Maybe I’ve spent too many years whiffing solder flux fumes and absorbing doses of X-band radiation in anechoic chambers, but I’m a firm believer in the axiom: “Give me enough engineers, and I can get 10 of anything to work right, once.” We have to make this … fit into this … using only this stuff … is what legends are made of.… Read More
Author: Don Dingee
Understanding QoR in FPGA synthesis
We’ve all heard this claim: “Our FPGA synthesis tool produces better quality of results (QoR).” If you’re just hoping for a tool to do that automagically, you’re probably doing it wrong. Getting better QoR depends on understanding what an FPGA synthesis tool is capable of, and how to leverage what it tells you.… Read More
What’s not quite MCU, and not quite SoC?
There has been a lot of railing lately about how we don’t have quite the right chips for the upcoming wave of wearables. Chips one would drop in a smartphone are often overkill and overpowered, burning through electrons too quickly. Chips one would use for a simple control task generally lack peripherals and performance, offsetting… Read More
I’d give my right ARM to be ambidextrous
Baseball loves a good switch hitter – from Frisch to Mantle to Rose to Murray to Jones, they are a rare and valuable commodity. AMD is calling on ambidexterity for its processors in 2015 and beyond, this week tipping plans for 20nm “Project SkyBridge” parts in either ARM or X86 with a common footprint. What remains to be seen is where… Read More
180nm still a big deal
When I was reading the recent Daniel Payne article “Designing Change Into Semiconductor Techonomics” with commentary on a recent presentation from Aart de Geus of Synopsys, one chart jumped out at me: the most popular process node for new design starts today is 180nm.
Upon mentioning that to a few of my IoT counterparts, they quickly… Read More
More “toddlers” innovating on the IoT
As the PC Era took shape, Tom Peters predicted the shift away from “where all the cars are parked”. He foresaw that large, established companies would no longer be the economic engine, or the dominant force in innovation. Smaller firms, even individuals, would rise to prominence in a new, technologically-driven economy.
That … Read More
More knowledge, less time in FPGA-based prototyping
I recently published a post on LinkedIn titled “Sometimes, you gotta throw it all out” in reference to the innovation process and getting beyond good to better. A prime example has crossed my desk: the new ProtoCompiler software for Synopsys HAPS FPGA-based prototyping systems.
Last week, I spoke with Troy Scott, product marketing… Read More
Calling all makers for new #8bitideas
The maker community and the learn-to-code movement is growing with many ideas built on small, power-efficient, easy-to-use 8-bit microcontrollers. If you want to be one of the next famous makers and maybe win some cash in the process, Atmel has a contest open until September 30, 2014 – here are tips on getting your #8bitideas in … Read More
You didn’t say it has to work
“Failure to plan is planning to fail.” If that is true – and it has been quoted verbatim or slightly modified so many times throughout modern history, there has to be some truth – why does most of the engineering community seem to detest planning so much?
Engineering planning doesn’t mean whipping out a block diagram or pseudo code,… Read More
NVM central to multi-layer trust in cloud
Pop quiz: Name one of the hottest applications for non-volatile memory – A) processor and code configuration; B) RFID tags; C) secure encryption keys; D) all the above. The answer is D, but not in the way you may be thinking; a new approach is using all these ideas at once, combined in SoC designs targeting advanced security … Read More
Will 50% of New High Performance Computing (HPC) Chip Designs be Multi-Die in 2025?