris

May 23, 2006

The FPGA market is a multi-faceted battlefield. Particularly between the largest two suppliers, everything is a race. There is a race to reach a new process node first, a race for the largest device, a race for the highest frequency, and a race for the lowest-cost parts. Silicon-based bragging rights aren’t enough to keep the conflict interesting, however. Both Altera and Xilinx, the two market-dominant FPGA suppliers, invest huge amounts of resources in the development of tools and IP to complement their device offerings.

While not as visible as the war of the … Read More → "Altera’s Quartus II 6.0"

Capitalizing on Connectivity

Wind River Management Suite

by Kevin Morris

May 23, 2006

With device connectivity becoming the rule rather than the exception (practically any electronic device more complex than a flashlight today has some connectivity path to just about every other device on the planet), it makes sense that, like with our desktop computing systems, embedded systems must change to take advantage of that connectivity in both their development and deployment in order to remain competitive. For many engineering teams, the logistics of developing a system that can avail itself of the benefits of a connected-device world are overwhelming, and competitive advantages are left on the table with a nod toward … Read More → "Capitalizing on Connectivity"

On the Cutting-Edge of FPGA Design and Verification

by Kevin Morris

May 16, 2006

As advanced FPGAs have grown to ASIC proportions in terms of size and complexity, their design and verification have become correspondingly more difficult. This has driven the need for greater expertise in the design and verification of FPGAs. However, many companies, large and small, lack either the resources or the expertise for these demanding designs, so they turn to engineering service firms like A2e Technologies.

Typically projects reach us at a point in the design schedule where schedules are tight and time is of the essence. We need to get up … Read More → "On the Cutting-Edge of FPGA Design and Verification"

Virtex-5 is Alive

The High End Gets Higher

by Kevin Morris

May 16, 2006

Innovation is a hot topic these days. We ourselves have billed innovation as “the fuel that powers technological progress” in our industry. You’d think, with the industry’s first 65nm FPGA family rolling into production, we’d be saluting another salvo of innovation and inspiration from the world’s largest FPGA company. We are, of course, but even more than that, we’re chronicling the execution of an equally important factor in high-tech success – learning. In their introduction of V5, Xilinx has shown us all that they’re a company that learns – learns from their successes, … Read More → "Virtex-5 is Alive"

Microsoft Rolls Out CE 6

Baby Windows Grows Up

by Kevin Morris

May 16, 2006

Well, it’s been ten years and five versions since then, and baby Windows has busted out of the car seat, learned to walk and talk, and is now kickin’ some serious butt in school. At the MEDC (Microsoft Embedded Developer’s Conference) last week, Microsoft announced the beta version 6 of CE. Over the course of the decade, the demands on embedded RTOS for mobile devices has exploded with wireless connectivity, more complex applications, data-intensive functions such as image, audio, and video, and more client-server type services.

The new version of CE is clearly working to keep … Read More → "Microsoft Rolls Out CE 6"

Altera Readies for 65nm

Fears Again Unfounded

by Kevin Morris

May 9, 2006

We humans like to worry. Instead of being content with just living our happy lives, walking around enjoying the sunshine, eating our food, talking to each other on our mobile phones, and designing our next-generation electronic products, we mull and fuss about whatever nemesis might come along and end our little party. Will global warming overheat our junctions? Will earthquakes and volcanoes shake us into spilling our cocktails? Will comets and meteors crash into our spinning ball of fun, bringing on another ice age? With every additional year we speculate about new spoilers that might spell the end of … Read More → "Altera Readies for 65nm"

Eclipsing all Others

Socialized Software IDE Makes it Big

by Kevin Morris

May 9, 2006

Then trouble came. Over in the desktop and enterprise development worlds, it seemed, a revolution was afoot. The dominance of the desktop development environment of Microsoft had sewn the seeds of a socialist revolution. A not-so-secret society had spawned a groundswell of collaborative development among several companies and independent software developers who wanted to create an alternative for themselves – to take control of their own development destinies. Following in the footsteps of the Linux phenomenon, Eclipse was born.

Conceived in late 2001, Eclipse arrived as the alternative to the ubiquitous Microsoft Visual Studio series. It is an … Read More → "Eclipsing all Others"

Innovation Big and Small – Chapter 2

Bucking the Trend

by Kevin Morris

May 2, 2006

The larger company, however, faces a situation where they can fall victim to the spoils of their own success. Once upon a time, they too were focused, fast-reacting, hard-driving startups. At some point, however, they probably made a major score with a successful product line that propelled them into the big leagues. With that membership card comes a bloat of baggage – support for existing product lines, protection of previously captured market territory, more employees to water and feed, reputations to protect, policies to follow, and legal hurdles to clear. The innovation balance can tip wildly away from their … Read More → "Innovation Big and Small – Chapter 2"