Mentor Blogs

In the early days of embedded systems, software engineers typically had some understanding of hardware design. Indeed, in many cases, it was the hardware designer who implemented the software. Over the years, as the amount of software development has increased, engineers have become less and less “hardware aware”. I find this transition interesting from the viewpoint of an embedded software … Read More

Verilog, RTOS, VHDL, FPGA, MicroBlaze, NIOS, Nucleus

Altera goes back to 1984, when you could get 720KB on a floppy.  After all these years, FPGAs still provide the right mix of being flexible like software while still being fixed and fast like hardware.  Why does this cool idea persist in new product designs? Fortunately the big FPGA vendors, such as Xilinx, have continued to invest in R&D.  Innovations from internal genius and acquisitions have … Read More

FPGA

Since FPGAs, field programmable gate arrays, are in their very nature fluid and changing, how do you force them into your electronics design techniques that all assume fixed parts?  Hardware design uses, well… hardware, physical chips and resistors that have fixed functionality.  We pull parts from libraries, wire them up, lay etch and build the gizmo.  FPGAs throw out the definition of hardware … Read More

FPGA

I am on vacation and, all being well, by the time this posting goes live, I will be sunning myself on a Greek island. A couple of weeks ago, I posted a blog about the use of floating point. My colleague Brooks Moses [who did a guest blog post a while back] made a comment on that posting, pointing out that I had over-simplified my example. I am always happy to get such feedback. It transpired that Brooks … Read More

M4, Zynq, Cortex, e600, ARM, FPGA, Freescale, floating point

Last month Broadcom said its BroadR-Reach automotive Ethernet portfolio can reduce connectivity costs by up to 80 percent and cabling weight by as much as 30 percent. NXP Semiconductors licensed BroadR-Reach and intends to create automotive-grade products for the Ethernet physical layer. NXP noted in its announcement that major car manufacturers are designing with Ethernet as a high-bandwidth, low-cost … Read More

NXP Semiconductors, IEEE 802.1 AVB, Broadcom, automotive Ethernet, EAVB, FPGA, BroadR-Reach, Digital Design Corp.

Mentor Graphics has just revealed the program for its upcoming Integrated Electrical Solutions Forum (IESF) 2011. If you’re not familiar with IESF, it’s one of the world’s leading events for design engineers, engineering management, and executives in the military and aerospace (mil/aero) industry. Even better, it’s free and in a great summer locale: the Marriott Long Beach hotel, in Long Beach, Calif. … Read More

ASIC, Long Beach, electrical, Milaero, Mentor, Aerospace, Marriot, Military, Embedded Systems, Geek, Engineer, Electronic, Mil-Aero, FPGA, EWIS, DO-254, IESF, Hardware, Integrated Electrical Solutions Forum, Mentor.com, ARP 475A, Mentor Graphics

Last week I attended the Embedded World show in Nuremberg, Germany. I have been to this event most years and it just seems to get bigger and bigger. I have not seen the latest detailed statistics, but they claim to be the largest embedded exhibition in the world and I think that there is every reason to believe this claim is valid. The event is well organized and the location makes a lot of sense. I … Read More

FPGA, Clean Code, Embedded World, Agile

As a specialist in embedded software, I think that Mentor Graphics is an interesting place to work. The company has historically been dedicated to serving the needs of hardware developers - whether they are designing cables, boards, FPGAs, ASICs or custom chips. These technologies still dominate the product range today. The Embedded Systems Division is different - we offer products for embedded software … Read More

Hardware, FPGA, ASIC