Compressing OpenGL ES textures

Compressing OpenGL ES textures
by Don Dingee on 08-14-2013 at 6:00 pm

The 80s called, and they want lazy programming back. Remember “Mr. Mom”? Michael Keaton is talking about rewiring the house, and Martin Mull asks if he’s going to use all 220V, and Keaton responds “Yeah, 220, 221, whatever it takes.” Not knowing what’s inside can make you look silly.

Such is the case with OpenGL ES. Taking a look at … Read More


How many consortia does POWER need to succeed?

How many consortia does POWER need to succeed?
by Don Dingee on 08-06-2013 at 1:02 pm

Sometimes press releases just make me scratch my head. Today’s example comes from IBM: after tying PowerPC and Power.org in knots for almost 20 years with rules and restrictive licensing, IBM breaks ranks and sets up ANOTHER consortium with different players.… Read More


Scan the horizon, P1687 takes us higher

Scan the horizon, P1687 takes us higher
by Don Dingee on 07-31-2013 at 6:00 pm

The tech standards cycle almost always goes like this: Problems or limits develop with the existing way of doing things. Innovators attempt to engineer solutions, usually many of them. Chaos ensues when customers figure out nothing new works with anything else. Competitors sit down and agree on a specification where things work… Read More


Constrain all you want, we’ll solve more

Constrain all you want, we’ll solve more
by Don Dingee on 07-24-2013 at 8:30 pm

EDA tool development is always pushing the boundaries, driven in part by bigger, faster chips and more complex IP. For several years now, the trend has been developing tools that spot problems faster without waiting for the “big bang” synthesis result that takes hours and hours. Vendors, with help from customers, are tuning tools… Read More


The fixed and the finite: QoR in FPGAs

The fixed and the finite: QoR in FPGAs
by Don Dingee on 07-22-2013 at 1:00 pm

There is an intriguingly amorphous term in FPGA design circles lately: Quality of Results, or QoR. Fitting a design in an FPGA is just the start – is a design optimal in real estate, throughput, power consumption, and IP reuse? Paradoxically, as FPGAs get bigger and take on bigger signal processing problems, QoR has become a larger… Read More


Workload-tuned cores seeing greater interest

Workload-tuned cores seeing greater interest
by Don Dingee on 06-30-2013 at 10:00 pm

Is it possible to design a processor with very high performance and low power consumption? To answer that, embedded illuminati are now focusing on designs tuned to specific workloads – creating a tailored processor that does a few things very efficiently, with nothing extra.… Read More


So, where are all the EMBEDDED guys?

So, where are all the EMBEDDED guys?
by Don Dingee on 06-12-2013 at 8:15 pm

Roaming the aisles at #50DAC the past week left me with one unmistakable impression: there were two shows going on at the same time. Oh, we were all packed into one space together at the Austin Convention Center and neighboring hotels. But we weren’t quite all speaking the same language – yet.… Read More


10 years, 100,000 miles, or <1 DPM

10 years, 100,000 miles, or <1 DPM
by Don Dingee on 05-30-2013 at 10:00 pm

Auto makers have historically been accused of things like planned obsolescence – redesigning parts to make repairs painfully or even prohibitively expensive – and the “warranty time-bomb”, where major systems seem to fail about a week after the warranty expires. Optimists would chalk both those up to relentless innovation,… Read More


You can tune a piano, but you can’t tune a cache without help

You can tune a piano, but you can’t tune a cache without help
by Don Dingee on 05-30-2013 at 8:30 pm

Once upon a time, designing a product with a first generation SoC on board, we were trying to use two different I/O peripherals simultaneously. Seemed simple enough, but things just flat out didn’t work. After days spent on RTFM (re-reading the fine manual), we found ourselves at the absolute last resort: ask our FAE.

After about… Read More


The never-ending quest to kill metastability

The never-ending quest to kill metastability
by Don Dingee on 05-28-2013 at 4:00 pm

The difficulty of an engineering problem can be gauged by two things:
1) The number of attempts to generate a solution.
2) The degree of hyperbole used to describe the effectiveness of the latest solution.

The problem many folks in the EDA industry are after right now is clock domain crossings (CDCs) and the resulting metastability… Read More