Mentor Blogs

Aerospace engineers and enthusiasts, as well as science-fiction fans, are the latest Eagleworks experiment. The White-Juday warp field interferometer was designed and developed to record warped space and help scientists better understand the space-time bubble that would be required to break Einstein’s theory of general relativity. Albert Einstein theorized that a particle cannot travel faster than … Read More

Mentor Graphics, Mentor, Mentor.com, Albert Einstein, Quantum Vacuum Plasma Thruster, QVPT, Alcubierre drive, Aerospace, Mil-Aero, Geek, Milaero, Harold "Sonny" White, nasa, Eagleworks, plasma, Engineer

Back from my travels, so a brief post painting with my impressions of last week’s event … Design West [which I guess should now be called something different, as Design East has gone - preferably go back to it being Embedded Systems Conference] consisted of the conference itself and the trade show alongside. The show part seems to have been getting smaller each year. Although I have not … Read More

DESIGN West

The concept of machine-to-machine communication (M2M) is the foundation of the Internet of Things (IoT). Of the few core technologies that help facilitate this, zero configuration networking (zeroconf) is key. Zero configuration networking is what allows your personal, portable wireless devices to talk to other similar devices – without any additional setup required from the user. In the pre-zeroconf … Read More

M2M, mDNS, smart energy, zeroconf, Networking, RTOS

Power Aware Verification Course Modules Released I guess I could continue the puns on the low-power theme as a few readers may get a charge out of it.  And there is a reason I seem to gravitate to puns from the start.  The first chair of the IEEE 1801 committee and I exchanged puns one time that resulted in him shipping me a Pun DVD that recorded a pun contest in which one person and another tried … Read More

Low Power, Power Aware Verification, IEEE 1801, UPF

Volvo says that beginning this summer, European leasing customers will be able to drive and evaluate an upgraded demo fleet of Volvo C30 fully electric cars. Developed in partnership with Siemens, the cars boast a peak power output of 89 kW (120 hp) and a torque of 250 Nm. They can go from 0-70 km/h in 5.9 seconds. The cars are also equipped with a 22 kW fast-charger that Volvo says is the world’s … Read More

electric cars, fast-charging system, C30 electric fleet, Siemens, Volvo

  It used to not be such a big deal to buy a car and drive it for several years without feeling that much is missing. There were advances, of course, but models were more or less similar from year to year. That was then; this is now: In its annual survey of what vehicle owners want in their next car,  J.D. Power and Associates says there’s a lot of interest in device and application linking for … Read More

J.D. Power and Associates, Smartphones, buy a car, vehicle owners, wireless connectivity

This mil/aero geek is ecstatic that NASA has the resources, since the decommissioning of the shuttles, to start acting as a catalyst for the development of game-changing, space-related technologies. A couple really interesting stories have surfaced recently that have intrigued aerospace geeks, myself included. The most noteworthy is…wait for it…warp speed research! That’s right. You read that correctly. … Read More

SR-71 Blackbird, Skunkworks, Mil-Aero, Eagleworks, electrical, Milaero, Military, nasa, Aerospace, F-117 Nighthawk, John Applewhite, Mentor, F-22 Raptor, Mentor Graphics, Electronic, Mentor.com, Engineer, Geek, F-35 Lightning II, Harold "Sonney" White, U-2, Warp Speed

  Here’s an opportunity to help launch an intriguing company/technology. Mi Alerts is launching mobile technology that will send an alert to a customer’s mobile phone when the customer’s car is hit, damaged, or stolen. The complete Mi Alerts system will take photographs and videos of accidents or hit-and-runs, making it easier for insurance companies and law enforcement to settle disputes. Mi … Read More

GPS, hit & run, car, Indiegogo, Mi Alerts

Hi there This may seem a strange topic for a Process Engineering Blog but bear with me on this. Over the past few years, car manufacturers seem to be in a race to develop the cars with the highest number of gear ratios in them. Currently cars on the market have automatic gearboxes with 8 forward ratios. Manual gearboxes exist with 7 forward gears now.  I have also heard about possible future gearboxes … Read More

programming, AOI, data preparation, vPlan, bill of materials, BOM

Are you doing any simulation today, specifically for signal integrity issues?  Many design professionals believe that simulaiton is only needed for really bleeding-edge technology.  But in my recent meetings with customers, they are finding they need to simulate designs that once did not.  Even on simpler consumer electronic devices, or industrial controllers, the components they need to purchase for … Read More

I recently posted about using Virtual Prototypes pre-silicon with the recently introduced Sourcery CodeBench Virtual Edition and mentioned that the same native software development approach can be used when RTL is available on emulators.  This enables embedded software and hardware designers to exercise a HW design using actual SW, and a full stack which includes firmware, drivers, the operating system … Read More

virtual prototype, emulator, pre-silicon, Emulation, Veloce, virtual edition, RTL

This is the first in a series of blogs that presents the results from the 2012 Wilson Research Group Functional Verification Study. Study Overview In 2002 and 2004, Ron Collett International, Inc. conducted its well known ASIC/IC functional verification studies, which provided invaluable insight into the state of the electronic industry and its trends in design and verification. However, after the … Read More

UVM, Assertion-Based Verification, Formal Verification, Accellera, Verification Academy, Verification Methodology, functional coverage, Verilog, Functional Verification, VHDL

Mentor very recently introduced  a product that brings together the so far separate worlds of EDA or SoC design from embedded software with the new Sourcery CodeBench Virtual Edition. There is now a way pre-silicon to make use of native software development, for example running a complete Linux stack. This enables a number of things pre-silicon including: Validation of HW/SW SoC interfaces Integration … Read More

pre-silicon, Sourcery Analyzer, Emulation, virtual prototype, Vista, virtual edition

This week I am at Design WEST in San Jose, California. This is an annual pilgrimage for me – even though I still think of it as being the Embedded Systems Conference. This year I am participating in the conference in two events: First, I have a class titled “How to Measure RTOS Performance“, which takes place on Thursday at 09:15. If you would like a copy of the slides, please email … Read More

During the Mentor Graphics Integrated Electrical Solutions Forum (IESF) 2013 last month, Teal Group Vice President of Analysis Richard Aboulafia delivered both good and bad nws related to current and future aerospace market trends. The commercial passenger jet airliners (or jetliners) to watch are the Airbus A320neo and the Boeing 737 MAX. “This is a well-run duopoly brought to you by Airbus and Boing,” … Read More

Military, Milaero, Mentor, aerospace market, Mentor Graphics, Mentor.com, Mil-Aero, Aerospace, china, Geek, IESF, CS300, Integrated Electrical Solutions Forum, Bombardier, Japan, C-Series, Electronic, electrical, Engineer, Richard Aboulafia, Richard L. Aboulafia, Russia