It’s time to break with conventional thinking. For decades, the measure of success for semiconductors has been OEM design wins. Most consumers haven’t known, or cared, about what is inside their electronic gadgets, as long as they work. That may be about to change, because a new intermediary is finding its voice – and being… Read More




Workshop: Embedded Applications and Kernels
Design Automation Conference Workshop on Suite of Embedded Applications and Kernels
In June, the first Suite of Embedded Applications and Kernels, or SEAK, workshop at the 2014 Design Automation Conference in San Francisco introduced a new Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency program in the area of embedded system benchmarking… Read More
A Brief History of QuickLogic
Quicklogic was founded in 1988 as a fables semiconductor company supplying anti-fuse devices. In fact VLSI Technology, where I was working at the time, was their foundry.
Although today anti-fuse is often used as a generic word for one-time-programmability, the origins of the name are grounded in reality. In a fuse, like the things… Read More
SpyGlass CDC: A Comprehensive solution for addressing CDC issues
About a decade ago, semiconductor designs had just a few asynchronous clocks which were easily managed by designers through the process of manual design reviews. The situation today is completely different. An SoC can have hundreds of asynchronous clocks, driving different complex functions, spread across various IPs, supplied… Read More
Embedded Vision Summit: the How-to and the How-to
When I realized I had the opportunity to attend the Embedded Vision Summit (EVS) if I would change a return flight to a day earlier, I didn’t hesitate. Thankfully I was able to change my flight without any nuisance fee from the airline, and attended EVS.
There were two “How-to’s” at this Summit:
- The algorithmic
What is Authentication and Why Should You Care?
Authentication means making sure that something is real, just like it sounds.In the real world, authentication has many uses. One of the most recognizable is anti-counterfeiting, which means validating the authenticity of a removable, replaceable, or consumable client. Examples include system accessories, electronic … Read More
TSMC (TSM) is Having Another SoC Year!
TSMC’s stock has more than doubled in the last five years. Coincidentally that is when I started blogging about TSMC. QCOM stock has experienced a similar doubling during this time as have other TSMC customers. The question is: What is next for TSMC? As I have mentioned before, you would be better off taking stock tips from your dog… Read More
Aldec Can Ensure Smooth System Integration
Tools, tools, tools. Designs are rapidly changing, JESD204b, Hybrid Memory cube and all other Gigabit serialization schemes are here to stay. RIP DDR. This means board level simulations with respect to firmware (FPGA) are going to be more challenging than ever. Why? you ask, especially if the board layout is simpler? True, but… Read More
Five Things You Don’t Know About MunEDA
So first the one thing that you do know. MunEDA are based in Munich which makes them German. I have to confess that until I got involved helping them a bit with some marketing stuff that that was about all I knew about them too.
So now five things that you might not know:
1. MunEDA have a much wider customer list that you know and would even… Read More
Xilinx KCU105 Evaluation board is key for your demo
I love God, my wife, kids, and FPGA boards. I know I am not alone, there are other nerds out there, don’t be shy. Friday my “Kintex® UltraScale™ FPGA KCU105 Evaluation Kit” came in. Think about this, this is real 20nm Xilinx FPGA hardware that really works. Below is a nice picture of all the swizzles the board has.
I believe this is the … Read More
Weebit Nano Moves into the Mainstream with Customer Adoption