D&R Industry Articles (December 2013)

Featured Article

Optimizing Sensor Performance with 1T-OTP Trimming

A sensor is a device that detects a change in a stimulus and converts it into an electronic signal that can be measured or recorded. The stimulus can be many things, including a physical property, environmental parameter, chemical composition or a location, to name just a few. All sensing elements have nonlinearities that include an intrinsic nonlinearity over sensing range along with offset and sensitivity nonlinearity variations over temperature.

Featured Article

Mixed Signal Design & Verification Methodology for Complex SoCs

This paper describes the design & verification methodology used on a recent large mixed signal System on a Chip (SoCs) which contained radio frequency (RF), analog, mixed-signal and digital blocks on one chip. We combine a top-down functional approach, based on early system-level modelling, with a bottom-up performance approach based on transistor level simulations, in an agile development methodology. We look at how real valued modelling, using the Verilog-AMS wire that carries a real value (wreal) data type, achieves shorter simulation times in large SoCs with high frequency RF sections, low bandwidth analogue base-band sections and appreciable digital functionality including filtering and calibration blocks.

Featured Article

Why Embedded Software Development Still Matters: Optimizing a Computer Vision Application on the ARM Cortex A8

This article presents a comparison of two programming approaches for developing effective solutions for computer vision applications. The algorithm we tackle is HSV to RGB color conversion. The processor is an ARM Cortex A8 core with NEON technology.

Featured Article

Understanding - and Reducing - Latency in Video Compression Systems

In the video world, latency is the amount of time between the instant a frame is captured and the instant that frame is displayed. Low latency is a design goal for any system where there is real-time interaction with the video content, such as video conferencing or drone piloting. But the meaning of “low latency” can vary, and the methods for achieving low latency aren’t always obvious. Here we’ll define and explain the basics of video latency, and discuss how one of the biggest impacts in reducing latency comes from choosing the right video encoding.