Mentor Blogs

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

Hello all – Matt Radochonski from the Mentor Embedded marketing team with an update on our new board support packages for the last two months. You may have noticed from our monthly newsletters that we’ve released new BSP’s for Nucleus RTOS, Nucleus SmartFit and Nucleus ReadyStart for ARM and PPC architectures as well as TI, STMicroelectronics and Freescale MCU’s.  Below is a … Read More

BSP, supported processors, Board Support

I have read a lot in recent months about Windows 8, Microsoft’s latest incarnation of its flagship Windows operating system. While there are many new features over and above its Windows 7 predecessor, one thing that makes me quite curious about Windows 8 is its optimization for touchscreen technology. Note that I have yet to use Windows 8, but I have used several other touchscreen devices on the market … Read More

In the high-tech market, the IoT is driving connectivity requirements in devices across many segments. Considering the number of embedded medical devices hospital, you can quickly imagine areas where Wi-Fi connectivity can be used to connect devices, patients, administrators and doctors. For example, Wi-Fi can be applicable in the doctor’s office, in the operating room, at the nurse’s station, in the … Read More

Freescale, Medical, Wi-Fi, Nucleus, RTOS

  Chevrolet has just unveiled a new high-end pickup, the 2014 Silverado High Country. It has a chrome grille with horizontal bars, halogen projector headlamps, body-color front and rear bumpers, 20-inch chrome wheels, all-season tires, and chrome body side moldings, door handles and mirrors. Inside, Silverado High Country has a saddle brown interior and heated and cooled perforated premium … Read More

iPad, MiyLink, Chevrolet, park assist, Silverado High Country

Do you use PADS?  Did you know that the PADS ES Suite ships with the DxDesigner Schematic Editor providing a robust and powerful design environment tightly coupled to PADS layout with DxDatabook a powerful component information system and cross probing. With an innovative and reliable architecture, designed from the start to support hierarchy; a user needs only to create a circuit once before reusing … Read More

A unique concept most beginners have trouble grasping about the Verilog, and now the SystemVerilog, Hardware Description Language (HDL) is the difference between wire’s (networks) and reg‘s (variables). This concept is something that every experienced RTL designer should be familiar with, but there are now many verification engineers with no prior Verilog experience trying to pick up SystemVerilog … Read More

Verification, Functional Verification, Verilog