EEWeb Pulse - Volume 54

EEWeb

PULSE

EEWeb.com

Issue 54 July 10, 2012

Joe Grand Grand Idea Studio, Inc.

Electrical Engineering Community

TA B L E O F C O N T E N T S TABLE OF CONTENTS

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Joe Grand GRAND IDEA STUDIO, INC. Interview with Joe Grand - President and Founder

Featured Products

10

Optimizing Your Next Temperature Measurement Configuration - Part I

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BY ROBERT GREEN WITH KEITHLEY An overview of sensor and instrumentation options for system builders and key considerations for choosing the optimal sensors for greater reliability.

15

Chip Designing and the Cloud

BY MEENU SARIN WITH VLSI CONSULTANCY

How the chip design community can benefit from identifying its major challenges and by embracing cloud computing.

RTZ - Return to Zero Comic

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INTERVIEW FEATURED INTERVIEW

JOE

GRAND Grand Idea Studio Inc.

How did you get into engineering and when did you start?

I got involved with computers and electronics when I was seven years old. The technology world was much different in 1982 and if you had a home computer, you were very fortunate. My first system was an Atari 400 computer, Atari 810 floppy disk drive, and Atari 830 acoustic coupler modem.

Joe Grand- Founder

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My brother, who is six years older than me, was also interested in computers and electronics at the time. He would repair audio equipment, build telephone and computer gadgets, and disassemble broken electronics to scavenge them for parts. He had a cabinet that served as a junk bin for components and broken boards.

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INTERVIEW

I was thirteen years old when I hand-etched my first circuit board to make a “Ring-Busy Device.” The device was simply a resistor across the tip and ring of the telephone line and had an RJ-11 plug for easy insertion/removal. It would make the telephone switch at the central office believe that your phone was off-hook (thus, providing a busy signal to any incoming caller), but would still allow you to make outgoing calls.

Right from the start, I had a strong emotional attachment to all things electronic. While my friends wanted to be firefighters or doctors, I wanted to be an engineer. I wore this proudly on my sleeve, which didn’t help my ranking in the social hierarchy of elementary school!

Can you tell us about Grand Idea Studio?

Grand Idea Studio is a product design, development, and licensing firm specializing in consumer/ household devices and modules for electronics hobbyists.

I started the company in 2002 after leaving a computer security consultancy that I helped create.

I had become disillusioned with corporate culture and needed a new environment where I could focus on what I loved to do.

The majority of work comes from ideas developed in-house.

Sometimes, I’ll work on a contract basis for outside sources provided the concept is interesting enough.

What are you currently working on?

I’m currently working on three new projects, but none are ready to be publicly disclosed.

My most recent completed hobbyist module is a low-cost Laser Range Finder. The device, which is completely open source, uses a Parallax Propeller processor, OmniVision OVM7690 640x480 CMOS CameraCube, and Arima 635nm APC Laser Diode. Distance to a targeted object is calculated by optical triangulation using trigonometry between the centroid of laser light, camera, and object.

The theory and operation are simple, but designing the system was a challenge, particularly because I had no prior experience with computer vision and image processing.

On the consumer side, I recently completed the Field Monitor Pro, one of the first portable USB monitors. This product features a swiveling 15.4” 1280x800 LCD and two USB 2.0 ports for external peripherals. The PCB is a six-layer design containing USB, DDR, and high-speed video buses with specific impedance control and length-matched bus requirements.

What are some of your favorite engineering tools?

I can’t go a day without using my Agilent DSO7054A 500MHz, 4-channel digital storage oscilloscope. Since I work a lot with embedded systems and digital communications, I rely heavily on its serial decoding functionality and advanced triggering. My Fluke 287 multimeter and HP E3630A triple

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output DC power supply are also constant companions.

Grand Idea Studio is a product design, development, and licensing firm specializing in consumer/household devices and modules for electronics hobbyists.

At my workbench, I use a Metcal MX-500P soldering station and Vision Engineering Mantis compact stereo inspection microscope. For rework and parts scavenging, I enjoy Chip Quik’s SMD removal alloy.

My T-Tech Quick Circuit 5000 PCB prototyping system has also gotten a lot of use lately. It’s a great way to quickly make prototype boards without the hazards and annoyances of chemical etching. The (relatively) instant gratification means I can have a PCB done in a few hours or less instead of having to wait a few days for professional fabrication. As a bonus, it’s fun to watch as it drills and routes.

For schematic capture and PCB layout, I use Altium Designer. My first production design was created with Protel EasyTrax in DOS and I’ve followed the progression of the tool since then.

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When I did chores for him, like doing his laundry or cleaning his room, he’d let me pick something from the cabinet.

INTERVIEW

I looked up to the other guys in the group. All were at least six years older and became my mentors (whether they knew it or not) for nearly the next decade. They helped me to focus my energy on projects that would have positive impacts for other people. They also helped reinforce the hacker mindset - that is, not being afraid to try unconventional solutions to problems, pushing the limits of technology, and dedication to learning through constant experimentation.

Can you tell us about any work experiences prior to starting Grand Idea Studio?

My most relevant and memorable engineering experience was when I at Continuum (formerly Design Continuum), a design and innovation consultancy based in West Newton, Massachusetts. I had worked on and

off at the company during college and took a full-time engineering position in 1998. I was only one of two electrical engineers and we worked very closely with industrial designers, mechanical engineers, manufacturers, and clients to create innovative new products. It was during this time that I learned about production manufacturing processes and sharpened my skills as an embedded systems designer.

The best engineers are ones where engineering is a way of life. If you are passionate about what you do, then work will feel like play and you’ll be excited for what each new day will bring.

Some key projects I contributed to were the A.T. Cross iPen (an early digital writing tablet) and the FluidSense FS-01 portable infusion pump (voted one of the best inventions of 2000 by Time Magazine).

The experiences gained at Continuum continue to reflect on my daily life as an engineer.

What was it like being co-host of Prototype This?

Prototype This was a short-lived engineering entertainment show

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that followed the real-life design process of a unique prototype each episode. Although we only filmed for one season (comprising 13 episodes), the show gained a “cult” status of sorts among engineers and makers. It aired on the Discovery Channel in the US in late 2008, but is now airing elsewhere throughout the world.

To be clear, I’m an engineer to the core and I never had any intention of being in front of a camera as part of my job. But, the opportunity to show off engineering to the world in a way that was fun, entertaining, and somewhat educational seemed too good to pass up. Producing the show turned out to be a difficult and frustrating process, as we not only had to be on-screen television hosts trying to convey complex, technical builds in a way that most viewers would understand, but we also had to actually engineer, design, build, and test the prototypes. We ended up building ridiculously crazy contraptions like a mind-controlled car, a truck that could elevate itself over other traffic and move in any direction, giant, ten-foot boxing robots, a computer-controlled water slide simulator, and hightech fire fighting gear. All of the documentation for my contributions to the builds, including schematics, source code, and development notes, are available here.

The best thing about the entire experience was how the show continues to inspire viewers to become engineers. Nearly every day I receive e-mails from viewers asking for details about a particular build or what it takes to become an engineer.

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FEATURED INTERVIEW

What have been some of your influences?

In the early 1990s, when I was still a teenager, I joined a group called L0pht Heavy Industries (pronounced “loft” and spelled ell-zero-ph-t). The L0pht was a clubhouse for some Boston-area hackers that had met on local bulletin board systems. It started as a place to store computer equipment, tinker with technology, and hang out, but ended up as seven close-knit friends changing the face of computer security vulnerability research and disclosure (we would discover security flaws in software applications and hardware products and challenge the vendors to not only acknowledge the problems, but to fix them - a feat practically unheard of at the time).

INTERVIEW

For five years (2006 to 2010) I had the honor of designing the badges, which were artistic, fully functional electronic devices. Each year I tried to push the limits of what could be done for a conference badge while staying within budget (around $10 per badge in 10K quantity) and creating something that scrutinizing hackers would enjoy, appreciate, play with, and modify. I believe we were the first large scale event to provide electronic badges to attendees.

Do you have any proud moments in engineering?

In April 2010 I received an Honorary Degree of Doctor of Science in Technology from the University of Advancing Technology in Tempe, Arizona. The school provides a technology-focused environment with dedicated teachers and curriculum related to robotics, video game programming, and digital art.

I had visited their campus a number of times to present at their Tech Forum events and was impressed with the energy and skills of the students.

Being selected to receive the honorary degree was a surprise and, well, an honor. It was a highlight of my career to give the Commencement Address and I hope it helped to inspire our next generation of technologists!

What has been your favorite project?

I’m particularly fond of my work on the DEFCON badges. Held every summer, DEFCON is the largest and oldest continuously running hacker event of its kind. It’s a mix of good guys, bad guys, government

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The various badge designs have blinked patterns of LEDs, allowed you to create your own custom scrolling text messages, turned off your television, transferred files from a SecureDigital card over infrared, pulsed to music using Fast Fourier transforms, and provided USB functionality for computer control. They have incorporated technologies like capacitive touch sensors, RGB LEDs, MEMs-based microphones, “zero power” cholesteric LCDs, and microcontrollers ranging in size from tiny 6-pin devices to powerful 64-pin behemoths.

Design, development, and managing the production build of the badges took significant time, effort, and years off my life.

The badges absolutely had to be delivered by the beginning of the conference and there were quite a few close calls (usually caused by supply chain or Customs issues).

It was also a great opportunity for me to experiment with interesting

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FEATURED INTERVIEW

officials, and everyone in between, all having fun, sharing information, seeing old friends, and learning new things.

INTERVIEW

Full details about the badges, along with schematics, source code, pictures, attendee hacks, and related articles, can be found http://www.grandideastudio.com/ portfolio/defcon-x-badge/ (replace x in the link with = 14, 15, 16, 17, or 18).

I frequently design with, like Freescale (HCS08, ColdFire, DSC), Microchip PIC (10F, 12F, and 16F), and Parallax Propeller. It also holds a growing stack of books to be read, including If I Only Changed the Software, Why Is the Phone on Fire? (Simone), Racing the Beam (Montfort and Bogost), Ghost in the Wires (Mitnick), Far and Away (Peart), and The Adolescence of P-1 (Ryan).

What is on your bookshelf?

I may be one of a dying breed, but I still have a real bookshelf with real engineering materials in it!

I have another bookshelf in my lab used to hold various shaped and sized boxes containing many of my day-to-day components like microcontrollers, sensors, LCDs, wireless modules, enclosures, reference boards, and embedded development hardware.

Some items I’ve been using recently include the series of Engineer’s Mini-Notebooks (Mims), Handbook of Modern Sensors (Fraden), and the 2011 Digi-Key catalog (the final paper printing). My bookshelf also contains rows of reference manuals and data sheets for microcontrollers and components

What are some of your hobbies?

As a break from designing electronics, I design electronics. I have a backlog of projects that I like to hack on to give my mind a rest from heavily focused engineering.

“Working” on these non-essential projects is a great way to learn new

tricks that may come in handy for my more serious endeavors.

I’m also a competitive runner and proud daddy of two boys. They help me stay balanced and force me to escape the comfort of my lab every so often.

What advice would you give to new students looking to get into the engineering world?

Explore, question, experiment.

Open up products to see how they were designed. Seek out solutions to problems on your own instead of asking somebody else. Get real world, hands on experience. And, don’t be afraid to fail, as failure is the best way to learn.

The best engineers are ones where engineering is a way of life. If you are passionate about what you do, then work will feel like play and you’ll be excited for what each new day will bring. ■

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FEATURED INTERVIEW

PCB design and manufacturing techniques that I don’t normally use, like extremely complicated mechanical outlines, multiple layers of custom soldermask colors, and laser etching onto single-sided aluminum substrate PCBs.

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The advanced 3x1Watt RGB MoonstoneTM package delivers typical 108 lumens at 350mA. The robust package design makes it an excellent choice for color mixing applications.

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tors the output voltage by looking at the AC-coupled ITH signal. If the inferred overshoot exceeds a user set value, the bottom FET turns off. This allows the inductor current to slew down at a faster rate, which in turn reduces the overshoot. Per Figure 4, a 32% reduction in the overshoot is realized on the 1.2V rail.

Greater improvements occur at lower output voltages.

F E AT U R E D P R O D U C T S

Dual Controller Provides 2μs Step Response

LTC3838

The LTC®3838 is a dual output, dual phase buck controller that employs a controlled constant on-time, valley current mode architecture to provide fast load step response, high switching frequency and low duty cycle capability. The switching frequency range is 200kHz to 2MHz— its phase-locked loop keeps the frequency constant during steadystate operation and can be synchronized to an external clock. For more information, please click here.

INTVCC ITH1 470pF

34.8k DTR1

47pF 38.3k

DN505 F04a

Figure 4a. Implementation of the Detect Transient Feature on the 1.2V Rail

Aerospace Logarithmic Detector Controller 90mV

The ADL5513 is a demodulating logarithmic amplifier, capable of accurately converting an RF input signal to a corresponding decibelIL 50A/DIV scaled output. It employs the progressive compression technique over a cascaded amplifier chain, each stage of which is equipped VO(AC) 119mV with a detector cell. The device can be used in either measurement or 100mV/DIV controller modes. The logarithmic slope is 21 mV/dB, determined by the ORIGINAL IL CIRCUIT 50A/DIV VSET interface. The intercept is -88 dBm (referred to 50 Ω, continuous wave input, 900 MHz) using the INHI input. These parameters are very 5μs/DIV stable against supply and temperature variations. For more information, Figure 4b. 100% to 20% Step Load Response of the please click here.

1.2V Rail with and without the Detect Transient Feature, VIN = 12V, FSW = 300kHz, Mode = FCM VO(AC) 100mV/DIV

WITH DTR

DN505 F04

For applications help, call (408) 432-1900, Ext. 3720

Capacitors for High Pulse Current Applications

International Rectifier, IR® introduced its third generation of integrated, feature-rich SupIRBuck® synchronous buck voltage regulators designed to address the new requirements of emerging energy efficient netcom, dn505f LT/AP 0812 196K • PRINTED IN THE USA server and storage applications. The new SupIRBuck single output devices feature a newly patented modulator scheme that generates the © LINEAR TECHNOLOGY CORPORATION 2012 industry’s smallest, jitter free pulse widths. The ability to generate narrow pulses coupled with robust source/sync current handling capability makes this family ideal for generating DDR memory termination voltage directly from 12Vin. For more information, please click here.

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FEATURED PRODUCTS

Miniature Overvoltage Clamp

Conclusion Diodes Incorporated has announced the introduction of an overvoltage The LTC3838 is a dual output buck controller idealclamp for for the protection of power management ICs (PMIC) in portable applications that require a fast load step response, high applications. Provided in the small form factor 1.1mm x 1.4mm x 0.8mm switching frequency, high efficiency and accurate output W-DFN1114-3 package, the AP9060 is suitable for the latest generation voltages. Other features include selectable operating battery-backed products including smart phones, tablets and ultra modes: forced continuous mode (FCM) for fixed mobile frePCs. The AP9060 overvoltage clamp is a cost-effective alternative quency operation or discontinuous mode (DCM)toforlarger and more complex combined overvoltage and overcurrent higher efficiency at light load, programmable current protection devices. For more information, please click here. limit thresholds, soft-start, rail tracking and individual PGOOD and RUN pins. The LTC3838 comes in a 5mm × 7mm QFN package or a thermally enhanced 38-lead TSSOP package.

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TECHNICAL ARTICLE TECHNICAL ARTICLE

Optimizing Your Next Temperature Measurement Configuration PART I Robert Green

Senior Market Development Manager

Reliable temperature measurements are essential to a wide range of test and measurement applications—from power supply burn-in to plant/ environment monitoring and control and thousands of others in between. In fact, temperature is the most commonly measured parameter. Many temperature measurement applications involve profiling the temperature of multiple devices under test (DUTs) simultaneously. Manufacturers often need to integrate systems with hundreds of channels to monitor temperatures at various points on heat-generating consumer products (ovens, stovetops, dryers, automobile seats, etc.), to monitor internal temperature rise in electrical devices, or to monitor the temperature rise in the components that go into the products.

Fortunately, today’s system builders have a variety of sensor and instrumentation options from which to choose when configuring a new temperature measurement application. The three most popular sensor types are thermocouples (T/Cs), resistance temperature detectors (RTDs), and thermistors. Addressing a few basic questions early in the system configuration process can EEWeb | Electrical Engineering Community

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TECHNICAL ARTICLE +

T

–

External ice bath for 0ºC reference Figure 1: A thermocouple setup showing the use of an ice bath as a 0° reference

• What is the range of temperatures to be measured?

• What level of temperature measurement accuracy does the application demand?

• How difficult will it be to replace a failed sensor?

• What types of instruments will be required to interface with the sensors? Although temperature sensors are compatible with many types of measurement instruments, digital multimeters (DMMs) are typically the most common choice for temperature applications and are often used in conjunction with switching hardware if the application in question requires monitoring the temperature at multiple points.

• What will the sensors encounter in their physical environment? In some cases, the operating environment may rule out a sensor that’s otherwise well suited for an application. For example, some RTDs are simply too fragile to withstand much shock or vibration.

When deciding which sensor to use, be aware that, broadly speaking, the thermocouple is the most versatile and useful for significant distances between the sensor and the instrument, the thermistor is the most sensitive (which means the thermistor’s resistance will change much more in response to temperature changes), the four-wire RTD is the most stable, and the three-wire RTD

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minimizes the number of conductors per sensor. Here’s an overview of the characteristics of the three most commonly used temperature sensors (Figure 2).

Subsequent blog posts will address each of these sensor types in greater detail and will describe the common causes of measurement error specific to each. I’ll also include tips on how to maximize the accuracy of a temperature measurement system or subsystem based on each type.

To learn more about how to build accurate and costeffective temperature monitoring systems, take a few minutes to view Keithley’s free online webinar, “Understanding Temperature Measurements,” available here.

Characteristic Thermocouples

Resistive Temperature Detectors

Thermistors

General

Broad Range; Moderate Accuracy

High accuracy and repeatability

High Resolution

Range

-268ºC to 2316ºC (-450ºF to 4200ºF)

-240ºC to 649ºC (-400ºF to 1200ºF)

-73ºC to 260ºC (-100ºF to 500ºF)

Accuracy

+ – 1ºC - 2ºC

+0.

– 1ºC - 0.2ºC

+0.

– 1ºC - 0.2ºC

Output Signal

Very Low V

Slight R change

Wide R change

Burn-in Aerospace

Typical Applications

Industrial

Laboratory Monitoring

Food Processing

Pharmaceuticals Automotive Food Processing

Several types, each with specific useful temperature range

Notes

Non-linear output Require cold junction compensation

Biological Applications Control Systems Measurement of environmental temps Consumer Devices

Relatively Fragile

Relatively Fragile

Non-linear ∆R vs ∆t

Non-linear ∆R vs ∆t

Require high resolution ohms measurement

Require high resolution ohms measurement

About the Author Robert Green is a Senior Market Development Manager at Keithley Instruments focusing on low level measurement applications. During his 20-year career at Keithley, Mr. Green has been involved in the definition and introduction of a wide range of products including picoammeters, electrometers, digital multimeters, and temperature measurement products. He received a B.S. in Electrical Engineering from Cornell University and an M. S. in Electrical Engineering from Washington University, St. Louis, Missouri. ■

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simplify sensor selection and help ensure greater system reliability:

Get the Datasheet and Order Samples http://www.intersil.com

Ultra-Low Lux, Low Power, Integrated Digital Ambient Light Sensor with Interrupt Function ISL29033

Features

The ISL29033 is an integrated ambient and infrared light to digital converter with I2C (SMBus Compatible) interface. Its advanced, self-calibrated photodiode array emulates human eye response with excellent IR rejection. The on-chip 16-bit ADC is capable of rejecting 50Hz and 60Hz flicker caused by artificial light sources. The lux range select feature allows users to program the lux range for optimized counts/lux.

Power consumption can be reduced to less than 0.3µA when powered down.

• Ambient Light Sensing

The ISL29033 supports a software and hardware interrupt that remains asserted until the host clears it through the I2C interface. The function of ADC conversion continues without stopping after interrupt is asserted.

• Light Sensor Close to Human Eye Response

• Simple Output Code Directly Proportional to Lux • Variable Conversion Resolution Up to 16 Bits • Adjustable Sensitivity Up to 520 Counts Per Lux • Measurement Range: 0.0019 to 8,000Lux with Four Selectable Ranges • Program Interrupt Feature - Excellent Light Sensor IR and UV Rejection • 75μA Max Operating Current - 0.3μA Max Shutdown Current

Designed to operate on supplies from 2.25V to 3.63V with an I2C supply from 1.7V to 3.63V, the ISL29033 is specified for operation over the -40°C to +85°C ambient temperature range.

• 6 Ld 2.0mmx2.1mmx0.7mm ODFN Package

Applications • Display and Keypad Dimming Adjustment for: - Mobile Devices: Smart Phone, PDA, GPS - Computing Devices: Notebook PC, Webpad - Consumer Devices: LCD-TV, Digital Picture Frame, Digital Camera • Industrial and Medical Light Sensing

Related Literature • See AN1422 “Light Sensor Applications”

VDD 1

COMMAND REGISTER

PHOTODIODE ARRAY

LIGHT DATA PROCESS

INTEGRATION ADC

DATA REGISTER I2C/SMBus

IREF

5 SCL 6 SDA

INTERRUPT REGISTER

fOSC

3

2

4

REXT

GND

INT

FIGURE 1. BLOCK DIAGRAM

September 30, 2011 FN7656.1

Intersil (and design) is a registered trademark of Intersil Americas Inc. Copyright Intersil Americas Inc.2011 All Rights Reserved. All other trademarks mentioned are the property of their respective owners.

TECHNICAL ARTICLE TECHNICAL ARTICLE

Meenu Sarin Director

Chip Designing

and the Cloud

O

ne way to look at how chip designing can leverage from cloud computing is to look at the main benefits of cloud computing and project the same onto IC design. Obvious ones here are on demand access to computing power and data storage in a scalable mode. It is a capex to opex biz model. Another way of looking at is to see what are the major challenges facing an IC designer and see how cloud computing can help. I personally find the second approach as one which if addressed properly will provide much compelling reasons for the chip design community to embrace the cloud; and optimally leverage from it.

Let’s look into the first one: Turn Around Time. Needless to say, this is one commodity, which as a customer requirement is shrinking, especially for chips in the consumer applications. The key entity here is the efficiency and effectiveness of the design flow. A point to clarify – by design flow, I am referring to the common design flow framework or the chip design methodology and not about the computing power and time (which are nevertheless are key and can be addressed by the cloud). This includes issues like design framework, EDA tools, integration and biz models, efficient and safe design data transfer across databases, etc.

I would not like to open Pandora’s Box and vent on the numerous challenges that IC designers face…it will provide enough content for a separate article! But generally speaking, amongst the various challenges an IC design engineer faces, a vital one is Design Methodology management, which includes two vital sub issues, (a) Accelerating Turn Around Time and (b) Verification challenges. Can the cloud address these?

The biggest challenge I see in a design framework for the cloud is the feasibility of a standardized generic flow or a common design methodology/platform. Do customers have the motivation to rearchitect their existing methodologies to take full advantage of cloud? Without such a flow, the cloud will provide a computing ground for jobs using multiple EDA tools. We would essentially leverage only on the computing power and storage from the cloud.

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What will provide value-addition to this power-storage combo is a seamless design flow platform for the chip designer. This may be a standardized flow or a generic one with flexibility to include changes based on user needs – a replica of what a designer does in a “cloudless” environment. The second challenge is the usage of multiple point tools (both from various EDA vendors as well as the in-house tools and scripts – something which experienced designers use quite a lot). Almost no one uses a single vendor flow nowadays. Let’s say we address this by multiple clouds, each cloud serving an EDA tool from a particular EDA vendor. This will involve movement of data across clouds in order to run multiple tools on the design database at various stages–giving rise to concerns on the huge data size and its security.

A likely solution to all this may be a unified GUI framework encompassing a generic seamless design flow with multiple point tools along with an easy way to integrate various tweaks into the flow. This requires collaboration across EDA vendors and therein lies the third challenge: how does one get the EDA vendors to co-operate under a unified and a commercially viable biz model? Add to it,

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the point that users are not likely to pay for the complete menu of a unified design flow with multiple tools from multiple vendors (or for that matter even single EDA vendors). They will pay only for the tools as and when they use them. Collaboration, licensing and viable biz models are key.

The next issue is verification. With verification taking almost 60-70% of the total design time and its growing importance, this has become a major contributor to sleepless nights for the IC designers. Verification concerns include handling of humungous data and with a highly iterative flow, requirement of high computing power as a sustainable expense on a need-be basis, scalability (different verification tasks require different hardware) a limitless on-demand compute time, high concurrent access and synchronization of databases, data integrity (need version control) and lastly, efficient handling of batch jobs as well as interactive jobs.

Apart from design methodology management, a couple of other stormy points in the chip design cloud path are cloud ownership and the security, data integrity and

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Let me clarify – I am not talking here about the infrastructure provider e.g. Amazon and the like. Rather, it is the cloud framework/database owner. The framework here includes components of the existing physical ecosystem integrated together – design database, EDA tools, user interface etc. – without which cloud computing will just service individual IC design tasks i.e. storage and processing power requirements; something which on its own is not exactly fully leveraging this powerful biz paradigm shift aka cloud computing.

So the question is – who will own the chip design cloud?

Will it be the foundries (also cited as “natural design aggregators”), the EDA vendors, the fabless design companies or yet another entity? The reply gleaned from most of the stormy discussions elsewhere in the nimbus zone gravitates towards foundry.

In summary, cloud computing in chip design will be a big paradigm shift and is poised to bring about tremendous benefits to the design eco-system. However for the design community to actively adopt it, the relevant stakeholders need to look into it in a holistic way and much beyond the scalable and economic computing power and data storage combo. And this may very well redefine the existing chip design methodology.

About the Author Ms Meenu Sarin is a microelectronics professional with a career spanning over 22 years and traversing across

all aspects of the Semi-custom Business including Library Design & management, Program Management, Technical Marketing & Business Development, Consulting, Market and Technology trends research and analysis - and across geographies like Europe, India, Singapore, Greater China and Australia. After working with STMicroelectronics for around 14 years, she registered her company, VLSI Consultancy, in Singapore from where she consults offering technocommercial services to the semiconductor industry.

This includes Training (corporate and public), Market & Technology intelligence (research & analysis) and Business Development Support (Technical Marketing, Social Media Marketing). She is also a founding member and an Executive Board Member of the Singapore Semiconductor Industry Association. From 1997-2002, Meenu was a Technical Marketing Manager in STMicroelectronics (STM)/Singapore with focus on Telecom segment. In this role, she was responsible for Business Development and Program Management for STM’s semicustom ASIC projects in Asia Pacific.

Meenu also worked as a Program Manager in charge of managing various semi-custom projects with customers in the Asia-Pacific Region. Before her move to STM Singapore, Meenu worked at STM India from 1991 to 1997. As a Design Manager for Library Design Group, she was responsible for growing and managing a 30 member strong team involved in design and development of semicustom digital libraries in various technologies across different platforms as per the market requirements and to support designers in STM’s worldwide locations.

Prior to this, Meenu had been a Design Engineer for digital library design and development at STM Italy for several years after she received her engineering degree (Computer Engineering) from Delhi Institute of Technology, India in 1988. ■

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back-up. I see cloud ownership as a vital component of chip design security in the cloud. After all, if I were to place my company’s most precious assets – i.e. my chip design database – on a cloud, I will definitely like to know as to who owns the cloud. This is on top of my regular apprehensions about my data security, back up and related aspects.

RETURN TO ZERO RETURN TO ZERO

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