Designing for the Long Haul
Considering EDA Tool Longevity
There is a story in the American South about two “country boys” who walk into a lumber yard and ask to buy some wood. The lumber yard attendant asks what size they want. They look confused. He gives them some choices “two-by-fours, two-by-sixes, four-by-fours...”
They step aside for a minute to confer with each other. “We’ll take two-by-fours.”
The lumber yard attendant takes them to the aisle with the two-by-fours. “How long do you need them?”
Digital to Analog and Back Again
This week’s Fish Fry is all about those persistent pesky power problems that plague our designs and what we can do to solve them. If you’re a digital guy or gal struggling to get into the analog game, or even if you’re an analog person trying your hand at digital design, this Fish Fry is for you. First, I interview Steve Logan (Xilinx) about how Xilinx has added analog ADCs to their recent development kits and how you can start designing with one. I also chat with Rob Chiacchia (Linear Technology) about the state of the art in digital power management.
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.
The Perils of Performance
Mentor HyperLynx Helps Handle the Hot Spots
Is it just me, or is digital design getting a lot trickier? We were all going along just fine, flipping our little zeroes and ones happily back and forth, and then somebody comes up with the brilliant idea to replace our nice, simple parallel busses with serial IO. OK, so maybe those parallel busses were not quite so simple by that time; it was starting to be nearly impossible to do the board layout so that all those signals arrived at somewhat the same time. To make matters worse, we kept raising the clock frequencies until “somewhat the same time” wasn’t even close to good enough anymore.
All the Signal Integrity You Can Shake A Stick At
Fish Fry Takes On DesignCon
Eye diagrams, Bert Scopes and more SerDes than anyone knows what to do with...what could it be? DesignCon of course. In this week’s Fish Fry, I look into to why DesignCon was so popular this year and why signal integrity issues were the un-offcial theme of the show. I also interview Brad Griffin of Cadence about why we need power distribution analysis and why he thinks DesignCon is the best show of the year.
The Valley of FPGA
Where Green Pastures End
Just about every electronic technology on the market today has alternatives. Between custom chips, ASSPs, pre-built modules, embedded processors, microcontrollers, FPGAs, and a host of other silicon-based goodies, there are always numerous ways to solve any given problem. As engineers, we make our choice based on any number of criteria - cost, power, size, reliability, our familiarity and experience with the technology, our company’s preferences... all of them weigh into our decision.
There Goes the Neighborhood
Zuken Redesigns their Board Tools from Scratch
Anyone who’s ever done any serious remodeling of their home knows the big decision. At some point, wouldn’t it really be easier just to mow down the existing structure and start over?
Little by little, as you add new ideas – “while you guys are at it” – the costs mount, and that’s even without considering the surprises that are inevitably encountered. And if you go from a two-dimensional home – one story – and add a third dimension, it gets crazier. Most single-story homes aren’t built strong enough to support a second story. So you end up doing things like building a separate support framework to hold up the new top floor or, even more crazily, hoisting the original house up to make it the top floor and then building a new first floor under it. (Yes, people do this.)
Hi-Tech Spark Arrestor
Hoover Dam is pretty damn impressive. Why, some might simply say it’s a pretty dam.
As you take the tour, much is said about its size, the effort to build it, the clever techniques used to cool the concrete, and, if you’re lucky, the volume of water rumbling through the penstocks inches below the ominously vibrating surface you’re standing on.
(un)Rolling with the Times
A HW engineer and an embedded SW developer, who are slated to work together on a common project, strike up a conversation at the proverbial water cooler.
SW guy (nonchalantly): “Really? I wouldn’t know much about evaluations, I build my own toolchain.”
Methods of Estimating Component Temperatures
Part 3 – Board Temperature
In electronics systems, the board temperature adjacent to the component often is known or controlled as a part of the system design. This means that by measuring the board temperature during operation, you can estimate the component’s junction temperature. You can use the thermal parameter Psi-JB (ΨJB) for this purpose since it is unique to a particular device, and is generally provided by the component manufacturer. This Part 3 in this three-part series details the proper method to determine the component junction temperature by measuring the board temperature. By carefully addressing component temperature, you can ensure operation within the thermal limits of the component.
Methods of Estimating Component Temperatures
Part 2 – Case Temperature
In electronics systems, the case temperature (sometimes referred to as top temperature) of a component often is easy to measure. Fortunately, the component case temperature is very close, both physically and thermally, to the component junction temperature. This means that you can estimate the component’s junction temperature by measuring it’s case temperature during operation. You can use the thermal parameter Psi-JT (ΨJT) for this purpose since it is unique for a particular component under typical use conditions, and is generally provided by the component manufacturer. This article details the proper method to determine the component junction temperature by measuring the case temperature. By carefully addressing component temperature, you can ensure operation within the thermal limits of the component.
Methods of Estimating Component Temperatures
Part 1
It is well known that IC components heat up during operation as they dissipate power while doing their analog and digital magic. But how can the user determine if a component (semiconductor device) is too hot? Many engineers have seen videos on this or may even have personal lab experience with overloaded components which start to smoke or melt. What is not commonly known, however, is that well below this temperature the component function or reliability starts to degrade. How can you be certain that each component in an electronic system is within its safe operating range?
Creating a Virtual Factory
Averna’s Proligent Keeps Tabs and Makes Changes Where Needed
We in the semiconductor world live in a relatively self-contained environment. Processing is highly specialized, equipment is expensive and not really usable for anything else, and risks are high if something goes wrong.
So we tend to get a little, oh, inbred, with a few companies providing the variety of tools and services in a small-town supply chain.
Leading Lattice
Billerbeck Steers a Fresh Course
Darin Billerbeck looks out of place and restless in the dark, heavy, ostentatious ambiance of Lattice Semiconductor’s boardroom. Like a well-trained athlete donning his grandfather’s hat and cane, his energy bursts through the seams - fighting with the oppressive atmosphere that echoes the values of his predecessors. Lattice was once a house of hierarchy - a top-down, micro-managed, dictatorship where blame flowed downward and credit upward.
Today, the baroque trappings of the company’s tumultuous past are being cleared to make way for a cleaner, more welcoming future. Pieces of art that adorned the hallways as silent reminders to the passers-by that they were in the presence of power far greater than their own are being sold off - and ping-pong tables and discussion lounges are appearing in their place. Lattice is undergoing a cultural transformation of epic proportions, and evidence is everywhere you look.
Packing Them In
A Look at High-Density PC – er – PWBs and Persecution of Solder
The world of PC boards – or, as they seem to be more widely called in the official literature, “printed wiring boards” or PWBs – has been a conservative one. For the most part, things are still done today like they were a few decades ago. Sure, dimensions have gone down, and we can do many, many more layers, and we can put passives on the back side, but, except for the bleeding edge, we pretty much do things the old-fashioned way: etch metal off of a board made out of some kind of resinous material, glue several of those together if needed, poke parts through the holes or stick them onto pads, and run the whole thing through a wave-soldering line. Some wires (particularly, white ones) may even be soldered by hand.