Testing times bring technological and (editorial) employment opportunities
Patrick Mannion- October 20, 2011
I had the good fortune of being able to visit with Tektronix at the recent Embedded Systems Conference in Boston. There, I was struck by how Mike Juliana’s analysis of Tek’s mid-summer acquisition of Veridae fit so well with the needs of today’s test and measurement engineers, and how that mapped to openings we have here at Test & Measurement World.
As Mike put it, and he’s been with Tek for 20 years so he should know, logic analyzers are no longer sufficient to meet system visibility needs of today’s designs. Starting with highly integrated ICs with increasing functionality, right through to inter-IC, DDR3/4 memory and high-speed serial and parallel buses, board and software high-speed interactions, designers are struggling to perform full-system embedded test in a reasonably timely fashion. Of course, that in itself isn’t new.
What’s new is the insight Veridae brings. Started in 2009 the company saw the burgeoning need for on-chip analysis with more complex SoC designs and developed a solution that allows design teams to see what’s inside their ASICs and FPGAs. What it developed comprises: Certus, for debugging multi-FPGA prototyping of ASIC designs with IO running at speed; Corus, for complex FPGA system validation and debug, delivering synchronized, time-correlated views with the FPGA and across software and external IO domains; and Clarus, which serves post-validation of ASIC designs and delivers a systematic ‘design for validation’ approach to semiconductor companies.
Armed with this new suite of tools in its arsenal, Tektronix is a big step closer to connecting the full IC-to-software embedded system analysis tool suite dots to give the ultimate in test and measurement visibility. And that’s where the industry must go. Point solutions are good for specialized situations, but along with full hardware/software system co-design must come full hardware/software test and validation. Admittedly, Tektronix has a ways to go on the software end, and for now it asks us to stay tuned.
In the meantime, yours truly is looking to provide you, the reader, with the full suite of information you need to help get you job done. However, how you get and digest that information and interact with the Test & Measurement community has also undergone rapid change and we’re changing accordingly.
To that end, we are actively looking to you, the test, measurement and evaluation engineering community, to join us in meeting those needs. Yes, you heard me, we have opportunities here. From regular, paid columns on such topics as The Art of Test, to full-time editorial positions across our online and print properties. The goal is to connect those who know with those who want to know. And only you, the readers, fully understand the nuances of this ever-changing industry.
So, if you like Test and Measurement, enjoy writing, like to travel, are actively engaged in social media and other means of connecting with your peers and think you’d enjoy helping fellow engineers get their job done as quickly and efficiently as possible, drop me a line at patrick.mannion@ubm.com or call me directly, at 631-543-0445.
Looking forward to hearing from you!