Blog Review: Feb. 1
By Ed Sperling
Cadence’s Frank Schirrmeister compares the state of system-level design to predictions made 10 years ago. A key finding: IP re-use solved one of the big system-level problems identified at the end of the last century.
Synopsys’ Karen Bartleson is hosting a trivia game throughout 2012. Prizes are $40 Amazon gift cards. Given Amazon’s just-announced earnings, this may qualify as a corporate charity write-off for Synopsys.
Mentor’s Robin Bornoff looks at the reasons why thermal interface materials go bad and what to look out for to prevent bottlenecks or, worse, complete meltdowns.
DeepChip’s John Cooley is soliciting comments for the FTC on the proposed Synopsys acquisition of Magma in light of previous concerns that were raised when Synopsys bought Avanti in 2002. But are those claims still relevant? Mike Demler offers up a completely different viewpoint, also in DeepChip. He says that Magma shareholders should be thrilled by the offer.
Cadence’s Richard Goering focuses on a white paper that shows verification performance is more than just raw simulation speed. There are some notable pointers to how to speed up the simulation process.
Tom De Schutter, writing in Synopsys’ TLMCentral, is running a competition for sensor device modeling. The deadline for submissions is in 16 days. Start coding.
Mentor’s Colin Walls addresses an engineer’s concerns about real-time signal processing with Android and other OSes.
And in case you missed the most recent System-Level Design newsletter, here are some standout blogs:
–Mentor’s Jon McDonald looks into how differences of opinion can affect design.
–Synopsys’ Achim Nohl addresses the question of what makes one model better than another.
–Cadence’s Frank Schirrmeister expounds on the importance of software in hardware designs.
–Sonics’ Frank Ferro pulls back the covers on the reasons why SoC design is suddenly much more interesting to a lot more people.
–Arteris’ Kurt Schuler adds meat to the argument that the time to invest in semiconductors is during a downturn.
–eSilicon’s Doug Ridge draws a parallel between the odd mix known as turducken and SoC design.
–Methodics’ Simon Butler digs into why IP distribution is such a big problem.
–And Atrenta’s Tiffany Sparks looks at some electronic designs that literally can change lives.
Tags: Amazon, Cadence, DeepChip, Magma, Mentor Graphics, Synopsys