Chip side of the Open Interconnect Consortium

Chip side of the Open Interconnect Consortium
by Don Dingee on 07-09-2014 at 9:00 pm

Maybe it’s my competitive analysis gene, or too many years spent hanging out with consortium types, but I’m always both curious and skeptical when a new consortium arises – especially in a crowded field of interest. The dynamics of who aligns with a new initiative, and how they plan to go to market compared to other entities, prompts… Read More


Atmel and the Arduino Zero

Atmel and the Arduino Zero
by Paul McLellan on 05-15-2014 at 7:00 am

As I wrote about last month, this weekend is the Maker Faire in San Mateo. If you are interested in the cutting edge of what people are getting up to outside of the corporate world, this is the place to go. You will see stuff that you will not hear about for a year or two when it finally goes mainstream.

Increasingly, there is a lot of electronics… Read More


You didn’t say it has to work

You didn’t say it has to work
by Don Dingee on 04-22-2014 at 8:00 pm

“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


Galileo, not a barber, but an Intel maker module

Galileo, not a barber, but an Intel maker module
by Don Dingee on 03-13-2014 at 3:00 pm

Words often have much deeper meaning than first meets the ear. The story behind a lyric, or a name, reveals origins, philosophical themes, and ideas beyond the obvious. A new effort from Intel conjures up just such an example – a deep reference to makers everywhere.

In a familiar refrain from Queen “Bohemian Rhapsody,” we hear two… Read More


IoT begets silicon, interoperability, and standards

IoT begets silicon, interoperability, and standards
by Don Dingee on 11-19-2013 at 5:00 pm

The Internet of Things is on every technology mind these days, but what does it mean for the EDA community? Dennis Brophy of Mentor Graphics says the billions of things we are hearing about will not happen unless we find a way to build a lot more things, efficient things, and connected things. He has more thoughts in our recent interview.… Read More


A random walk down OS-VVM

A random walk down OS-VVM
by Don Dingee on 05-13-2013 at 11:14 am

Unlike one prevailing theory of financial markets, digital designs definitely don’t function or evolve randomly. But many engineers have bought into the theory that designs can be completely tested randomly. Certainly there is value to randomness, exercising all combinations of inputs, including unexpected ones a designer… Read More


When installing a sink, it’s a lot faster to buy a saw

When installing a sink, it’s a lot faster to buy a saw
by Don Dingee on 04-25-2013 at 8:10 pm

Mentor’s announcement from Design West this week pretty much signals the end of standalone ESL tools, in favor of more useful stuff. They have pulled the pieces of their Sourcery CodeBench environment along with their embedded Linux offering and their Vista virtual prototyping platform into a native embedded software development… Read More


Yes, there is such a thing as a free…model

Yes, there is such a thing as a free…model
by Paul McLellan on 02-09-2012 at 8:18 pm

I have been saying for years, ever since I started working at VaST, the biggest barrier to adoption of virtual platform technology for what I like to call virtualized software development is the availability of models. If models do not already exist when they are needed there are two issues: it takes money to develop them but, probably… Read More