Editors' Blog

A Clean, Well-Lighted Place for Models

Software is becoming an increasingly important element in SoCs as embedded systems are integrated into single chips. Such a chip must ship with working software, and, if it includes a platform that will run an OS and drivers and software written by the user, then even more testing is needed to prevent nasty surprises or let-downs.

This sort of testing starts at the architectural planning phase and continues down through the exercising of software on the detailed design. Initially, and for short bits of code, it can be done on a virtual platform – a model of … Read More → "A Clean, Well-Lighted Place for Models"

Certifying Models

by Bryon Moyer

There’s not much new about using models to start the design of a complex system. From an algorithmic standpoint, Matlab forms the basis for high-level design, and Simulink allows for the next step of modeling such a system in a more concrete fashion.

When the model is ready for detailed implementation, code can be generated for use downstream.

But, if you’re working on a piece of equipment intended for a safety-critical application, or, for whatever reason, some other usage subject to one of the many Read More → "Certifying Models"

Analysis by Braille

by Amelia Dalton

As a technology, JTAG (or IEEE 1149.1) has been leveraged a lot of ways to do a lot of things that may not have been envisioned when it was first developed. Its original mission, however, was rather simple: provide a way to test whether the board connection between two chips was intact. And, while individual components have a way of describing their internal chains via a BSDL file, according to the folks at JTAG Technologies, there is no such simple equivalent for the entire board’s chain.

So if you’re a simple repair shop without … Read More → "Analysis by Braille"

AdaCore also suports SPARK, a cr

by Jim Turley

AdaCore also suports SPARK, a cross between a development environment, a tool set and and an Ada subset, which is even more suitable for safety-critical environment than Ada.

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Ada Lovelace Day: 7 October 2011

by Jim Turley

Ada Lovelace Day: 7 October 2011

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When Greater Extinction Is a Good Thing

by Jim Turley

Earlier this year we got some comment from French research consortium Leti on the photonics research they were doing and where they saw it going.

More recently, they’ve announced that their HELIOS project was able to achieve the first-ever 40 Gb/s optical modulator having an extinction ratio (more or less like the noise margin, the power difference between a logic 0 and a logic 1 – why optical needs a different vocabulary, I don’t know…) of 10 db.

This was done on a … Read More → "When Greater Extinction Is a Good Thing"

The Countess of Lovelace Strikes Back

by Amelia Dalton

Safety and security are big concerns in the embedded-systems world these days. Problem is, few of us really know how to add “security” to our products when nobody can even tell us what that means. We’re also finding out it’s hard to patch security into an existing system. It’s easier to design it in from the outset.

That’s where Ada comes in. Ada is a programming language (some would call it a religion) that was designed to create safe, secure, and reliable embedded systems. Think military electronics, missiles, and airplanes. If you want … Read More → "The Countess of Lovelace Strikes Back"

Gerber Grows Up

by Raysalemi

There are lots of EDA data formats with long, illustrious legacies. GDS-II and Gerber are great examples. But a few years ago, a new format to replace Gerber was devised, with the less-euphonious name IPC-2581. But calling it a replacement for Gerber is sort of like calling modern video games a replacement for the old family radio of the ‘20s. There’s a lot more going on than just a one-for-one swap.

Gerber plots simply contain the PCB patterning. But the IPC-2581 format contains, in one place, much more information for the fabrication, assembly, and … Read More → "Gerber Grows Up"

iPad Leveling Off?

by Amelia Dalton

The iPad may already be hitting its midlife crisis. According to financial insiders at JP Morgan Chase, component suppliers and manufacturing partners are being told to scale back their orders for the fourth quarter of this year. If true, that would be the first time that iPad production levels have gone backward.

The cutback is hefty, too: down 25%, from a planned 17 million iPads to just 13 million units. This amid widespread accolades for the latest iGizmo and a lack of any serious competitors. If the iPad was losing ground to, say, HP, IBM, or Amazon tablets that … Read More → "iPad Leveling Off?"

A recent Intel keynote speech no

by Amelia Dalton

A recent Intel keynote speech noted that the cost of one transistor is less than the cost of the ink in the period dot at the end of a sentence.

Astounding. Semiconductor transistors are one of humankind’s most amazing inventions, yet they’re more plentiful than grains of rice.

… Read More →