Software Controlled Modular FPGA


Flex Logix has developed embedded FPGA IP (EFLX® embedded FPGA or eFPGA) that has been licensed for use in many commercial, aerospace and defense programs. It has also developed an edge inferencing accelerator, InferX® to efficiently process AI edge inferencing workloads requiring high throughput for the least power and area. This paper describes managing and dynamically programming eFPGA des... » read more

A RISC-V in-network accelerator for flexible high-performance low-power packet processing


Find the technical paper link here. Abstract "The capacity of offloading data and control tasks to the network is becoming increasingly important, especially if we consider the faster growth of network speed when compared to CPU frequencies. In-network compute alleviates the host CPU load by running tasks directly in the network, enabling additional computation/communication overlap and pot... » read more

Firmware Skills Shortage


Good hardware without good software is a waste of silicon, but with so many new processors and accelerator architectures being created, and so many new skills required, companies are finding it hard to hire enough engineers with low-level software expertise to satisfy the demand. Writing compilers, mappers and optimization software does not have the same level of pizazz as developing new AI ... » read more

Using FPGAs For AI


Artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning (ML) are progressing at a rate that is outstripping Moore's Law. In fact, they now are evolving faster than silicon can be designed. The industry is looking at all possibilities to provide devices that have the necessary accuracy and performance, as well as a power budget that can be sustained. FPGAs are promising, but they also have some sig... » read more

The Real Value In Customizing Instructions


One element that distinguishes devices for the emerging IoT market from the mobile devices of the mature handheld market is power. Specifically, while the latter can accept a battery recharge cycle of days, the former demands years between battery recharge/replacement. Where the two devices resemble one another is their need for high performance. While embedded CPU cores have concentrated o... » read more

Everyone Is A Programmer


There was a time when so many people didn’t know how to program their VCRs that OEMs stopped adding clocks because it was embarrassing to have them constantly blinking “12:00.” We’ve come a long way since VCRs. And that means all of us. While engineers have always enjoyed tinkering with technology, what’s changed is that everyone tinkers with technology now. Everyone programs phone... » read more

Blog Review: April 9


Mentor’s Colin Walls discovered an interesting video of the software programming learning process—a teacher responding literally to commands from his students on how to make a jam sandwich. It’s harder than it looks. Cadence’s Brian Fuller captures a speech by his colleague, Sanjiv Taneja, about the need for a comprehensive verification approach and smart IP reuse. The overriding th... » read more

System Bits: March 25


A robot that is a toy at heart Two University of Cambridge alumnus have developed a small robot to help children learn programming and robotics while they play.   [caption id="attachment_11073" align="alignnone" width="300"] (Source: Robotiky.com)[/caption] Under the guise of Robotiky, and within two months of their initial idea, they secured seed funding for a prototype robot, w... » read more

Communicate, eXecute And Translate, Oh My!


This paper describes a model-driven development approach that leverages modeling efforts to validate functionality and transform high level models into forms that are useful at the next development step. It includes an example of one company's motivations for adopting such an approach, the methodology they adopted, and the value they found in using an MDD flow. To download this white paper,... » read more