What’s in your network processor?

What’s in your network processor?
by Don Dingee on 09-19-2013 at 8:00 pm

Recently, one of those very restrained press releases – in this case, Mentor Graphics and Imagination Technologiesextending their partnership for MIPS software support– crossed my desk with about 10% of the story. The 90% of this story I want to focus on is why Mentor is putting energy into this partnership… 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


SHIELDing the Android GPU developer in C

SHIELDing the Android GPU developer in C
by Don Dingee on 02-18-2013 at 12:52 pm

Repeat after me: SoCs are paperweights if they can’t be programmed. Succeeding with a new part today means supporting a robust developer program to attract and engage as many creatives as possible. NVIDIA has teamed up with Mentor Graphics in just such an adventure. If you read just the press release, you may have missed the real … Read More


Time in a model: xtUML and concurrency

Time in a model: xtUML and concurrency
by Don Dingee on 01-27-2013 at 9:00 pm

Most embedded programming strategies involve decomposing the embedded application into chunks, which can then be executed as independent tasks. More advanced applications involve some type of data flow, and may attempt to execute operations in parallel where possible.… Read More


FD-SOI is Worth More Than Two Cores

FD-SOI is Worth More Than Two Cores
by Paul McLellan on 01-20-2013 at 10:00 pm

This is the second blog entry about an ST Ericsson white-paper on multiprocessors in mobile. The first part was here.

The first part of the white-paper basically shows that for mobile the optimal number of cores is two. It is much better to use process technology (and good EDA) to run the processor at higher frequency rather than add… Read More


Here to make my stand, with a chipset in my hand

Here to make my stand, with a chipset in my hand
by Don Dingee on 11-16-2012 at 6:13 pm

Yesterday, I clicked “like” on a LinkedIn post with the title “TI Cuts 1,700 Jobs”. Today, I read the analysis and pulled out Social Distortion’s “Still Alive” for inspiration. I’ve been through this more than once. For them it’s not like-worthy, and I feel their sting.

The part of the post I liked was the comment: “This is good for … Read More


Broadcom announces an HFC

Broadcom announces an HFC
by Paul McLellan on 04-24-2012 at 8:00 pm

For a long time Cisco had a very high end product whose official internal name during its years of development was HFR, which stood for Huge F***ing Router (the marketing department insisted it stood for ‘fast’). Eventually it got given a product number, CRS-1, but not before I’d read an article about it in the… Read More


EDPS: Parallel EDA

EDPS: Parallel EDA
by Paul McLellan on 04-08-2012 at 10:00 pm

EDPS was last Thursday and Friday in Monterey. I think that this is a conference that more people would benefit from attending. Unlike some other conferences, it is almost entirely focused around user problems rather than doing a deep dive into things of limited interest. Most of the presentations are more like survey papers and… Read More


Multicore SoC Architecture Optimization

Multicore SoC Architecture Optimization
by Eric Esteve on 02-16-2012 at 5:36 am

Once again with Synopsys and Arteris, the innovation is coming to solve an issue, faced by their potential customers: “In our research, we’ve found that almost half of project delays are caused by problems with the system architecture design and specification,” said Chris Rommel, vice president, embedded… Read More


Powering the Platforms: ARM’s 2012 Approach

Powering the Platforms: ARM’s 2012 Approach
by Don Dingee on 02-08-2012 at 4:30 pm

A client turned me on to a great new book, “The Age of the Platform” by Phil Simon. It’s about how Amazon, Apple, Facebook, and Google have radically transformed the landscape. For me, it’s not just social networking – it’s social computing, changing how things are designed.

I’m borrowing this right from Phil’s… Read More