Blog Post: DIY with TI: Solar powered boombox
Published. June 18, 2013

What happens when you take inspiration from an outdoor festival in the Nevada desert that focuses on self-expression and self-reliance? If you are a DIYer who works at TI, you get a solar powered waterproof boombox. “I figured if I can build a boombox that can actually run off solar that would be pretty nice. So I built the whole setup that can actually charge in the day and at night I can have a party,” said Michael Zwerg, a design team lead on MSP430™ MCUs. When Zwerg attended...

rel=author
Published. June 17, 2013

I heard in the latest Matt Cutts webmaster video that Google is trying to shift towards a non-anonymous web with the use of rel=author. However, how many people *really* use Google+?!?! I, for example, use Facebook and Twitter, but not Google+. Can *I* make use of rel=author or is it ......

All About Microsoft

Skype video messaging available, but Windows Phone support lags
Published. June 18, 2013

Skype video messaging is now generally available across a variety of mobile devices and computing platforms, but Windows Phone support is only partially there....

Electronics Engineering Video Blog Podcast

EEVblog #483 – Microcontroller Voltage Inverter Tutorial
Published. June 15, 2013

How a diode voltage inverter circuit works. Turns any PWM or clock signal into a low power negative voltage rail. This can be clocked from a microcontroller, existing DC-DC converter, 555 timer etc. Voltage Doubler Video Forum HERE...

EDA Blog

Synopsys Optimizes DesignWare HPC Design Kit for All SoC Processor Cores
Published. June 13, 2013

Synopsys has extended their DesignWare Duet Embedded Memory and Logic Library IP to enable the optimized implementation of a broad range of processor cores. In one package, designers now have access to the specialty cells and memories they need to optimize their CPU, GPU and DSP cores across the full speed, power and area spectrum. [...]...

Linux and Open Source

System76 introduces new high-end Ubuntu Linux laptops
Published. June 14, 2013

Want a gaming or workday ready-to-run Ubuntu Linux laptop? System76 has the gear you crave....

New Research: What (Really) Drives Mobile Device Market Performance?
Published. June 12, 2013

What (Really) Drives Mobile Device Market Performance? - A Mobile Future Forward Series Research Paper http://chetansharma.com/What_Drives_Mobile_Device_Market_Performance.htm Introduction The computing landscape has drastically changed over the last five years. Consumers are increasingly seeking connected devices with majority of them being mobile. In fact, due to the aggressive buying habits of the US consumer, the overall computing landscape in terms of [...]...

Laptops and Desktops Blog

Alienware refreshes gaming laptops with Intel Haswell processors, updated design
Published. June 11, 2013

The new Alienware 14, 17, 18 models are built from anodized aluminum and magnesium alloy and feature Nvidia's new GeForce GTX 700 series notebook graphics....

Chris A. Ciufo on All Things Embedded

Does Altera Have “Big Data” Communications on the Brain?
Published. June 5, 2013

In wireless, wireline and financial “big data” applications, moving all those packets needs prodigious FPGA resources, not all of which Altera had before their recent series of acquisitions, partnerships, and otherwise wheeling-and-dealing. I caught up with an old friend at … Continue reading →...

Frank Schirrmeister Blog

DAC 2013 – System Design on Wednesday, June 5th
Published. June 5, 2013

The DAC exhibition comes to a close today, and we have another day with great presentations related to the Cadence System Development Suite. If you want to follow along the flow of our core engines from virtual through RTL simulation, acceleration, emulation and FPGA-based prototyping, we just created a new video landing page outlining the successes of Xilinx, Nvidia, Broadcom, Freescale and partner comments from ARM and Bluespec. Yours truly is giving a brief overview of how it all fits together...

Aart & Eric at DAC 2013
Published. June 4, 2013

Aart kindly talked to me at DAC. Here is the result Subscribe To subscribe, click on this link: http://feeds.feedburner.com/synopsysoc/ToUSB Cut and paste this URL (http://blogs.synopsys.com/tousbornottousb/) in your Outlook or Google Elements or Flipbook or Evernote or Pocket Reader. If you don’t subscribe after you watch the video above, then something is wrong with you....

How Better Place Came to a Bitter End
Published. May 31, 2013

A battery-swapping startup’s innovative system for charging electric vehicles suffered from overreach and limited consumer demand.Better Place, which raised some $850 million to build a charging infrastructure for electric cars, said this week it will liquidate its assets after failing to find more financing. It’s the end to a bold effort to wean the world from oil by innovating with software and business models, rather than with electric vehicle technology itself....

Introducing UVM Multi-Language Open Architecture
Published. June 1, 2013

The new  UVM Multi-Language (ML) Open Architecture (OA) posted to the new UVMWorld is the result of a collaboration between Cadence and AMD.  It uniquely integrates e, SystemVerilog, SystemC, C/C+, and other languages into a cohesive verification hierarchy and runs on multiple simulators.  Moreover, the new solution is open for additional collaboration and technology enhancement. Since Cadence introduced ML verification four years ago, the need for it has never been...

Why are Cadence and Forte Presenting Together at DAC?
Published. May 28, 2013

You may or may not have noticed that Cadence's DAC Theater schedule features an intriguing combination of presenters next Tuesday:Tuesday, June 04, 2013 TimeCompanyTopic.........11:30 AMForte and CadenceHow to Broadly Deploy SystemC High-level Synthesis for Production Hardware Design......... The obvious question is, "Why are two high-level synthesis direct competitors presenting together?"The answer starts back at an "experts at the table" panel session...

Stephane Boucher's DSP Blog

Collaborative Writing Experiment: Your Favourite DSP Websites
Published. May 30, 2013

You are invited to contribute to the content of this blog post through the magic of Google Docs' real time collaboration feature. I discovered this tool several months ago when I was looking for a way to coordinate our annual family halloween party (potluck) and avoid the very unpleasant situation of ending up with too much chips and not enough chocolate (first world problem!).  It was amu... read more...

Simon Phipp's Blog

Google's open video proposal closes door on software freedom
Published. May 17, 2013

In case the news from Google I/O this week left you feeling Google can do no wrong, there's a story no one is writing about that lends aread more...

Conversation Central

TechSF: Equipping San Francisco Residents to Work in Tech
Published. May 23, 2013

Guests: Hamid Mahmoodi, Associate Professor of Computer Engineering, San Francisco State University; Rhonda Simmons, Director, Workforce Development, Office of Economic and Workforce Development, City and County of San Francisco; Dan Stoner, Recruiter, “Minister of Possibilities”, Bay Area Video Coalition Host: Karen Bartleson, Senior Directory, Community Marketing, Synopsys Inc. If your browser doesn’t support Flash, click here to [...]...

FPGA Blog

CAST Offers Ultra-low Latency Video Encoding Option for H.264 IP Cores
Published. May 16, 2013

CAST announced an ultra-low latency video encoding option for their H.264 video encoder IP cores. The new option enables near-real time video transmission for streaming and wireless video applications, especially when coupled with CAST’s hardware stacks for fast, processor-less video processing. Read more CAST Offers Ultra-low Latency Video Encoding Option for H.264 IP Cores Twitter [...]...

Mocana Device Blog

What The Future Of Google Glass Might Be
Published. May 16, 2013

Google Glass isn’t yet available to the general public, yet it seems everyone is speculating on what it might mean once it does arrive. The Playground Inc. produced a short video showing several scenarios. Mostly you’ll be able to purchase things without much interaction. The segment on calling 911 and administering CPR seems extreme. Biking [...]...

Mocana Device Blog

What The Future Of Google Glass Might Be
Published. May 16, 2013

Google Glass isn’t yet available to the general public, yet it seems everyone is speculating on what it might mean once it does arrive. The Playground Inc. produced a short video showing several scenarios. Mostly you’ll be able to purchase things without much interaction. The segment on calling 911 and administering CPR seems extreme. Biking [...]...

Wireless Sensor Networks Blog

Connecting Things to the Internet Does Not an Internet of Things Make
Published. May 13, 2013

The Internet of Things has continued to emerge as a trend this year within the consumer electronics sector. Everyone’s trying to get into the game, with connected devices now ranging from dog collars to toasters to sneakers, all getting connected to “the cloud.” This is an exciting trend for consumer electronics in general, but we […]...

Branden Williams' Security Coverage Blog

The Gotchas of EMV for the US Consumer
Published. April 25, 2013

Some of you may know that I spent a little over a week on vacation with my wife traipsing through Europe this month. And even though I was constantly yelled at for walking too fast or running to check out some grey squirrel (they are tan here in the US), we had a fabulous time. [...]...

#ALGORITHMS: "Geo Semi Boasts Video Analytics On-a-Chip"
Published. April 17, 2013

Geo Semiconductor already has a all the big-name professional video makers using its chips, including Sony, Panasonic, Toshiba, Philips, Sharp and Samsung. Now it wants to add GM, Ford, Toyota and the rest of the automotive world, plus its pioneering the smart home by incorporating smart video analytics into its ultra-high-soeed eWarp video processor: R. Colin Johnson @NextGenLog...

Green Hills Software

Green Hills Software Announces Multicore TimeMachine Trace Tools for MIPS and Renesas Microcontrollers
Published. April 16, 2013

Extends Award-Winning Tool Suite with Multicore Debug and Analysis Capabilities...

Tech Deseign Forums Blog

H.265 begins to flavor the video codec soup
Published. April 10, 2013

Two vendors have announced early adopter software implementations of the new video compression standard that promises an up to 50% bandwidth cut against H.264.The post H.265 begins to flavor the video codec soup appeared first on Tech Design Forum....

John Day

Renesas and its partners push high-end infotainment
Published. March 28, 2013

Renesas made a rather significant announcement this week, launching the newest system-on-chip (SoC) in its R-Car series. It refers to the device – the R-Car H2 – as “a complete solution for next-generation high-end multimedia and navigation” with “high performance and state-of-the-art 3D graphics capabilities.” The performance comes in part from ARM’s big.LITTLE processing technology, [...]...

Brian's Brain

Google Voice: Free (after initial low-cost hardware purchase) VoIP still sounds nice to me
Published. March 27, 2013

When a $40 one-time hardware investment delivers ongoing gratis and robust domestic telephone service, it's hard to complain. And considering it's a piece of consumer electronics equipment, that's saying a heck of a lot!...

Slideshow: Apollo engine treasures recovered from ocean floor
Published. March 25, 2013

In the following photos and video, we explore what Amazon.com founder Jeff Bezos located on the ocean floor as he and a team recovered F-1 engines that helped power Apollo astronauts beyond Earth orbit....

CEA Digital Dialogue

Gary Shapiro Talks Innovation, Startups with CNN at SXSW
Published. March 14, 2013

The 2013 South by Southwest® (SXSW®) Conferences and Festivals are underway in Austin, Texas, highlighting the latest in technology, music and film. The Consumer Electronics Association® (CEA) had a large presence at this year’s show. CEA’s President and CEO, Gary Shapiro hosted a reading and signing of CEA’s newest book, Ninja Innovation: The Ten Killer Strategies of the World's Most Successful Businesses and also discussed the book, startups and more with Max Foster on CNN....

DVCon 2013: Functional Verification Is EDA’s “Killer App”
Published. March 11, 2013

With another year of record attendance, DVCon has again proven that a functional verification-focused mix of trade show and technical conference is what customers need to get their jobs done.  Here are some of the some of the highlights I took away from this informative event:DVCon 2013 was a one stop shop for panels, papers, posters,live demos, and tutorials on functional verification* Great panels on Verification Planning and Drastically Improving D&VTwo panels at the conference provided valuable...

Embedded World – Nuremberg
Published. February 28, 2013

By Jim Harrison In traversing the various isles at this huge show, one can’t help but think this is a true engineer’s paradise. This is a true EE’s show with no consumer stuff and nothing that would interest anyone but EEs. There is also serious overload here. There must be a hundred different makers of [...]...

Process Nodes Step Back at CES 2013
Published. January 28, 2013

This year’s CES show in Las Vegas had a major change in the semiconductor components driving the CE products. In the past, the show was the spotlight for the latest systems with the most advance process nodes making their entry. This year there was a change – the focus was on application diversity not just [...]...

DVCon 2013 for Formal and ABV Users
Published. February 11, 2013

At the upcoming DVCon (in San Jose, CA February 25-28), Cadence will cover all aspects of our verification technologies and methodologies (full list of Cadence-sponsored events is here).  However, Team Verify would like to alert users of Cadence Incisive formal and multi-engine tools, apps, and assertion-based verification (ABV) to the following papers and posters focused on this domain.* Session 2, Tuesday Feb. 26, 9-10:30am features two papers:Paper 2.1, "Overcoming AXI...

DVCon 2013 for the Specmaniac
Published. February 8, 2013

At the upcoming DVCon (in San Jose, CA February 25-28), Cadence will cover all aspects of our verification technologies and methodologies (full list of Cadence-sponsored events is here).  Of course, Team Specman cannot resist drawing your attention to the many activities that will feature Specman and e language-related content, or be of general relevance to Specmaniacs.  Hence, if you are going to the conference, please consider printing out the following "DVCon 2013 Guide...

GreenTech Pastures

Canon, Ricoh, Xerox and Dell earn new EPEAT imaging certification
Published. January 31, 2013

The four vendors have so far certified 36 products under the organization's green metrics for printers, multifunction devices, and copiers....

Embedded multicore interview followup
Published. February 20, 2009

Had a nice interview and mention in an article by John Blyler. With regard to the issue identified in the story and video (coordination of process, thread, and vector level parallelism), I think there is a positive and a negative aspect for embedded developers.  The negative aspect for embedded developers is that much of the work for [...]...

Windows Embedded Blog

Windows Embedded Keynote at SMART TECHnology World
Published. March 26, 2012

On Friday 23rd March 2012 Kevin Dallas, General Manager of the Windows Embedded Business at Microsoft delivered a keynote presentation at SMART TECHnology World, during the keynote Kevin is joined by Michael Allison, IT Administrator of Hillcrest Medical Center, Tom Romano, CIO of Kentucky Fried Chicken, and Jim Buczkowski, a Technical Fellow at Ford to discuss the emergence and value of Intelligent Systems Here’s a link to the keynote video - Mike...

iPhone 4S Power Efficiency Improvements
Published. January 27, 2012

This blog originally posted on the Low Power Engineering Community 11/3/11. http://chipdesignmag.com/lpd/absolute-power I’ve had my iPhone 4S for a few weeks now, and have gotten to know it pretty well. Mine is the 64GB model, mostly because I want to play around with the new 1080p video recording capabilities, and don’t want to worry about [...]...

SteelSeries APEX is One Colorful Gaming Keyboard
Published. January 21, 2013

Embedded C Programming with ARM Cortex-M Video Course
Published. January 21, 2013

As part of my New Year’s resolution for 2013, I just started to teach an Embedded C Programming Course with ARM Cortex-M on YouTube. The playlist for this course is available at: http://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLPW8O6W-1chwyTzI3BHwBLbGQoPFxPAPM . The course is intended for beginners and is structured as a series of short, focused, hands-on lessons that teach you how [...]...

Read BDTI’s Evaluation of Our Floating-Point DSP on Hardware
Published. February 6, 2013

Download this white paper to read a performance evaluation of Altera’s FPGA floating-point digital signal processing (DSP) design flow on 28 nm hardware by BDTI, an independent technology analysis firm. Also, watch a preview of the white paper today!...

Read BDTI’s Evaluation of Our Floating-Point DSP on Hardware
Published. February 6, 2013

Download this white paper to read a performance evaluation of Altera’s FPGA floating-point digital signal processing (DSP) design flow on 28 nm hardware by BDTI, an independent technology analysis firm. Also, watch a preview of the white paper today!...

Joel on Software

Should you launch at a conference?
Published. February 6, 2013

Should you launch at Launch? (Or TechCrunch Disrupt? Or Demo? They’re all pretty similar). This year I launched two major new products at conferences: Careers 2.0 and Trello, and both times, it was totally worth it. First, a little background. There are three popular conferences where you can launch new products: Launch, TechCrunch Disrupt, and Demo. They all work the same way: You apply. If you have a half-decent product that is genuinely new, you’re likely to get a spot. That said,...

Chris Gamell's Analog Life

Introduction to my CNC Setup
Published. January 14, 2013

This video is showing all of the gear I purchased in preparation for getting my CNC mill up and running. This video shows just about everything except the mill, which will arrive tomorrow. Check out the links below to see all of the stuff I bought, in the event you’d like to purchase some or all [...]...

John Coyne's Embedded Blog

The Next Generation of Windows CE
Published. June 1, 2010

Today at Computex, Steven Guggenheimer, our CVP here in Microsoft OEM, announced the availability of the Public Technology Preview for Windows Embedded Compact 7, the next generation of operating system from Windows Embedded! This version boasts lots...(read more)...

Soft Talk - Multicore and Parallel Programming

Sony VAIO Duo 11 up for grabs at LAUNCH
Published. November 8, 2012

Christmas has come early for one lucky attendee of this year’s LAUNCH: Future Gaming & Digital Conference in Birmingham next week. Intel Developer Zone (IDZ) is sponsoring the conference and will be running a raffle from its stand. The prize is a brand spanking new Sony VAIO Duo 11 convertible which does, well, pretty much [...]...

The Moth

How I Record Screencasts
Published. November 8, 2012

I get this asked a lot so here is my brain dump on the topic. What A screencast is just a demo that you present to yourself while recording the screen. As such, my advice for clearing your screen for demo purposes and setting up Visual Studio still applies here (adjusting for the fact I wrote those blog posts when I was running Vista and VS2008, not Windows 8 and VS2012). To see examples of screencasts, watch any of my screencasts on channel9. Why If you are a technical presenter, think of...

Daniel Cazzulino's Blog

Electronics 101 for kids: littleBits review
Published. November 5, 2012

I’m always on the lookout for cool toys that can empower my kids (9, 6 and 2yo) to be creative and break the mold of being just consumers of other’s ideas. I recently came across littleBits while watching a TED video of their creator. I was immediately hooked. It seemed like the perfect blend of [...]...

Gabe On EDA

Synopsys and Tektronix Offer New New FPGA-Based Prototyping Solutions
Published. November 12, 2012

Increasing design complexity is posing heighten verification complexity. Most of the consumer electronic products that are pushing vendors toward state of the art processes require real time responses. These applications cannot be debugged using software based tools. Thus the use of FPGAs for SoC verification has become the norm. In the last two weeks both Synopsys and Tektronix have introduced new powerful verification solutions to aid engineers developing SoC devices. read more...

Q&A : How ST optimized their validation flow and decreased turn-around time by 8X using Synopsys Custom Explorer
Published. November 1, 2012

You may have watched the previous video I posted on CustomExplorer Ultra (if not, it is not too late ). A very interesting feature of this tool is its Waveform comparison capability. This utility allows you to compare two sets of simulation runs in batch and produce a text report of the differences. In just [...]...

Denali Memory Blog

Cadence Video Demonstrates PCIe Gen3 IP Silicon Performance
Published. August 6, 2012

It is not often that an IP provider gets to showcase their IP performance in a real product demo. Those laurels usually end up going to the end product that uses the IP. But a recent Cadence video features our PCI Express (PCIe) Gen 3 core running flawlessly in silicon in a real system. We thought we would raise some eyebrows since, as of today, there are very few products in the market that utilize the full power of the PCIe Gen3 protocol, let alone those that have been designed using a commercial...

Kiran Bulusu’s Blog

Tips on how to do startup research in developing countries
Published. November 28, 2012

Tips on how to do startup research in developing countries 1. Make a slide or small video ( max 1-2mts) explaining what you want to research or collect data 2. Hire college grads from the relevant discipline or by their … Continue reading →...

Ubuntu 12.10 on a Virtual Platform at ARM Techcon
Published. October 25, 2012

Next week (Oct. 30-Nov. 1) ARM TechCon 2012 is at the Santa Clara Convention Center. As always, Cadence will be at the conference and exhibit, but I would like to especially recommend one paper for people interested in embedded Linux and Virtual Platforms. The presentation is Analysis of Software-Driven Power-Management Policies Using Functional Virtual Platforms by Michele Petracca. It will be in Grand Ballroom B on Thursday at 10:30 AM.I have seen some of the material in advance and it provides...

System Industry Trends - 2010 Highlights and What's Coming Up for 2011 (Part II)
Published. December 28, 2010

2010 was a very dynamic year for the electronic systems industry overall and Cadence in particular. In this set of blogs, I discuss some of the trends that started in 2010 and will continue in 2011. In part I, I talked about the key growth market, key industry challenges and the role of EDA. In this blog post (part II), I will talk about Cadence offerings addressing these challenges.Cadence System Design and Verification -- Addressing IP Productivity and System IntegrationIn order to be successful,...

Virtual Flash Memory Gets Real
Published. August 8, 2011

This week's Flash Memory summit will not only highlight the IP Cadence delivers, but will touch on innovative application of virtual prototype technology for Flash Memory firmware and system development. Developing complex memory controllers is challenging, and an increasing portion of the capability is delivered as firmware. Virtual prototypes of hardware for memory controllers, and the systems within which they operate, enable software to be developed months ahead of...

Full System vs Sub-system Virtual Prototyping
Published. August 6, 2009

There is a strong movement in the industry to move to create Virtual Prototypes of systems, prior to RTL coding. These Virtual Prototypes are being used for early software development and architectural analysis. Since there are typically many blocks in a design, the development of a Virtual Prototype can be unwieldy. While you might have a goal of creating one, you may be dazed at the number of components that need to be created or acquired (multiple CPU's, DSP's, MPEG engines, multiple memory...

AMIQ DVT Maximizes OVM Reuse Via Methodology Compliance
Published. January 8, 2010

The Open Verification Component (OVC) defined by the official OVM User Guide in the OVM downloads enables the highest levels of reuse.  While the OVM class libraries have the supporting classes for the OVC built-in, writing OVCs properly sits on the shoulders of the verification engineer.  With Amiq's DVT, the verification engineer has the means to check their OVC for OVM compliance. To help you learn more about DVT compliance checking, the good folks at Amiq put together a short video. ...

Some Final Real-World Assertions for the Holidays
Published. December 20, 2011

My last "real-world assertions" blog post seems to have tickled a bunch of people with my story about the racy narration at the historic Red Fort in Delhi. I've heard from several folks who have also seen the show and had a similar reaction. Just out of curiosity, I did a Web search and found a half-dozen or so other blogs and travelogues with comments similar to mine. Concluding my series, and in the spirit of the holiday season, here are a few final amusing incidents related to shopping...

True cinema TV’s, not 3D will drive future HDMI specs
Published. October 18, 2012

As the consumer electronic devices are increasingly becoming multimedia intensive, the evolution of connectivity protocols will play a key role in shaping the future of these devices.  With over 1150 adopters and an install base of ~2 Billion devices, HDMI continues to be the primary multimedia connectivity interface for the world of consumer electronics. The [...]...

YouTube Helps Engineers
Published. September 30, 2011

The channel that gets to close our series on how social media helps engineers is YouTube. The only social media platform that we never hear anyone complain about or say they would never use is YouTube. Why is that you ask? Because everyone loves video! If you don’t have a Facebook page, refuse to open [...]...

AMD Delivers on Holiday Wish Lists: From Gaming to PCs!
Published. November 16, 2012

With the holidays fast approaching, consumer electronics are on many gift lists. In fact, according to the Consumer Electronics Association , three in four gift-giving adults plan to buy a consumer-electronics product as a gift. From more brilliant graphics when gaming to longer battery life when on the go, AMD-powered products let people do more every day by providing superior computing experiences. Continue reading...