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Digital Design: Hands Up, Anyone Believe That Toyota's Problems Are All Physical?

PeteMc

In the past number of weeks/months we have all seen how Toyota has struggled to manage perception around their "sudden acceleration" problems. The first fix that was proposed was a replacement of the floor mats, under the argument that the mats had been forcing the gas pedal down. Quickly following this first "solution", Toyota announced that they were issuing a recall to fix the mechanics of the gas pedal, adding…
- 26 Apr 2010
Verification: Ubuntu on ARM is Growing

jasona

Based on the title, you probably guessed I'm talking about growing in popularity. Yes, Ubuntu on ARM is growing in popularity, but here I'm referring to growing in size.About a month ago I talked to a very sharp engineer from Canonical, the m...
- 23 Apr 2010
System, PCB, & Package Design : Who’s up for Chinese?

Team OrCAD

Recently, someone asked me "...why bother translating OrCAD products to Chinese? Everyone speaks English anyway..." In a great many cases, that's probably a true statement. But if you're a Chinese engineer, what a pain it must be working with schematic and simulation tools and having to do the mental-math all day long while trying to get your job done. I did agree, though, if you've been in the industry…
- 23 Apr 2010
SoC and IP: What is a Flash cache?

archive

A Flash cache acts like SRAM memory caches that are designed to speed up DRAM access times; Flash caches speed access to HDDs in an analogous manner. Data is drawn from HDDs as needed and the retrieved data is cached in NAND Flash. The next time this data is needed, it’s drawn directly from the cache instead of the slower HDD. Flash caches do not require as much NAND Flash memory as SSDs, and therefore cost less, but…
- 23 Apr 2010
SoC and IP: Free DAC Tix -- Better hurry ‘cause they’re going fast

archive

Love DAC? Design chips? Looking for a job? Today’s your lucky day. Denali, Atrenta, and SpringSoft want you to be able to attend DAC in Anaheim (We’re going to Disneyland!) so much that they’re willing to spring for a free exhibit pass for you. All you need to do is get your carcass down to the Anaheim convention center for the event. The exhibits are open June 14-16. The rules are simple:

1. The recipient must be…
- 23 Apr 2010
SoC and IP: Numonyx 128-Mbit serial- and parallel-I/O PCM non-volatile memories now available in volume

archive

Numonyx has announced or reannounced two 128-Mbit non-volatilve memory devices based on the company’s 90nm PCM (phase change memory) process technology. These two devices target existing NOR Flash memory sockets and the company’s press release claims that both products are available now in production quantities. The two announced PCM memory devices are the Omneo P8P PCM parallel-I/O memory and the Omneo P5Q PCM serial…
- 22 Apr 2010
System, PCB, & Package Design : What's Good About Simplifying the Use of Third-Party SI Models? It's in SPB16.3!

Jerry GenPart

Today, many users receive SI models that are not in DML format. They are given IBIS models, HSpice models, Spectre models as well as other generic SPICE models. We currently provide methods for translating these model formats into DML, but it's often not straightforward. It usually requires running a batch command with options that are not familiar to the non-expert user.

This translation process has been simplified…
- 21 Apr 2010
Verification: UVM Based on OVM 2.1.1: What a Great Idea!

tomacadence

Regular readers know that I have been urging the Accellera VIP TSC to base its Universal Verification Methodology (UVM) on the OVM 2.1 release rather than on OVM 2.0.3 as voted back in December. A few readers took me to task for my shameless advocacy, suggesting that I shut up and "let the committee do its job" in a technical world unsullied by Marketing considerations. In response, I argued that successful standards…
- 21 Apr 2010
Verification: When Less Is More, Part 3: Is e code really “infinitely” more compact than SystemVerilog?

teamspecman

Building on the packet generation example of part 1, and the coverage examples of part 2 that compare the ratio of lines e code to lines of SystemVerilog for a given task, in this post I’m going to show you how to “divide by 0” and leverage e capabilities that simply don’t exist in SystemVerilog, technically making e infinitely more capable (pardon the pun – couldn’t resist).
From the beginning, the e language was designed…
- 21 Apr 2010
SoC and IP: Intel’s Atom-based Tunnel Creek SOC with integrated PCIe interface opens new era for embedded developers

Denali Blog

One of the most ignored Intel announcements of recent memory must be Doug Davis’ early disclosure at IDF (China) on April 14 (see the hour-long keynote video here) of the company’s new Atom-based Tunnel Creek, an SOC specifically designed for embedded applications. Intel’s Atom processor, a relatively low-powered implementation of the “Intel Architecture,” has been taking the low-end notebook and netbook world by storm…
- 19 Apr 2010
SoC and IP: Network World SSD Smackdown shows Fusionio’s PCIe-based SSD provides highest throughput

archive

Network World has just posted an SSD comparison test written by Logan G. Harbaugh. The test pitted some consumer-class SSDs against enterprise-class SSDs and with an Adaptec ASR5805/512 SSD controller and MaxIQ kit, which uses an attached SSD to accelerate attached drives arrays via flash caching. Overall, Harbaugh found that the SSDs improved system performance by a factor of 2 to 10 depending on the product.

The…
- 19 Apr 2010
SoC and IP: Firmware as the performance differentiator for SSD controllers

archive

Anandtech has just posted a meaty article about SandForce SSD controllers as used in SSDs from OCZ and Corsair. (Understanding SandForce's SF-1200 & SF-1500, Not All Drives are Equal) It’s worth a read from at least two perspectives. First, it gives you some pretty deep insight into the real importance and value of the firmware running on these SSD controllers. As the Anandtech article discusses, controller firmware…
- 16 Apr 2010
Digital Design: EDP Symposium Uncovers an Inconvenient Truth with a Shot of 3D

RahulD

Every April the leading edge of the leading edge of semiconductor industry meet at the Electronic Design Process (EDP) Symposium to address design problems that make design more difficult than it should be. This was my first visit and chance to rub shoulders with the industry's gurus and to discuss the arc and future of EDA tools and the EDA industry.
The nice thing about the EDP symposium (often referred…
- 16 Apr 2010
SoC and IP: Comprehensive SSD eval puts four drives to the test

archive

Geoff Gasior at The Tech Report has just published a long and very comprehensive side-by-side comparison of four SSDs from Corsair, Kingston, Plextor, and Western Digital. He’s pulled the covers off the drives to look at the guts (and he names names of the on-board controller chips in the process) and Gasior then tests each drive in turn to come up with some really interesting comparisons. If you’re interested in how…
- 15 Apr 2010
SoC and IP: Micron using ONFI 2.1 and SATA 3.0 to leapfrog Enterprise SSDs over HDD performance

archive

PCWorld reports that Micron will soon be rolling out Enterprise-class SSDs based on 34nm, ONFI 2.1, SLC (single-level cell) NAND Flash devices. These drives will employ the 6-Gbit/sec SATA 3.0 interface specification to create an I/O channel with enough bandwidth to support the faster Flash. Doing so makes the soon-to-be-introduced RealSSD P300 SSDs more than competitive with 10,000- and 15,000-rpm Enterprise-class HDDs…
- 15 Apr 2010
System, PCB, & Package Design : What's Good About Allegro PCB Editor Groups? Look to SPB16.3 and See!

Jerry GenPart

With the Allegro PCB Editor SPB16.3 release, you can now allow groups to have elements added or removed.

The construction and disbandment of groups is now supported in both the General and Placement application modes. Groups are easily created in the working canvas by first pre-selecting multiple elements followed by the selection of the "Add to Group" command located in the context sensitive right mouse button "Add to…
- 14 Apr 2010
Verification: Specman-SimVision webinar on April 22 (next week!)

teamspecman

We interrupt Corey's excellent "When Less Is More" series to announce a Specman-SimVision webinar next week, April 22 at 10:00AM Pacific time. In short, if you’ve been using Specview with Specman/e and would like to learn all the key advantages of using the SimVision debug tool, this webinar is for you!
Date: April 22nd, 2010
Time: 10:00am PDT / 1:00pm EDT
Duration: 60 minutes
Sign Up Today! http://www…
- 13 Apr 2010
SoC and IP: Eurocom’s D900F Panther Notebook with 6-core Intel i7-980X processor: the shape of things to come for memory consumption

archive

With all the talk of DRAM growth in 2010, you might wonder what’s driving the consumption. It’s a very logical question. Sometimes, growth is simply driven by existing market momentum. Sometimes, it’s driven by a new product category such as Apple’s iPad, discussed earlier. And sometimes, there are disruptive changes in existing markets that also drive new waves of consumption. This blog entry is about one of those changes…
- 13 Apr 2010
SoC and IP: More signs of spring for the 2010 DRAM market

archive

Earlier, we reported on the appearance of several good economic signs springing up for the DRAM market. Here are a few more:

Late last month, EDN’s Ann Steffora Mutschler reported on Semico’s 1Q 2010 forecast calling for greater than 70% growth in DRAM sales this year. That’s on the heels of Q3 and Q4 2009 DRAM growth rates reported at 33% and 44% respectively (although it’s after a huge drop in 2008). Semico concludes…
- 13 Apr 2010
Verification: Hate Writing Assertions? No problem: let Automatic Formal Analysis do the work

TeamVerify

OR: “Leverage automatic checks extracted from designs without writing a single assertion”

What if a push button solution existed that ran a set of assertion checks on a design but did not require a single assertion to be written? Would you use it? Of course you would. However, many people believe that in order to benefit from Incisive Formal Verifier (IFV) or Incisive Enterprise Verifier (IEV) you need to know…
- 12 Apr 2010
Verification: New Blog: All About Integrated formal, Simulation, and Assertion-Based Verification Technologies & Methodologies

TeamVerify
End-users of Incisive Formal Verifier ("IFV"), Incisive Enterprise Verifier ("IEV"), or anyone interested in either "pure formal" verification, integrated formal analysis and simulation verification, and assertion-based verification (“ABV”) in general: have we got the blog for you!
Today "Team Verify" is proud to roll out this new blog covering:
Detailed tips, tricks, and power tools…
- 11 Apr 2010
SoC and IP: Apple iPad: no LPDDR2?

Denali Blog

Guest Blogger: Marc Greenberg, Technical Marketing Director

By now it seems that anyone with an engineering degree has probably read 2 or 3 teardown reports on Apple’s iPad. Few that I have seen so far talk about the DRAM memory subsystem -- and that could be because the DRAM was hidden on top of Apple’s A4 processor.

Chipworks.com has torn down Apple’s A4 processor package and reports that the DRAM subsystem consists…
- 9 Apr 2010
SoC and IP: Good times for DDR2 and DDR3 DRAM: Think Memcon 2010

archive

Several more bits of good DRAM news today appearing in DigiTimes and elsewhere point to the improving market for DRAMs. First, Scott Chen, vice president of the APAC Business Division of DRAM module maker Kingston Technology says that he sees signs of strong demand for DRAMs throughout this year. One of the reasons for this rosy outlook is the memory demand created by Microsoft Windows 7 purchases and upgrades. The incremental…
- 8 Apr 2010
System, PCB, & Package Design : What's Good About Windows 7? You'll Need SPB16.3 To See!

Jerry GenPart

OK, OK - I'm sure you don't "need" SPB16.3 to see all the cool whiz-bang features in Windows 7. But, you can now run the SPB16.3 (and very soon the ADW16.3) release on Windows 7.

You can always visit the Cadence Online Support Cadence Support News area for the latest information about releases, platforms, CDNLive information, etc. The official Windows 7 announcement for the SPB16.3 release can be found…
- 7 Apr 2010
SoC and IP: OCZ Technology unleashes 4th-generation PCIe-based SSD: 512Gbytes to 2Tbytes

archive

Yesterday, high-performance PC component developer and vendor OCZ Technology rolled out its 4th generation of PCIe-based SSD drives called the Z-drive R2 SSD. The new drives employ NAND Flash memory DIMMS arrayed on a standard PCIe-format add-in card. The cards employ x8 (8-lane) PCIe interfaces to achieve a rated read speed of as much as 1.3Gbytes/sec for the 512Gbyte SSD board and 1.4Gbytes/sec for the 1Gbyte and 2Gbyte…
- 7 Apr 2010

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