category: A System Perspective

category: IoT, Security & Automotive

The Ever-Growing System Challenge
By Jon McDonald - 10 Dec, 2010 - Comments: 0

It used to be easy to define a system. It was an ASIC, an ASSP or even an SoC. Increasingly, however, that definition isn’t nearly broad enough. With power issues now spreading across an entire device and software being used to manage everything from embedded applications to board-level functionality, the system is now much bigger than a single chip or even a system in package. It now enc... » read more

Out Of Context
By Jon McDonald - 18 Nov, 2010 - Comments: 0

By Jon McDonald A rose by any other name is still a rose. I have had the opportunity to speak with a number of different groups recently, covering everyone from systems engineers focused on specifications and documentation to software teams, architects and implementation groups. Each group has their own unique language, their own unique way of communication. Some of the most entertaining co... » read more

ESL’s Effect On What Engineers Assume
By Jon McDonald - 21 Oct, 2010 - Comments: 0

By Jon McDonald I’m on a cruise this week. I’m spending some time thinking about things other than work, but from time to time even normal life does have an impact on esoterically engineering concepts. As the cruise has visited a number of different ports my wife and I have made many assumptions—assumptions about what we both want to do in port, assumptions about what will be availabl... » read more

How Is ESL Like an Elephant?
By Jon McDonald - 23 Sep, 2010 - Comments: 0

By Jon McDonald Recently I have been involved in a number of activities with customers, bringing together their hardware, software, algorithm, and systems engineers to understand how to improve their processes using ESL capabilities. This included inviting experts from the various EDA technology areas to explore the best approaches for applying the full range of ESL capabilities to specific cu... » read more

The Tide Is Turning
By Jon McDonald - 24 Jun, 2010 - Comments: 0

By Jon McDonald I was at DAC last week. Over the course of the week I had a chance to talk with a significant number of customers and others in the industry. As has been the case the past few years there was good interest in system-level design. But from my perspective the tone of the discussions experienced a major shift this year. In the past, much of the discussion was around “why—wh... » read more

How Good Is Good Enough?
By Jon McDonald - 27 May, 2010 - Comments: 0

By Jon McDonald I’ve heard a few comments recently questioning how good is good enough. How good does a device have to be before it’s above questioning its capabilities? When designing some new whiz-bang device how do we know when we can stop? I think most engineers will agree there is always room for improvement. There are additional optimizations, refinements or alternative approaches... » read more

Why Your iPhone Battery Doesn’t Last
By Jon McDonald - 22 Apr, 2010 - Comments: 0

By Jon McDonald The other day a friend asked about the battery life on my iPhone. I love the phone by the way; he was disappointed with how often he had to recharge his. I responded with the one thing I had tried—turn off the Bluetooth. With that one change I have been pretty happy with the time between charges. His question got me thinking about the battery life of the phone, and I start... » read more

Insurance, Doctors And ESL
By Jon McDonald - 25 Mar, 2010 - Comments: 0

By Jon McDonald Return on investment is a subject that comes up frequently when people are thinking about adopting higher-level design approaches. After all, we are talking about adding work—we need to model, design, simulate and analyze the system. All of these tasks take time and cost money. So what are we getting in return? Before we can think about the return, we have to identify wha... » read more

Irrational Exuberance Meets High-Level Design
By Jon McDonald - 25 Feb, 2010 - Comments: 0

By Jon McDonald Irrational exuberance is running rampant. Design managers believe all their systems engineers and software programmers are going to be able to drive the hardware design process from a high-level description. OK, perhaps irrational exuberance is a bit strong and it may not be quite rampant, but I’ve heard statements recently both from customers and suppliers pushing in th... » read more

Carpentry Lessons Applied To ESL
By Jon McDonald - 28 Jan, 2010 - Comments: 0

By Jon McDonald Electronic system level design and analysis. How many tools fall under this general description? How many languages are applied in the various stages of system design and analysis? I was recently preparing for a customer presentation in which we were covering most of Mentor’s tools in this area—not all of Mentor’s tools, but a subset of the tools related to the syste... » read more

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