Blog Review: July 1
By Ed Sperling
Do executives read blogs? Good question. Harry Gries, aka the ASIC guy, takes a look at who’s reading what and why. It’s an interesting question to ponder, even if there aren’t any definitive answers.
One of the old adages of cigar-chewing city editors at daily newspapers is that there are writers who have something to say and writers who have to say something. There are some who fit into both camps, but rarely all the time, and in the tech world it happens most often when it’s driven by a single event.
Mentor’s Thomas Bollaert churned out three blogs on one day, which has to be a record. All of them had to do with the company’s announcement that Catapult now can synthesize and verify control logic. We know it’s a complex announcement. In case you don’t understand just how complex, we know the right guy to talk to. Check out his blogs, one, two and three. There’s also a story on the announcement, if you need an outside look, and another outside opinion from Gabe Moretti, in case you’re still thirsting for more.
Mentor’s John Ferguson has written a must-read column for understanding design for manufacturability and the so-called “waivers” granted by foundries for violations of DRC (design rule checking). This is interesting stuff, and Ferguson’s investigation reads almost like a high-tech mystery. He gets our Blog of the Week award for this one.
For those of you lamenting the collapse of Portable Design (us included), intrepid journalist John Donovan is back with a low-power site that complements our own site. His latest blog is about Intel’s advance against ARM, which is a great battle to watch as Intel mounts its campaign with Atom, Wind River, an increased investment in Imagination Technologies and a deal with Nokia.
Another great resource in these area is Bhanu Kapoor‘s blog about making data generation effective and efficient. This is superb insight into the verification side of things, and we’d be hard pressed to find anyone who knows this subject better–and who can still communicate it.
On the manufacturing front, Vipin Tiwari of Virage Logic asks a question: Is it really necessary to move to high k/metal gate technology? And if so, at what node? It’s a great question, and one for which you probably won’t get an unbiased answer.
Mike Keating from Synopsys is writing a book. Literally. His blog is a chapter-by-chapter excerpt of the art of good design, and this chapter is on state space. It’s great for verification engineers looking to bring order to orders of magnitude. You can click through and read the whole chapter if you’re looking for more depth.
JL Gray and Cadence’s Jason Andrews take a look—independent of each other—at what’s interesting at DAC. It’s the end of this month, in case you’ve lost track of time like the rest of us, so these blogs will help you organize your time. Fortunately, the show is in San Francisco this year, so most of you can drive there. Someday maybe they’ll move it to San Jose and we can cut down the time we waste on the road. Hint. And the argument that it won’t fit into the San Jose Convention Center doesn’t work anymore.
Mentor’s John Wilson takes an intellectual look at the thermal analysis of packaging. There’s good information in here, and this is the kind of thing that mechanical engineers think about in their spare time. Don’t bring this kind of stuff up at a cocktail party filled with strangers, though, unless you don’t want to be invited back.
Team Specman’s config options in unit hierarchy falls into the same camp. Unless you live and breathe this stuff, you’re unlikely to understand this level of detail. If you do, however, there’s no better source.
Colin Walls’ discussion about language extensions, on the other hand, could easily set the stage for an in-depth discussion that reaches well beyond the bounds of technology. The subject matter is technical, but the topic addresses the most fundamental issue in technology today—communication.
Tags: Cadence, Mentor Graphics, Synopsys