The Week In Review: Design


Synopsys inked a deal to acquire Coverity, a San Francisco-based security startup that builds tools to test source code for defects and security risks, for $375 million. The purchase price is $350 million plus another $25 million in debt. The deal is expected to close in Synopsys’ fiscal Q2. The company announced its financial results for fiscal Q1 ended Jan. 31, as well. Revenue was $479.0 m... » read more

Blog Review: Feb. 19


Adding a GUI to an RTOS? It may sound counterintuitive, but Mentor’s Colin Walls looks at why and where they’re being used. Cadence’s Richard Goering infuses some humor into signal integrity, which could definitely use it, courtesy of Eric Bogatin and Henny Youngman. When was the last time you saw a signal integrity engineer rolling on the floor in hysterical laughter? Well, there’s ... » read more

System Bits: Feb. 18


Is my iPad making me sick? If you’ve ever felt sick or queasy after using a mobile device for an extended period of time, researchers from the University of Minnesota, believe they know why. In a recent study, participants played video games on iPads - under controlled, experimental conditions - and experienced motion sickness almost a third of the time. The risk of motion sickness was fo... » read more

The Week In Review: System-Level Design


Cadence bought TranSwitch’s high-speed interface IP assets. TranSwitch, which made chips for communications equipment, filed for bankruptcy in November. (The company’s Web site is no longer active.) Cadence also won a deal with Microsoft, which will use Tensilica processors in the new Xbox One audio subsystem. And Cadence rolled out HiFi Audio Tunneling for Android, which takes advantage of... » read more

Blog Review: Feb. 12


Mentor’s Colin Walls adds his perspective to a recent survey by Jim Turley, asking which part of the embedded system development process engineers would rather not change. The choices were the chip, the OS and the tools. Any guesses as to the winner? Cadence’s Richard Goering conducts an interview based on a new branch of circular logic—the CERN supercollider where the Higgs Boson was... » read more

System Bits: Feb. 11


Ballistic transport in graphene Using electrons more like photons could provide the foundation for a new type of electronic device that would capitalize on the ability of graphene to carry electrons with almost no resistance even at room temperature in a process known as ballistic transport, according to researchers at Georgia Tech. Ballistic transport is the process by which electrical res... » read more

Week In Review: System-Level Design


Cadence agreed to buy Forte Design Systems for an undisclosed sum, adding further proof that the market for high-level synthesis and tools that run at higher levels of abstraction is finally hitting its stride. Behind this acquisition is a rising pain level due to increasing complexity in SoCs—IP integration, low power concerns and much more of everything, from transistors to memories—has f... » read more

Cadence To Buy Forte


Cadence agreed to buy Forte Design Systems for an undisclosed sum, enhancing its footprint in the high-level synthesis market as higher levels of abstraction gain traction across the SoC world. For the better part of a decade high-level synthesis (HLS) has been a market opportunity that was just around the next bend, along with electronic system-level design and SystemC modeling. Mentor Grap... » read more

Blog Review: Feb. 5


Mentor’s J. VanDomelen notes that the Mars colonization selection process has begun, with the actual colonization scheduled to begin in 2025. Remember to bring your own air, water, food, a sewing kit, and lots of reading material. You also may need leg weights for bone density maintenance. What happens if you build a processor using memory as the starting point? Cadence’s Richard Goerin... » read more

System Bits: Feb. 4


Speeding Access To Information Big data today is usually stored on multiple hard disks on a number of machines across an Ethernet network, but this storage architecture considerably increases the time it takes to access the information. Researchers at MIT have developed a storage system for big-data analytics they claim can dramatically reduce the time it takes to access information. The sy... » read more

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