category: A System Perspective

category: IoT, Security & Automotive

More Intelligent Verification
By Jon McDonald - 22 Sep, 2011 - Comments: 0

By Jon McDonald If I have flipped a coin 1,000 times and it's come up heads every time what are the odds that I will get another head on the next flip? The odds on the next flip are still 50/50. The fact that I observe a uniquely unlikely situation has no impact on my current probability, and frankly any sequence of prior results would be equally unlikely. I find some of the same thinking appl... » read more

Which Came First?
By Jon McDonald - 25 Aug, 2011 - Comments: 0

By Jon McDonald Which came first the chicken or the egg? Based on some of my recent discussions I could ask the question in a slightly different way: “Which came first, the hardware or the software?” Depending on your point of view and personal bias the answer may appear obvious, but from what I've seen it can be very dependent on your current engineering situation. Adopting one perspectiv... » read more

Start The Revolution
By Jon McDonald - 28 Jul, 2011 - Comments: 0

By Jon McDonald “Know thyself.” That advice is promoted in so many different forms it's hard to know where it started. I have been involved in a number of projects recently in which these words would have greatly simplified the project flow. “Simplified” is probably not quite the right word. The issue in this case is not to simplify the project, but to properly understand, characterize... » read more

Management Buys Into ESL
By Jon McDonald - 30 Jun, 2011 - Comments: 0

By Jon McDonald Over the past few weeks I've spent a significant amount of time at industry shows, the largest of which is DAC. It was interesting to hear the tone of the conversations this year around ESL. ESL has reached a level of acceptance such that it is now being co-opted and interpreted to cover an amazing array of activities. I have felt for a while that the electronic design indus... » read more

ESL And FPGAs
By Jon McDonald - 26 May, 2011 - Comments: 0

By Jon McDonald I've been struggling to come up with a good way of answering a recent question: "Do ESL approaches provide benefits for FPGA design?" I have an initial gut answer that's somewhat unsatisfactory. Thinking through the subject I can see ways of looking at the question and getting both a “yes” and a “no,” but that's probably an indication my thinking is not yet clear enough... » read more

$23 For A Deli Sandwich?
By Jon McDonald - 28 Apr, 2011 - Comments: 0

By Jon McDonald I have talked to a number of people recently about the justification for investing in an ESL methodology. “What’s the ROI?” is a question I hear fairly often. I’m currently on vacation in New York City with my family, and during the trip I’ve realized just how subjective ROI can be. What’s the ROI on a $23 deli sandwich? At home I’d never think about paying tha... » read more

Applying Rules Differently
By Jon McDonald - 31 Mar, 2011 - Comments: 0

By Jon McDonald Over the past few months I’ve worked with a number of customers on new designs. Thinking about how these designs were evolving in the various organizations led me to an interesting epiphany related to the application of Gall’s Law to system design. Gall's Law is a rule of thumb from John Gall's Systemantics: How Systems Really Work and How They Fail: “A complex system ... » read more

The Missing Link
By Jon McDonald - 23 Feb, 2011 - Comments: 0

By Jon McDonald When something comes up once it may be an anomaly, but when the same thing comes up multiple times in a short period of time there's a good chance it is a more general trend. At Mentor we have tools focused on Systems Engineering and UML/SysML, as well as SystemC ESL/TLM focused tools. We have invested effort in integrating the tool flows, but I had not seen significant driv... » read more

Models, Models, Models…
By Jon McDonald - 27 Jan, 2011 - Comments: 0

By Jon McDonald It's all about the models. Sometimes I get the feeling that progress is blazing along. Everyone I talk to is interested in ESL design. The value of the capabilities and possibility of dramatic impact on the design process is monumental. It's kind of like having an amazing sports car that will blow everything off the track but you are stuck on an island with no track and no way ... » read more

Why Is My Simulation So Slow?
By Jon McDonald - 16 Dec, 2010 - Comments: 0

By Jon McDonald I am amazed how often simulation performance comes up when discussing SystemC and transaction-level modeling. Some of this I can understand. If you are new to transaction-level modeling the implications can take a while to get a handle on. Fundamentally it is difficult to justify the investment in TLM if the models are not significantly simpler to write and significantly fas... » read more

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