Leibson's Law
Leibson's Law: It takes 10 years for any disruptive technology to become pervasive in the design community. This blog is about the disruptive technologies that either have or will win over electronic engineers, some that won't, and why. Please feel free to link to these blog entries! Written by Steve Leibson, Technology Evangelist and Director of Strategic Marketing for Denali Software, formerly VP of Content for Reed Business, and formerly Editor in Chief of three publications including EDN and Microprocessor Report. You can email me at steven.leibson followed by the magic email symbol @ followed by att.net.
Hokey smokes, Bullwinkle! TechShop is coming to downtown San Jose
Exiting the Camera 3 movie theaters on Mother’s Day in downtown San Jose, I spotted this banner across the street. The TechShop is coming to downtown San Jose! Ever wanted to run a plasma cutter or a CNC machine? You won’t find those in the Binford catalog in Tim “the toolman” Taylor’s universe but you will find them at the TechShop, a membership-based, high-tec ...... Read More
Comments (2)Dean Kamen—A real-life Tom Swift inventor from the old mold
Two weeks ago, I had the privilege of listening to a keynote speech by inventor Dean Kamen at the Semico Summit in Scottsdale, Arizona, where he also received the Semico Research Bellwether award from Semico President Jim Feldhan (see photo, right). I was truly impressed with the scope of Kamen’s thinking. This is a man who makes no small plans. Kamen is best known as the inventor of the Se ...... Read More
Comments (14)Do you get the world you build?
I’ve been attending DATE (Design Automation and Test Europe) conference this week in Grenoble and became ill, so I had a chance to experience the French urgent care system. In many superficial ways, it resembles the system I’ve used in the US-but with less lighting. However, there are some really interesting differences in procedures. See what you think and then consider the implicat ...... Read More
Comments (2)Xilinx Zynq EPPs: Leibson’s Law in action?
Back in 2001, Xilinx introduced the Virtex-II Pro FPGAs based on 130nm process technology. These FPGAs were the first from Xilinx to incorporate a hardened processor core. (Back then, it was a PowerPC core.) Fast forward 10 years. After telegraphing its punch at ESC last spring, Xilinx has just introduced the first four members of its EPP product line named Zynq. “What’s an EPP? ...... Read More
Comments (4)Questions for the DAC Pavilion Panel on multicore design
As I wrote yesterday, I’ll be chairing a Multicore panel at DAC in Anaheim on Monday in the Panel Pavilion at DAC. This morning, I worked on creating some questions for the panelists with my good friend Markus Levy, President of the Multicore Association, who was the original person scheduled to be the moderator. Here are the questions so far: 1. What comes first with multicore, the hardwar ...... Read More
Comments (0)Don't miss the multicore Pavilion panel discussion at DAC on Monday, June 14
I’ll be moderating the Pavilion panel titled “The Multiplier Effect: Developing Multi-Core, Multi-OS Applications” at DAC on Monday at 10:30 am. It’s no secret that ICs with multiple processor cores are now the norm rather than the exception. Yet there’s a real ad hoc feel to assembling these multicore designs. Is there a better way to develop these complex desig ...... Read More
Comments (0)Once more the Technology Evangelist, at Denali
Last year, I ceased to be a Technology Evangelist and became a marketing consultant. In the ensuing 11 months, I had the rare privilege of working with more than a dozen excellent EOEM clients in a truly wide range of fields: analog ICs, microprocessors, memory IP, EDA, and even first-responder end equipment. All great gigs and I pumped out a lot of great content for these clients. I’ve bee ...... Read More
Comments (3)Robot does what men cannot do: fold towels
UC Berkeley PhD student Jeremy Maitin-Shepard working with Professor Pieter Abbeel led the team that developed robotic code to fold towels, but there’s a catch… The catch is that the video shows the robot folding towels at 50x the actual speed. ...... Read More
Comments (4)Intel Launches Zero-Power Multicore Processor
Today, Intel announced that it has reduced the size of the on-chip transistors on its multicore processors to the point where they no longer draw power. At zero power, processor designers can now insert as many transistors as they want into their designs with no power penalty. What’s more, the transistors are so small that there’s essentially no switching time involved, so the transi ...... Read More
Comments (8)Turing Machine: Built nearly 75 years after conception
More info here. ...... Read More
Comments (1)Live from ISQED: The 70% Solution or “How to reduce verification costs”
EDN’s Ron Wilson has already done a terrific job of covering the third ISQED 2010 keynote speech by Denali CTO and CFO Mark Gogolewski titled “Beyond Endless Verification.” If you want to learn how Denali has drastically reduced verification costs for complex IP block development, be sure to read Ron’s comprehensive description of Gogolewski’s keynote here. Becau ...... Read More
Comments (0)Live from ISQED: The Problems with SOC Design
Mentor’s Shankar Krishnamoorthy is a man who sees nothing but problems ahead for advanced SOC design. As Chief Scientist of Mentor’s Place and Route Division, Krishnamoorthy worries about the huge increase in design rules as design lithographies scale down. He presented his views in a keynote yesterday at ISQED (the International Symposium on Quality Electronic Design). Krishnamoorth ...... Read More
Comments (0)