News Briefs

The recently released Cadence Logic Design Team Solution integrates technology from the Cadence Incisive functional-verification and Encounter design platforms to address what Sanjiv Taneja, VP of R&D at the company, calls a “predictability crisis” in logic design.

The predictability crisis, Taneja said, occurs because design-time deltas are now comparable to design times themselves. To address this crisis, the new suite substitutes “design with” in place of “design for” approaches, he said. The “design with” approaches replace serial design stages with four concurrent processes: design with verification, design with power, design with physical prototyping, and design with test. Because these functions occur simultaneously, interdependencies can be addressed without time-consuming iterations.

Taneja elaborated on the suite's design-with-test function, which replaces the traditional tail-end design-for-test process that often exceeds by a factor of three the amount of time scheduled for it. Design-with-test operates in conjunction with the other three pillars of the “design with” suite as well as with design management and design logical signoff functions. He noted as an example that close coupling between design with power and design with test stages not only shorten test-infrastructure-insertion times but also perform two other functions: ensure that power-control functions within a low-power IC work properly, and ensure that scan-test-mode power remains at manageable levels. www.cadence.com.

The Institute of Environmental Sciences has released the second edition of its Handbook for Dynamic Data Acquisition and Analysis. This document contains guidelines for acquiring and analyzing structural (or mechanical) shock and vibration data as well as acoustic and aerodynamic noise data from flight and ground tests for aerospace vehicles.

The primary changes to the second edition are in Section 3 (data acquisition) to reflect improvements in instrumentation. Section 4 (data validation and editing), and Section 5 (data analysis) have also been revised to reflect new procedures. The handbook costs $185 for IEST members and $220 for nonmembers. www.iest.org.

After 20 years of offering training and consulting services for the chip- and board-test design community, Dr. Ben Bennetts, founder of Bennetts Associates, has transferred his board-level design-for-test (DFT) training and consultancy service to the newly formed CloverTest Associates. CloverTest is made up of the following principals:

• Joe Kadaras, formerly of Asset InterTech and now founder and owner of JEK-Tech, a boundary-scan test accessory and DFT company;

• Ken Posse, formerly of Agilent Technologies and Teseda, who in addition to running his own board-test and DFT consultancy is also chairman of the IEEE P1687 (Internal JTAG) working group; and

• Bernard Sutton, formerly of Teradyne and now running his own board-manufacturing and test consultancy.

In addition to offering the “Ben Bennetts” range of board DFT seminars, CloverTest will expand its range of seminars and consulting services by bringing together leading experts from across the globe. www.clovertest.com.

DirectIndustry.com announced that it has launched its Virtual Technical Library, which allows visitors to search up to 90,000 pages of technical information from over 3000 PDF files, directly from the company's home page. Before the launch of this service, visitors would have had to search individual exhibitors' catalogs one by one. The company reports that the Virtual Technical Library is attracting more than 12,000 visitors per day.

“Creating the virtual technical library was a logical step after the unexpectedly rapid uptake of our PDF search service launched in late 2005,” said Corentin Thiercelin, CEO of the company. www.directindustry.com.

Jova Solutions' Image Sensor Lab ISL-1600 Version 2 provides CMOS image-sensor interface, control, test, evaluation, and comparison capabilities in a small-footprint (9x5.5x3.1-in.) test product that offers CMOS image-sensor die manufacturers, module developers, and end-product manufacturers with a way to interface to, control, and test their CMOS image sensors and modules. It also provides product development engineers with software that they can use to exercise and evaluate image sensors and modules.

The vendor positions the ISL-1600 Version 2 as an alternative to three other test approaches: high-end fully automated production-test machines, which entail high costs; low-end evaluation boards from image-sensor manufacturers, which work only with one vendor's chip; and build-it-yourself approaches, which require the purchase, configuration, and programming of multiple instruments. The ISL-1600 2.0 is a generic tool that can test most image-sensor designs, regardless of the die or module manufacturer.

Base price: less than $5000. Jova Solutions, www.jovasolutions.com.

Tektronix has increased the speed of its arbitrary waveform generator with the AWG7000 series. The models AWG7051 and AWG7052 have one and two channels, respectively, with 5-Gsample/s speeds. A third model, the AWG7101, has one channel at 5 Gsamples/s, and the final model—the AWG7102 with interleaving option—samples at 20 Gsamples/s and has a 5.8-GHz bandwidth. The option lets you interleave the instrument's two 10-Gsample/s channels to double the sample rate on one channel.

All of the instruments feature a 10.4-in. display so you can see a representation of the analog output signal. The display shows the output waveform stored in the instrument's memory. You can capture real-world signals from a Tektronix oscilloscope and replay them on the AWG. You can also simulate serial data streams, adding pre-emphasis and jitter for testing copper and wireless data links.

All models come with 64 Mbytes of waveform memory, but you can use loops and branches to produce longer waveforms. An external trigger lets you start a waveform and a conditional trigger lets the instrument jump to a particular signal pattern stored in memory.

Price range: from $60,000 for the AWG7051 to $120,000 for the AWG7102 with high-speed option. Tektronix, www.tektronix.com.

Wireless and Microwave Technology Conference: WAMICON 2006, December 4–5, Clearwater, FL. Sponsored by IEEE. www.wamicon.org.

Measurement Science Conference, January 22–26, Long Beach, CA. Sponsored by The Measurement Science Conference. www.msc-conf.com.

APEX/IPC Printed Circuits Expo, February 20–27, Los Angeles, CA. Sponsored by IPC. www.goapex.org.

To learn about other conferences, courses, and calls for papers, visit www.tmworld.com/events.