When Things Start to Think
Redpine’s M2M Module Eases Machine Communication
The title this week is borrowed from the book by Neil Gershenfeld, which includes one of the best descriptions of embedded systems that I’ve ever read. It’s also a good introduction to microcontrollers and embedded software for your nontechnical friends who wonder what you do for a living.
Part of what we do, of course, is to plot world domination by cybernetic organisms. I, for one, welcome our robot overlords and always do my part to hasten their ascendancy. And what good is a robot army without a good means of communication? If Napoleon’s army traveled on its stomach, surely the next one will travel on the airwaves, using wireless communications protocols to further their manifest ends.
Tabula Taps Intel
22nm Tri-Gate Process Should Bring Rewards
We all knew it was coming, but Tabula “officially” announced this week that they are producing their next yet-to-be-announced family of FPGAs on Intel’s 22nm Tri-Gate process. As one of the worst-kept secrets in the programmable logic industry, the Intel-Tabula relationship hardly comes as a surprise. The announcement was widely leaked about a year ago when Achronix formally announced a similar relationship with Intel.
What does it all mean?
Real-World Issues at 28nm
Cadence and Samsung Do Some Pipe Cleaning
Semiconductor technology just gets curiouser and curiouser as feature sizes shrink. In real life, that means that EDA tools have to work harder and harder to figure out what’s going on and help engineers implement enormously complex designs. As usual, the problem can be boiled down to things that didn't use to matter becoming a problem
Of course, at the extremely tiny level anticipated by technologies like carbon nanotubes, things change completely. But that's still research. Leading-edge designs today are still using "conventional" processing, but making a real design work isn't easy.
All You Need Is Love
(and Some Good Tools)
PCB problems got you all tangled up and blue? Never fear, all you need is love. Well, that and some good tools. This week my guest is Steve McKinney (Mentor Graphics). Steve and I are going to talk to about Mentor’s HyperLynx tool suite and why the newest features of this tool may make those pesky PCB problems a thing of the past. Also this week, check out why power and system management decisions might best be made sooner than later.
Also this week, I have another MAX V CPLD Development Kit courtesy of Altera to give away, and I introduce a brand new Nerdy Giveaway contest for DVCon, but you'll have to tune in to find out how to win.
The Three Laws of Robotics
Embedded Developers Could Learn a Lot from Asimov
In Isaac Asimov’s wonderful books, he creates the Three Laws of Robotics. (He later added a zeroth law, but we’ll skip over that for now.) You probably already know them by heart, but the first law for all robots was, “never injure a human or, through inaction, allow a human to come to harm.” It was the cybernetic equivalent of the Hippocratic Oath: “First, do no harm.”
The Second Law was, “always obey orders, unless it conflicts with the First Law.” Okay, pretty straightforward, that one.
They Want Your Brains
EDA is Not Quite Dead After All
When companies become zombies, it’s not quite as obvious as with humans. Sure, the symptoms are similar - being dead but walking around as if still alive, no capacity for rational thought, pursuit of a single-minded hunger - all while the inside is rapidly decomposing. Oh, and then there’s the smell.
The Moore’s Law apocalypse is taking place in the world of custom chip design right now, and by all rights EDA companies should be among the walking dead - mindlessly scouring the engineering countryside for leftover morsels of brains.
