Embedded Technology Journal Update

a techfocus media publication :: April 29, 2008 :: volume XI, no. 05

FROM THE EDITOR

Multi-core, multi-processor, SMP, CMP, multi-CPU, ILP, TLP, hyperthreading, cache-coherency… With the alphabet soup of overloaded, misused and misunderstood terminology around the concept of cooperation between processing elements, Bryon Moyer finds parallelism just about everywhere and just couldn’t keep it to himself. Our latest feature lays it out.

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Kevin Morris – Editor-in-Chief
Techfocus Media, Inc.

EVENTS and ANNOUNCEMENTS

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Powering FPGA-Based Systems … Simply
DC/DC µModuleTM regulators are complete system-in-package power supplies, ready to power your FPGA-based systems. These powerful DC/DC circuits include the inductor and MOSFETs and are simplified to resemble an IC. From low to high power, these DC/DC µModule systems are backed by Linear Technology’s rigorous testing.
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High Efficiency Power Supply Design for FPGA-Based Systems. Performance of FPGA-based systems depends on the electrical and thermal performance of DC/DC regulators. A properly packaged power management device improves regulation accuracy and stability while removing heat quickly. DC/DC µModuleTM regulators from Linear Technology are complete system-in-package power supplies in an IC form-factor with optimum layout and very low thermal impedance.
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CURRENT FEATURE ARTICLES

It’s the Parallelism, Stupid!
(Bryon Moyer)
Getting Back to a Simpler Life
A New Multicore Communications API is Ratified
(Bryon Moyer)
Multicore Momentum
The Multicore Expo Bulks Up (Bryon Moyer)
Java Earning Its Wings
Aonix Makes Real Time Almost Safety Critical
(Bryon Moyer)
MIPS Moves on Multi-Core
MIPS32 1004K (Kevin Morris)
As Easy As Pie
(Bryon Moyer)
Embedded World
(Dick Selwood)

JOURNAL WEBCASTS

NEW!! CHALK TALK Lowest Total System Cost With Xilinx Spartan-3. Amelia Dalton chats with Mark Moran of Xilinx about reducing your overall system cost with Xilinx Spartan-3 family of FPGAs (Xilinx)

CHALK TALK Low Cost FPGA with Serdes Lattice ECP2M. Amelia Dalton talks with Bertrand Leigh of Lattice Semiconductor about low-cost FPGAs with multi-gigabit SerDes interface capability. (Lattice Semiconductor)

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)

It’s the Parallelism, Stupid!
(Bryon Moyer)

A couple years ago I was participating in a standards meeting of multicore insiders, and a discussion ensued as to how to use such phrases as “multicore,” “multiprocessor,” etc. The discussion went on for a bit, making it pretty clear that this was not a cut-and-dried issue even amongst the cognoscenti.

Shortly after that I was having another conversation and was using the term “multicore” rather loosely, and at some point was, with great certitude, corrected in my usage. Which gave me the sense that such phrases may have as much value as buzzword-of-the-month (no one cares about multiprocessor anymore) as technical term.

Fast forward a couple years, and at the recent Multicore Expo, VDC presented some survey data they had taken regarding multicore usage expectations. But their statistics were somewhat complicated by the fact that the users they had sampled weren’t unanimous in their understanding of what the term “multicore” meant – they were including multiprocessor designs as well. [more]