The intrepid EE Journal team is back (and taking no prisoners) at this year’s Design Automation Conference in Las Vegas, Nevada. First up, we chat with the DAC Monday keynote speaker Galen Hunt (Microsoft - Distinguished Engineer and Managing Director, Microsoft Azure Sphere). Galen and I chat about the seven properties of secure devices and why he thinks IOT isn’t a technology revolution. Next up, we discuss the inclusion of The Design Infrastructure Alley with Derek Magill (HPC Pros) and IP license management with Oren Gabay (OpenLM). To finish things up, I award my annual giveaway, best booth and best expo show floor espresso.  

“The road to success is paved with the hot asphalt of failure.” ― Craig D. Lounsbrough

In this week’s episode of Fish Fry, we take an in-depth look at the complex reliability issues present in today’s automotive designs.  Hany Elhak (Cadence Design Systems) and I chat about the role that mixed-signal chips play in the automotive ecosystem, the reality of defect analysis in the world of analog design today, and why transistor degradation it is even more important now than ever before. Also this week, we check out the details of three new automotive-based design contests rolled out by Ennomotive and Grupo Antolin.

Sometimes we have to find a way around our design challenges. Sometimes finding the equilibrium between our design legacy and the futuristic stuff we want to do is harder than we we expected. In this week’s episode of Fish Fry, Nigel Forrester (Concurrent Technologies) joins us to discuss the ongoing security challenges in the world of embedded computing and how we can balance the past with the present and the future. Also this week, we check an amazing new discovery out of the University of Arizona that challenges some of our prevalent theories about how dying stars seed the universe.

In general, we like light hearted stories on Fish Fry. We like “smart” forks that tell us when we should stop eating. We enjoy 3D printing robots that make pancakes with the faces of famous people. All of that is fine and dandy but sometimes, we have to talk about more serious stuff. Today we are talking about when safety and security is mandatory, when failure is life or death, and when finding bugs doesn’t just mean your job is on the line. In this week’s episode, Quentin Ochem (AdaCore) I are chat about what the SPARK language can do that C cannot and the software development and verification challenges inherent in safety-critical applications. Also this week, we check out the details of a new matchbox-sized radar system coming out of VTT Technical Research Center of Finland and KAUST (King Abdullah University of Science and Industry).

In this week’s episode of Fish Fry, Scott Engle (Mercury Systems) and I investigate the coexistence of safety and security in world of avionics and why the key to security in aviation may be tied to the reclassification of security-related failures. Keeping with our aviation theme, we also take a closer look at how FORDISC (a windows-based interactive software program) may have just solved the mysterious disappearance of Amelia Earhart once and for all.

Multicore processing takes center stage in this week’s episode of Fish Fry. Richard Jaenicke (Green Hills Software) and I discuss the challenges of multicore processing in avionics applications and how we can address multiple layers of safety certification on a software level. We also chat about the power of testing in avionics and and why you can’t mitigate multicore interference at the application level. Also this week, we investigate the details of Lockheed Martin’s new research project called “Self-Assembly of Nanostructures for Tunable Materials.”

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Links for March 1, 2019

More information about Green Hills Software

Lockheed Martin Is Reprogramming Cells To Bioproduce New Materials - $10 Million Army Research Contract Advances Precision Biodesign

New Episode of Chalk Talk: Powering the Future: Always Aware SIMO PMICs

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Fish Fry Executive Interviews

Anupam Bakshi, CEO – Agnisys

Dave Kleidermacher, CTO – Green Hills Software

Robert Blake, CEO – Achronix

Jack Harding, CEO – eSilicon

Michiel Ligthart, COO – Verific

Adnan Hamid, CEO – Breker Technologies

Simon Davidmann, CEO – Imperas

Ted Miracco, CEO – SmartFlow Compliance Solutions

Jessica Gomez – Rogue Valley Microdevices

Shishpal Rawat, Chairman – Accellera Systems Initiative

Kevin Bromber, CEO – myDevices

Daniel Hansson, CEO – Verifyter

Mark Papermaster, CTO – AMD

David Fried, CTO – Coventor

Dr. Steven LeBoeuf, President – Valencell

David Dutton, CEO – Silvaco

Bob Niemiec, CEO – TwistThink

Allan Martinson, COO – Starship Technologies

Zhihong Liu, Chairman and CEO – ProPlus Solutions

Taher Madraswala, CEO and President – Open-Silicon

Kapil Shankar, CEO and Director – AnDAPT

Dan Fox, CTO – Local Motors

Speech recognition is becoming more and more critical in IoT designs these days. In this week’s episode of Fish Fry, Gerard Andrews (Cadence Design Systems) and I are talking about the trends in voice control user interfaces, the advantages of locally-enabled speech recognition, and the differences between neural network processing for audio and imaging applications. Also this week, we celebrate Valentine’s Day with a special selection of neural network-created candy heart slogans and pick up lines.

In this week’s episode of Fish Fry, we dive head first into the multi-dimensional world of portable stimulus. Tom Fitzpatrick (Mentor) and I discuss the details of the portable stimulus (and how it can improve verification from the ground up), the differences between vertical, horizontal and technique reuse, and why Mentor has pushed Accellera to standardize the Portable Test and Stimulus Standard. 

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Links for January 25, 2019

More information about Portable Stimulus Testbench Automation Solution

More information about Portable Test and Stimulus (Verification Academy) 

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Fish Fry Executive Interviews

Anupam Bakshi, CEO – Agnisys

Dave Kleidermacher, CTO – Green Hills Software

Robert Blake, CEO – Achronix

Jack Harding, CEO – eSilicon

Michiel Ligthart, COO – Verific

Adnan Hamid, CEO – Breker Technologies

Simon Davidmann, CEO – Imperas

Ted Miracco, CEO – SmartFlow Compliance Solutions

Jessica Gomez – Rogue Valley Microdevices

Shishpal Rawat, Chairman – Accellera Systems Initiative

Kevin Bromber, CEO – myDevices

Daniel Hansson, CEO – Verifyter

Mark Papermaster, CTO – AMD

David Fried, CTO – Coventor

Dr. Steven LeBoeuf, President – Valencell

David Dutton, CEO – Silvaco

Bob Niemiec, CEO – TwistThink

Allan Martinson, COO – Starship Technologies

Zhihong Liu, Chairman and CEO – ProPlus Solutions

Taher Madraswala, CEO and President – Open-Silicon

Kapil Shankar, CEO and Director – AnDAPT

Dan Fox, CTO – Local Motors

It takes 8,460 bolts to assemble an automobile, and one nut to scatter it all over the road.
- Author Unknown

Hello, my name is Amelia and I have read at least four hundred press releases about automotive design this week. It seems that this year's Consumer Electronics Show has been taken over by automotive design. But behind the pomp and sparkle of CES lies the important stuff - the software that keeps us safe and secure. In this week's episode of Fish Fry, my first guest Jim McElroy (LDRA) and I chat about security vulnerability prevention, automotive coding standards, and the power of verification automation. Bill Lamie (Express Logic) also joins us to discuss challenges of standard compliance in the IoT space and how Express Logic’s X-Ware IoT platform can help your next IoT design security from the RTOS on up.

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Links for January 11, 2019

More information about LDRA

More information about Express Logic

New Episode of Chalk Talk: ST-Teseo LIV3F GNSS Module for IoT Positioning

Fish Fry Executive Interviews

Anupam Bakshi, CEO – Agnisys

Dave Kleidermacher, CTO – Green Hills Software

Robert Blake, CEO – Achronix

Jack Harding, CEO – eSilicon

Michiel Ligthart, COO – Verific

Adnan Hamid, CEO – Breker Technologies

Simon Davidmann, CEO – Imperas

Ted Miracco, CEO – SmartFlow Compliance Solutions

Jessica Gomez – Rogue Valley Microdevices

Shishpal Rawat, Chairman – Accellera Systems Initiative

Kevin Bromber, CEO – myDevices

Daniel Hansson, CEO – Verifyter

Mark Papermaster, CTO – AMD

David Fried, CTO – Coventor

Dr. Steven LeBoeuf, President – Valencell

David Dutton, CEO – Silvaco

Bob Niemiec, CEO – TwistThink

Allan Martinson, COO – Starship Technologies

Zhihong Liu, Chairman and CEO – ProPlus Solutions

Taher Madraswala, CEO and President – Open-Silicon

Kapil Shankar, CEO and Director – AnDAPT

Dan Fox, CTO – Local Motors