Engineer to Engineer, Embedded Instrumentation

Last month the folks at Tektronix did something very useful, they invited 30 engineers to talk directly with their chief engineer of embedded instrumentation as part of “Meet the Experts” in Santa Clara, CA.

Brad Quinton, Chief Architect created a new and efficient approach of embedding instrumentation in your ASIC design when doing an FPGA prototype. His start-up company was called Veridae and they were acquired by Tektronix in 2011.

Don Dingee and I have been blogging about this new technology for a few months now:

• Apply within: four embedded instrumentation approaches
• ASIC Prototyping: Dini Group and Tektronix
• Embedding 100K probes in FPGA-based prototypes
• Improving FPGA Prototype Debugging

Most EDA companies today will buffer their development team from the actual end-users in hopes that the marketing folks can keep everyone happy and productive. Only the start-up companies allow their developers to directly meet and interact with the engineers that could use the technology, and the rewards are great:

• Deeper understanding of what the technology can and cannot do.
• Tips on how to best use the software.
• Frank discussion on the philosophy behind the software and the approach used.
• Confidence in the expertise level of the developer.

At the December 11th event there were engineers from several companies leanring about Tek’s new software called Certus 2.0:

• Infinera
• Cisco
• Avago
• Qualcomm
• LumaSense Technologies
• Simutest
• Broadcom
• Sandisk
• A popular microprocessor company
• Marvell
• MicroSemi
• Apple

If you’d be interested in attending the next “Meet the Experts” then leave a comment below and I’ll let you know when and where it will be held.