FROM
THE EDITOR
This week, Dick Selwood weighs in from Europe with his observations on Embedded World. Europe’s big embedded event has exploded in recent years, and our favorite Euro-editor was in attendance. Dick entered the massive exhibit halls in Nuremberg and reports back with his usual witty insight.
Also this week, we have a contributed article from Rob Irwin of Altium Limited on the new dimension of board design. 3D visualization of printed circuit boards is here, and even though its more fun than a video game, we can also gain critical insight into our system design with the enhanced visibility we get from breaking down the third wall.
Thanks for reading! If there's anything we can do to make our publications more useful to you, please let us know at: comments@embeddedtechjournal.com. If you'd rather sound off in public, please post your comments or questions in our new Journal Forums.
Kevin
Morris – Editor
Embedded Technology Journal
|
EVENTS and ANNOUNCEMENTS
Actel is leading the low power initiative with its line of reprogrammable flash FPGAs which use far less power than conventional FPGAs. Actel’s unique low power solutions save power at every level and in every mode. Find out how easy and affordable it is to dramatically reduce power consumption at  actel.com
|
Understanding the cost and time restraints of the industry, PDI provides the perfect low maintenance out source solution for the production and shipping of your training manuals globally. Through on-line ordering, version control, global coverage with localized production, efficiencies will be gained and costs controlled.
 Find out more at www.pdi-europe.com
|
NEW!! IC Journal - Do you love Embedded Tech Journal? We're happy to announce our new IC Design and Verification Journal. It'll be just like Embedded Tech Journal except, you know, about ASICs and stuff.
 Subscribe today for free.
|
|
|
JOURNAL WEBCASTS
CHALK TALK  Crossing the Gap between Algorithm and Hardware Implementation. Join Amelia Dalton as she learns how C++ and Catapult C Synthesis can accelerate the design, implementation, and verification of complex system-level algorithms. (Mentor Graphics)
 Approaching Yield in the Nanometer Age-DFM Methodology. As we dive deeper into the nanometer era, we must rethink the way we design. Tools, techniques, and methods that once worked without fail cannot hold up at the 65 and 45nm depths, making it more challenging than ever to achieve yield. This tutorial explores these challenges within both the business and historical context of the IC design and manufacturing process. (Mentor Graphics)
CHALK TALK  CES 2008. Did you miss CES? Amelia Dalton didn't! Watch Journal Webcasts coverage of the event now.
CHALK TALK  Meeting The Challenges of FPGA Design With Synplify Premier. Join Amelia Dalton as she investigates several new design technologies that address the top challenges faced by FPGA designers today. (Synplicity)
CHALK TALK  Accelerate SoC and ASIC Verification Using FPGA Prototypes. Join Amelia Dalton as she explores methods of ASIC verification available today and why FPGA-based prototypes offer the most affordable and most powerful solution. (Synplicity)
CHALK TALK  Advancing SoC Verification Methods.
Join Amelia Dalton as she talks with experts from Mentor Graphics on processor-driven test and other techniques for solving your system-on-chip verification problems. (Mentor Graphics)
|
|
Embedded World
(Dick Selwood)
Embedded world was always big. Now it is enormous. Nearly 700 companies were exhibiting there this year (twice the number booked for ESC in San Jose next month), with over 17,000 visitors. Just think – if I spent half an hour talking to each exhibitor, and that is a journalist’s schedule for an average interview, allowing for 40 hour weeks, and not including lunch, coffee and comfort break, it would take nearly nine weeks just to meet everyone. Nor does that include the press conferences, which normally demand an hour of attention, nor the conference that ran for three days – so call it ten weeks altogether. The power point slides alone would stretch from here to somewhere way over there. [more]
|
|
Bringing Reality to PCB Design
by Rob Irwin, Altium Limited
In a fundamental shift that redefined how products are created, the transition of engineering design from manual drafting-based methodologies to Computer-aided Design has transformed design in virtually all branches of engineering. The application of CAD in the electronics industry is no exception, and has revolutionized the way engineers work and the products that can be developed. You won’t find too many engineers that would be willing to go back to the old methods.
What you would be going back to is laying out strips of tape and sticking graphics shapes on a flat sheet to create the tracks, footprints and connections that represent the electrical version of the design’s schematic. The birth of ECAD – as in other engineering branches – was essentially the wholesale transfer of that traditional process into the computer software domain. [more]
|
|
