FROM
THE EDITOR
This week, we take a look at what happens when you need to do a lot of multiplication – say, several billion of them in a second. When the GMACs requirement passes what is reasonable (or power efficient) to do with a conventional processor, new ESL tools and methodologies can dramatically reduce the time required to get a highly-parallel hardware implementation of your algorithm. Our latest feature article looks at the GMACs gap and how ESL synthesis may help.
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Kevin
Morris – Editor
Embedded Technology Journal
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EVENTS and ANNOUNCEMENTS
The Analog Devices Embedded Processing SpeedWay Design. Workshop, sponsored by Avnet, provides an overview of the Blackfin family of embedded processors, including information about the product road map & the processors inner workings - the core, memory, power management & peripherals.
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Introducing Precision RTL Plus
Precision RTL Plus is the latest addition to the Precision Synthesis family of products which builds on Precision RTL by delivering a vendor-independent solution for breakthrough productivity. Precision RTL Plus provides three industry-first capabilities for every designer, regardless of level of expertise, to reach timing closure faster, minimize the impact of late cycle design changes and make efficient use of FPGA architectural blocks.
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GMACs GAP
ESL Spans the Software/Hardware Chasm
The industrial automation and control field is an ever-changing mish-mash of protocols, standards, and conventions. Recently, there has been a wave of replacement sweeping the networking standards space as proprietary and legacy standards give way to more cost-effective off-the-shelf solutions such as Ethernet. The advantages of Ethernet-based networking are probably obvious – high availability of low-cost, high-reliability infrastructure, built-in future-proofing, very high bandwidth by industrial control standards, and the ability to integrate more smoothly with other types of equipment that are not part of the traditional industrial automation ecosystem.
As these standards shift, however, we transition through one of those normal, painful states where a mixture of standards is deployed in many large systems as new devices are added and replaced incrementally and combined with still-in-service legacy gear. Given that industrial controls tend to be safety-critical, there are also myriad certifications that must be completed before bringing a new product to market.
If you’re designing a new industrial control product, and you want to stay one step ahead of your competitors, you’re probably not counting on a proprietary network standard or the excellent job you’ll do getting certification as the big differentiators that will put you ahead of the pack. Chances are, those aspects of your design are mostly busywork tasks that cost you money, slow you down, and don’t gain you any ground on the field. What you’d like is to spend your time and energy on the parts of your project that make it cool, and let someone else manage the mundane. [more]
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