Category Archives: System Realization

A head-to-head comparison of the ARM Cortex-M4 and –M0 processor cores by Jack Ganssle

Jack Ganssle has just published the latest edition of his Embedded Muse newsletter with a very informative, hands-on look at the ARM Cortex-M4 and –M0 processor cores in the NXP LPC4350. In particular, Jack looked at processing speed and power … Continue reading

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Friday Video: SoC in tiny 500mg backpack transforms cockroach into radio-controlled exploration vehicle

(You do not know how hard it was to write that headline.) Let’s say you need a really small exploration vehicle to check out the ruins of a natural disaster to search for survivors. Nature has been at this design … Continue reading

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Friday Video: Get the latest skinny on the IPC-2581 open interchange standard for PCB design

Dave Jones down in Australia (not Austria!) is attending the Australian Electronex show in Sydney and he’s posted a long video where representatives from the IPC Designers Council discuss the relatively new IPC-2581 standard for describing printed circuit boards and … Continue reading

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Smartphones: Where PCIe has not gone before—but will. Sooner rather than later.

Rick Merritt has just published an interesting article in EETimes: the PCI Special Interest Group (PCI SIG) expects to announce an adaptation of the ever-popular PCIe interface for mobile devices including smartphones. Merritt reports that the PCI SIG and MIPI … Continue reading

Posted in EDA360, IP, Mobile, SoC Realization, System Realization | Tagged , , , | 2 Comments

Would you like a guide to several new microcontrollers based on the ARM Cortex-M series of processor cores?

Alban Rampon has just published a guide to many new developments surrounding the ARM Cortex-M series of microcontroller cores. The guide includes a discussion of Freescale Kinetis L microcontrollers based on the ARM Cortex-M0+ core; discussions of microcontrollers based on … Continue reading

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Free Webinar on using Freescale Kinetis L series microcontrollers based on ARM Cortex-M0+ core. September 12. Hurry!

You have a little more than a day to register for the free Freescale Webinar on using the company’s Kinetis L microcontrollers based on the relatively new ARM Cortex-M0+ processor core. These are relatively new microcontrollers, just rolling out now, … Continue reading

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Great Googlie Mooglies! Kickstarter funds Arduino work-alike based on Freescale Kinetis K microcontroller (ARM Cortex-M4)

Kickstarter, a funding force of nature in the cyberscape, is funding the small-scale production of an Arduino-like development board based on a Freescale Kinetis K microcontroller (ARM Cortex-M4 processor core inside). More than 500 backers have pledged nearly $23,000 $31,000 … Continue reading

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Samsung extends Android Galaxy to a credible point-and-shoot camera

You can now add Samsung to a small-but-growing list of digital camera vendors offering Android-based point-and-shoot cameras. The first was Nikon, announcing the S800c camera last week. (See “Nikon announces Android-powered camera: the $349 Coolpix S800c”) Now Samsung has introduced … Continue reading

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3D Thursday: Intel Penwell SoC for mobile phones employs POP (package-on-package) LPDDR2 SDRAM to reduce power

Wednesday at the Hot Chips 24 conference, Rumi Zahir of Intel discussed the company’s Penwell SoC designed for cell phone handsets. The SoC is employed in the Medfield cellular handset design and it’s based on the Intel Atom x86 processor … Continue reading

Posted in 3D, EDA360, Packaging, Silicon Realization, SoC, SoC Realization, System Realization | Tagged , , , , , , , | 7 Comments

Zowie! More than 50 x86 cores on the Intel Knights Corner Manycore Coprocessor

Today at the Hot Chips 24 conference, George Chrysos discussed the Intel MIC (Many Integrated Core) architecture of the Knights Bridge chip, to be formally called the Intel Xeon Phi coprocessor. This chip runs Linux, but it’s designed to act … Continue reading

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Friday Video: Mars Curiosity Rover takes first drive, proves out drive mechanisms

The Mars Curiosity Rover took its first drive a couple of days ago. This 2-minute NASA video discusses the successful tests of forward and backward motion and turning. It also briefly discusses the telemetry that NASA scientists and engineers are … Continue reading

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Nikon announces Android-powered camera: the $349 Coolpix S800c

Nikon has just announced an Android-powered point-and-shoot camera—the $349 Coolpix S800c. It’s a 16Mpixel camera with a 10x optical zoom but the real innovation appears on the back in the form of a touch-panel LCD 0.8Mpixel OLED display that is … Continue reading

Posted in Android, ARM, Cortex-A9, EDA360, Linux, Mobile, System Realization | Tagged , , , , , , , | 2 Comments

How Skyera developed the 44Tbyte, enterprise-class Skyhawk SSD from the ground up. A System Realization story.

I rarely get to tell an in-depth System Realization story like this one. The development of the 44Tbyte, enterprise-class Skyhawk SSD starts with a clear picture of the objective—build an enterprise-class, solid-state storage server using commercial MLC (multi-level cell) NAND … Continue reading

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Friday Video: A brief history of PDAs with system-design tips through three teardowns

Once more, Australia’s Dave Jones has produces an eminently watchable and helpful video where he tears down three PDAs from 1986, 1996, and 2004: A Psion Organiser, a US Robotics Palm Pilot 5000, and an HP iPaq. Over two decades, … Continue reading

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Friday Video: A personal invitation to Memcon from Sanjay Srivastava

Want to know why you need to be at Memcon this year? Here’s Denali Software founder Sanjay Srivastava to tell you why: Now go and sign up! It’s a free ticket and includes breakfast, lunch, and some goodies—not to mention … Continue reading

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If Aladdin’s Genie lived in a Computer-on-Module, it might look like the Gumstix Overo

One of the funniest lines in the 1992 animated Disney movie “Aladdin” is when the frenetic blue Genie, voiced by the incredible Robin Williams, describes his situation: “PHENOMENAL COSMIC POWERS; Itty-bitty living space,” referring to his life in a lamp. … Continue reading

Posted in ARM, Cortex-A8, SoC, SoC Realization, System Realization, Texas instruments | Tagged , , , , , , | Leave a comment

How to program all of those SoC processor cores? Answers from Jim Ready. Free event, September 18.

While we can stamp out processors galore on an advanced-node SoC, programming those processors is another matter entirely. Yet “multicore” and “many-core” SoC designs are the in-vogue approach to processing performance. How to solve this dilemma? Get a glimpse of … Continue reading

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3D Thursday: Wide I/O and TSVs have a ripple effect on the DRAM controller. Who knew?

Currently, the JEDEC Wide I/O DRAM specification looks to be the biggest driving force behind the adoption of 3D IC assembly. The 512-bit data maw of a Wide I/O SDRAM provides high bandwidth with low power levels, both excellent arguments … Continue reading

Posted in 2.5D, 3D, DAC, EDA360, IP, Silicon Realization, SoC, SoC Realization, System Realization, TSV, Wide I/O | Tagged , , , , , | Leave a comment

Friday Video: Dave Jones, That Crazy Aussie Bloke, tears down a Google Nexus 7 tablet. You know you have been waiting to see this

Every Tuesday, Dave Jones—aka “That Crazy Aussie Bloke” and the proprietor of EEVblog.com—tears down one or more tech items. This week, the subject of his ministrations is the new Google Nexus 7 tablet. There are many interesting system aspects of … Continue reading

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3D Thursday: Will water cooling for 3D IC assemblies ever be practical?

Last week, Brian Bailey published an interview with Professor Madhavan Swaminathan who is the Director of the Interconnect and Packaging Center (IPC) at Georgia Tech in Atlanta. The topic of the interview was cooling of 3D IC devices. It’s no … Continue reading

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3D Thursday: Magnificent Max explains 3D IC in simple terms

If you’re looking for simplified explanations of technical topics, few people write them as well as Clive “Max” Maxfield. His simplified 3-page explanation of 3D IC assembly is here. (Note: Registration needed to go past page 1, unfortunately.)

Posted in 2.5D, 3D, EDA360, Silicon Realization, SoC, SoC Realization, System Realization | Tagged , | Leave a comment

Less than two days left to sign up for free PCIe and NVMe verification training Webinar from Cadence

On June 25, Cadence and EETimes Education and Training are sponsoring a training Webinar covering verification flows for SoC designs with PCIe and/or NVMe interfaces. The Webinar will cover: Verification pitfalls of the PCIe and NVMe interface protocols Best practices … Continue reading

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Friday Video: Video teardown of analog power supply provides hints of how not to design a printed-circuit board

Dave Jones, that Crazy Aussie Bloke from eevblog.com, is back with another teardown that delivers some good pointers in printed circuit board design. This time, he tears down an analog, 5V, 30A lab power supply. Sorry, the video is 25 … Continue reading

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Android-based, open-source gaming venture OUYA raises nearly $5 million on Kickstarter (so far, 22 days left to fund)

Gamers are passionate. This time, they’re passionate enough to more than completely fund game console startup OUYA’s drive to produce in volume what it’s already prototyped: an open game console for the television. If you’re not a gamer, you might … Continue reading

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RTOS pioneer Jim Ready discusses the intersection between embedded design and EDA

Richard Goering has just published a pretty interesting interview with Jim Ready—one of the industry’s true embedded RTOS pioneers—in his Industry Insights blog. Ready developed VRTX in the early 1980s and his MontaVista team commercialized a version of embedded Linux … Continue reading

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