Jon McDonald

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Jon McDonald is a technical marketing engineer for the design and creation business at Mentor Graphics.

Author's Latest Posts

The Fine Art Of Compromise
By Jon McDonald - 19 Dec, 2012 - Comments: 0

By Jon McDonald Ask 10 people a question and you might get 10 different answers. Ask 10 software engineers what they need in a hardware platform and you might get more than 10 different answers because each probably will have a list of needs for the platform to deliver. Getting them to agree on acceptable targets may not be as difficult as a budget compromise, but project failure is a more pe... » read more

Show Me
By Jon McDonald - 29 Nov, 2012 - Comments: 0

By Jon McDonald Many people—engineers especially, myself included—are naturally biased against change. To get an organization to change takes significant energy. This isn’t a new trend. Much of the sentiment of the camp against change can be summed up by referring back to an 1899 quote from Missouri Sen. Willard Vandiver: “… frothy eloquence neither convinces nor satisfies me. I am f... » read more

The Real Value Of Test
By Jon McDonald - 25 Oct, 2012 - Comments: 0

By Jon McDonald Sometimes one test is worth a thousand code reviews. Perhaps not a thousand, but it is a very significant number. Not that this is a new idea, but I’ve had a couple of experiences recently that reminded me how valuable a transaction-level simulation model is as an executable specification. In one case we were reviewing aspects of a potential design change, trying to decide... » read more

Choosing The Right Kite
By Jon McDonald - 27 Sep, 2012 - Comments: 0

By Jon McDonald At my 16-year-old son’s suggestion the two of us have been taking kite-surfing lessons. Last weekend part of the lesson covered the different kinds of kites, how they compare and reasons to use one versus another. One of the points made by the instructor was the need to have different kites for different conditions. It’s such a simple concept, but one that was forgotten ... » read more

Designing In The Rain
By Jon McDonald - 23 Aug, 2012 - Comments: 0

By Jon McDonald Recently I was running some errands on my motorcycle when I got caught in the rain. Living in Florida, this is a fairly common summer occurrence. Generally, as long as it’s not too much of a deluge, I can continue through to my destination and dry off when I arrive. I always get concerned looks from those going by in their enclosed vehicles—from some, “concerned” mig... » read more

Motorcycle Diaries
By Jon McDonald - 26 Jul, 2012 - Comments: 0

By Jon McDonald I recently had reason to add another vehicle to my household. My son is starting to drive, so he's taking my car. Instead of another car I decided to get a motorcycle. I have had a couple, but it's been a few years. After much browsing I decided on a Ducati, I picked it up a few weeks ago. It has an impressive number of user adjustable electronic controls, everything from AB... » read more

Merger In Progress
By Jon McDonald - 28 Jun, 2012 - Comments: 0

By Jon McDonald June's been an interesting month, I was at the Design Automation Conference, DAC, in San Francisco, then a week later, the Freescale Technology Forum, FTF. DAC is generally more of a hardware design conference, while FTF generally is a bit more focused on software and systems. This year I was surprised at the similarities in some of the discussions at both shows. At DAC ther... » read more

Getting Ahead Of Yourself
By Jon McDonald - 24 May, 2012 - Comments: 0

By Jon McDonald Recently we've been doing some minor remodeling in our house—nothing requiring major contractors. It’s mostly smaller things that unfortunately require a significant amount of personal involvement. Over the course of the past few weeks we've had a number of "projects" that we've started, then had to undo what was done because we were interfering with another area of work. M... » read more

Smarter Design Strategies
By Jon McDonald - 26 Apr, 2012 - Comments: 0

By Jon McDonald I had an interesting discussion with a customer recently. They were involved in the architectural specification of a fairly complex piece of silicon. They spent a significant amount of time designing the part to work under worst-case power characteristics and defining the power supply requirements for the device in this worst-case use mode. The conversation started with the ... » read more

Cycle-Accurate Models?
By Jon McDonald - 22 Mar, 2012 - Comments: 0

By Jon McDonald I was sitting in a meeting this week and someone made the statement, “I have to have a cycle-accurate model.” This was a meeting discussing early delivery of system models for software development, performance and power analysis. The final RTL didn't even exist for the device in question, yet somehow the thinking was that a “cycle-accurate” model was required. I hear th... » read more

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