Mike Demler, Editorial Director, OpenSystems Media
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DAC panel debates: Are FPGAs ready to replace ASICs?
ASIC development costs are rising, which make FPGAs an attractive and advantageous alternative - in some cases.
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FPGAs in the spotlight at the 2012 Design Automation Conference
The proliferation of design tools by FPGA and EDA vendors is giving designers more choice in hardware/software, virtual/real platforms.
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Tool providers focus on improving the efficiency of FPGA design
As FPGAs advance, more automation will help engineers by speeding up the design process in the face of increased complexity.
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DSP and FPGA suppliers vie for growing embedded vision market
DSP and FPGA vendors are giving embedded vision designers a boost for developing these next-gen systems thanks to image processor advancements.
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A quick start kit for DSP FPGA design
With the increasing complexity of FPGA system design, developers could use a kick-start on their projects. Xilinx is answering that call with a pair of base design kits for their 28 nm Kintex-7 and Virtex-7 FPGAs, each built on PCI Express PCBs. The kits come with just about all the hardwa...
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Mobile FPGAs shrink power requirements to micro-watts
Longer battery life is a critical need for many of today's most powerful mobile devices. Device manufacturers also struggle to differentiate their devices, with the same few application processors now showing up in everything from smartphones to tablets to notebook PCs. Lattice Semiconduct...
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A complete HW/SW solution for SoC audio processing
Semiconductor IP vendors have traditionally competed on power, performance, and area, but having a full suite of supporting software is increasingly critical to enable SoC integration. Synopsys is addressing this need by combining assets from several acquisitions over the past several year...
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Scalable DSP platform for small to macro-cell LTE base stations
To deliver on the performance expectations for 4G LTE networks, operators will need to deploy a mix of low-cost pico and femto cells, along with lower power macro cell base stations, to meet green energy requirements. Texas Instruments has stepped up to the plate and delivered with its TCI...
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A quick start kit for DSP FPGA design
With the increasing complexity of FPGA system design, developers could use a kick-start on their projects. Xilinx is answering that call with a pair of base design kits for their 28 nm Kintex-7 and Virtex-7 FPGAs, each built on PCI Express PCBs. The kits come with just about all the hardwa...
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Android everywhere at the 2012 International CES
Android’s fragmentation was on display at CES, despite Google’s best efforts to generate cohesive standards, but it’s not all bad.
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LTE delivers on the promise of 4G, but no panacea for fragmentation
While wireless operators add more spectrum to build their next generation networks, multimode devices will be required to adapt to an increasing number of variations in each deployment.
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DSP, FPGAs, and the quest for instant gratification
Devices integrating programmable logic into processors are easing the translation between software and hardware engineering teams in FPGA design flows.
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Virtual or real: Prototyping platform(s) for ARM-based FPGA design
SoC FPGAs offer both hardware and software approaches to platform prototyping, each of which confronts different challenges of the hardware-software codesign process.
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Adding support for GPS with new DSP libraries
Silicon Intellectual Property (SIP) provider CEVA, Inc. has added HSPA+ software libraries for the CEVA-XC DSP core to the company’s Software-Defined Radio (SDR) reference architecture offering. The library enables designers to implement a complete software-based multimode HSPA/HSPA+...
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These ultra-low-power DSPs break the $2 barrier
Texas Instruments (TI) has claimed the lowest price in the industry for a DSP, offering the ultra-low-power TMS320C553x series starting at $1.95 (for the TMS320C5532) in quantities of 1,000 units. TI is also offering the C5535 eZdsp development kit for the C553x DSPs, discounted to $55 thr...
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Get a jump start on software development for ARM-based SoC FPGAs
Altera has announced development of a family of ARM-based SoC FPGAs, which will provide users with single-chip solutions that integrate an industrial-grade dual-core 800 MHz ARM Cortex-A9 processor with Altera’s 28 nm low-power Cyclone V and Arria V FPGAs. Each core in the Altera SoC...
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Software developers can begin coding for Zynq-7000 with a collaborative virtual platform
Xilinx and Cadence Design Systems have collaborated to develop a virtual platform that enables software engineers to perform pre-silicon system design, software development, and testing of the Zynq-7000 Extensible Processing Platform (EPP). Xilinx has targeted the first silicon for the Zyn...
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Two million logic cells is the new FPGA standard
The Xilinx Virtex-7 2000T heralds the next era of Moore’s Law, in which 3D stacking of ICs will take over for two-dimensional scaling. The decades-long doubling of device density that has been achieved by shrinking transistors with each new processor generation is approaching limits...
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Power is the common denominator, but greater analog design productivity is the solution
The demand for energy-efficient designs highlights the need to bridge the gaps between analog-digital EDA tools and flows.
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FPGAs can lead the way to next-generation technology
FPGAs can offer designers a cost-performance advantage over ASICs for applications that require leading-edge semiconductor processes, but improvements in design tools and ease-of-use will be required in order to gain more widespread adoption.