ANNOUNCEMENTS

CURRENT FEATURE ARTICLES

ArcticLink
Connectivity Without the Watts
ARM Optimizes for FPGA
ARM/Actel Announce Cortex-M1
Mixing Fossil Fuel and Electrons
by Jim Turley, Embedded Technology Journal
Managing the Middle Manager
An Engineer's Guide
Is it February? Then it must be embedded world.
by Dick Selwood
Doin’ Hard Time
Wind River Adds RTLinux
Software Supervision
Wind River Lab Diagnostics
Pushing a Progressive Paradigm
Encirq Opens Access

ArcticLink
Connectivity Without the Watts

You’re designing a new handheld device. You’ve got your processor picked, your software platform selected, your debugger dialed-in, and your battery bolted into place. Marketing has signed off on the baddest list of requirements ever – convergence has taken a turn for the terrible, and your device has to connect to ubiquitous wireless standards, seven kinds of mass storage, USB2.0, SDIO, and even PCI (Don’t ask why you’d need all of those – this is a fictional project, OK? Suspend disbelief for a moment.) The point is, you need a way to hook all that stuff into your system without burning your battery reserves just keeping everything connected.

QuickLogic’s new ArcticLink was created just for you. ArcticLink is a new device that acts as super-low-power digital duct tape, stitching together the various components of your system and providing a level of flexibility through its programmable fabric that will let marketing change its mind repeatedly without bombing your BOM too badly. The playing field in the handheld market changes almost daily, and differentiating your product is a balancing act weighing the benefits of differentiating features against the evils of increased time-to-market, BOM cost, power consumption and form factor. [more]