Mentor Blogs

Last week, I talked about learning about embedded software and suggested various sources of information, including books, promising a review of a new book sometime soon. In the meantime, I have had the chance to take a look at the new book “Software Engineering for Embedded Systems” by Robert Oshana and Mark Kraeling. My first impression was that the book is enormous – over 1000 pages … Read More

3D printing technology is really growing in popularity now. Having worked through the growth of sophistication in electronic product manufacturing, I can see how this technology is likely to develop. Today, most printers use a single nozzle with a nylon based plastic paste that is effectively dispensed like an SMT glue machine, except, that layers are built up over each other. It really is that simple. … Read More

risk, 3D Printing, 3D, Localisation, Materials Management, china, End Of Life

In February, I had blogged about the emergence of the smart energy arena, made up of an ecosystem stretching from the utility to your home including connected devices such as data concentrators, smart meters, home gateways, smart appliances etc. A common standard that outlines the requirements regarding connectivity and intelligent communication between these devices is the Smart Energy Profile (SEP) … Read More

RTOS, smart energy, Nucleus SEP, Wi-Fi, Zigbee, smart grid, smart meter

Two different package styles, two very different thermal responses when a extruded plate fin heatsink is placed on each. At the very least a FloTHERM simulation can be used to observe the thermal behaviour of a product concept, beyond that it can be used to understand *why* the thermal behaviour is what it is. In Part 1 we saw that the BGA type package benefited from an 81% drop of junction temperature … Read More

Heatsink, Electronics Cooling, Jessica Alba and Mena Suvari and George Clooney and Leonardo DiCaprio

Free Nucleus RTOS source code? Just a few years ago if you would have told me that Mentor Graphics would be offering free-source-code for one of the most successful, popular and distributed RTOS’s in the world, I would not have believed it. Yet, for the last few quarters, Mentor is doing just that! The Nucleus Innovate Program was announced November 2012 and adoption is picking up quickly! To date, … Read More

RTOS, Medical, ARM, STMicro, Nucleus ROTS, NXP, TI, Mentor Embedded, Nucleus

Hi there SMT vendors are commonly asked by prospective customers about their existing pick and place programs and what happens with them if they purchase another type of equipment. The customer is usually told that there is nothing that can be done with those programs and hence they need to maintain those in the old system until they migrate them to the new machines. However in Valor MSS Process Preparation … Read More

Sony, Assembleon, programming, Sequence, Siemens, approved vendor list, Fuji, mixed vendor, Panasonic, Hitachi, process, data preparation, Juki, iPulse, Universal, vPlan, Yamaha

Many connectors and other components require decals/footprints that have their pins laid out in a polar pattern.  In many CAD systems, this can be a time consuming effort to build these in the library.  It can be done very quickly in PADS! Bill Tkachuk CSD AE, recently wrote  TechNote MG582079 that steps the user through building these devices.  If you have access to SupportNet, you can view a video … Read More

I am often asked – typically by young engineers and college students – how to learn about doing embedded software. It is a fair question. Although there are some good college courses around nowadays, they can still be hard to find. So, how do you acquire the specialist skills needed to develop software for embedded systems? … There are, of course, many possible ways to learn stuff: university/college learning … Read More

DESIGN West, DESIGN East, Embedded World

A common enough question. Heatsinks are often perceived to be the magic answer to all electronics cooling challenges. They should be called ‘area extenders’ as heat does not just disappear into them. Heat spreads throughout a heatsink passing to the air over a much larger area than it would otherwise do. Air can then do its magic, whisking the heat away thus keeping the electronics that … Read More

Heatsink, Electronics Cooling

  Compared with, say, microcontrollers, there’s relatively little cutting-edge innovation in wiring harnesses, as indispensable as they may be. The wiring harness business, as Rick Burns describes it, is highly competitive and very cost-sensitive, with tight margins. Submit a quote a tad too high and you’ll likely lose the business, says Burns, Mentor Graphics’ product line director, System Integration … Read More

Capital software suite, Mentor Graphics, Capital Harness TVM, Wiring Harness

When designing a PCB, most of your time may be spent interactively routing. PADS has always been known for having powerful, yet easy to use interactive routing capabilities to help engineers and designers in this phase of the design process.  You need the ability to quickly connect the easy traces (is there such a thing anymore?) as well as be assured that your critical nets with length constraints, … Read More

It is very likely that you will be getting either Linux or Android operating systems as part of your Infotainment System or Instrument Cluster in a latest model car. Designs based on these operating systems are now getting into production, with some European OEMs going first but many others close behind. How designers chose which operating system to use is a very current debate – the popularity and … Read More

Hi there This week I would like to ask for input on assembly variants. For the context of this post I would like to state that an assembly variant is one where the base bare PCB is common to all assembly variants and that the variation is through the presence and absence of parts including part substitution of functionally different parts. Therefore using an Approved Vendor List (AVL) to substitute … Read More

data preparation, approved vendor list, bill of materials, process, BOM, assembly variant, AVL, variant

 Design Trends In my previous blog, I introduced the 2012 Wilson Research Group Functional Verification Study (click here). The objective of my previous blog was to provide background on this large, worldwide industry study. I will present the key findings from this study in a set of upcoming blogs.  This blog begins the process of revealing the 2012 Wilson Research Group study findings by first focusing … Read More

Functional Verification, Accellera, Verification Academy, IEEE 1800, Verification

It has always seemed obvious to me that a particular characteristic that makes embedded software different from desktop programming is the close relationship with hardware. As most embedded devices are custom designs, the hardware platform is something of an unknown. So, it is clear that the development of the hardware and software should be done in a cooperative fashion. Mentor Graphics is unique … Read More

Development Tools, Debugging