Month: June 2008

Off-topic: P990i Sync Working at Last

At long last, the sync software for my SonyEricsson P990i mobile phone has started to work as it should. I have had an issue with synching of contacts since back in the days of my P900, where for some reason it would delete most of the contacts from my phone when synchronizing. I never managed to quite work out why, but I suspect it had something to do with a combination of contacts being in an unusual place in Outlook, and there being some 1600 of them when I was also synchronizing Outlook with a Salesforce install we used to have.

There were workarounds like forced sync in place that kept the phone very useful. But now, with version 1.5.8 of the PCSuite for Smartphones, it has started to work as it should have all along. Nice. Too bad this is coming pretty late in the life of this phone, got it almost two years ago and after the summer it is time to see what they have got to replace it. The P1i is too similar to the P990i to be worthwhile, waiting for the next-gen UIQ phone after that.

And yes, I do like the UIQ phones. They have their quirks, sure, but they also have lots of nice features. And for me, they tend to just work as you expect. Since I have learnt to use them, I guess. But in any case, next phone is likely also a SonyEricsson P-something.

Off-topic: Software tip: SnagIT.

Sometimes you find this rare gem of a piece of software that just works and that just solves a problem you have been having an itch with for a long time. SnagIT, from TechSmith, is just such a program. It makes doing screen captures and editing them incredibly easy and convenient. It also has some nice extras, like capturing a webpage in its entirety by scrolling the window in Internet Explorer or Firefox. Simple, but a great time saver for me. I feel like I literally saved hours of work time in just a few weeks of using this program. 30 bucks for a piece of software that does screen capture? In my job, a no-brainer. Highly recommended!

Freescale QorIQ P4080 Hybrid Simulation on YouTube(!)

YouTube – Freescale QorIQ P4080 Hybrid Simulation is a video of a demo of the QorIQ P4080 hybrid simulation. Cool of Freescale to be publishing it like this, I think it is a very smart move!

Updated: Here is the video inline, let’s see if this works.

Freescale QorIQ P4080 is out — with Simics support

Only half an hour ago, the embargoes lifted. Freescale announced its new QorIQ series of multicore (and some single- and dual-core) processors. For the top-end of that line, the P4080, Freescale and Virtutech (where I work, remember) have developed a virtual platform solution to help Freescale customers get to working products faster. The virtual platform is available now, and is already running several operating systems including VxWorks, QNX, and a variety of Linuxes. Apart from the fairly large scale of this SoC, the really new part of the virtual platform is the so-called Hybrid solution, where the fast models are combined with detailed models from Freescale themselves. This creates a cycle-level detailed model with validated timing, “from the source” — but without the performance issues of having to run everything at great level of detail. Rather, you use the fast model to steer the simulation of a workload to an interesting spot, and then turn up the level of detail then and there. You can also select which components of the chip are actually detailed and which parts are modeled with the fast functional models, avoiding the incredible slow-down of running and entire virtual platform at a great level of detail.

If you happen to be at the FTF in Orlando, do come by and look at the demos!

I have been involved in this work for the past year, and it is wonderful to finally see it coming out and be able to talk about it.

System Companies leaving the ASIC Business

As a follow-up to my previous post on the scope of ESL, I found a nice tidbit in an EETimes article… basically saying that hardware design is declining inside the typical system houses.

Continue reading “System Companies leaving the ASIC Business”

Is SoC (was: ESL) all there is to virtual platforms?

SystemC TLM-2.0 has just been released, and on the heels of that everyone in the EDA world is announcing various varieties of support. TLM-2.0-compliant models, tools that can run TLM-2.0 models, and existing modeling frameworks that are being updated to comply with the TLM-2.0 standard. All of this feeds a general feeling that the so-called Electronic System Level design market (according to Frank Schirrmeister of Synopsys, the term was coined by Gary Smith) is finally reaching a level of maturity where there is hope to grow the market by standards. This is something that has to happen, but it seems to be getting hijacked by a certain part of the market addressing the needs of a certain set of users.

There is more to virtual platforms than ESL. Much more. Remember the pure software people.

Edit: Maybe it is more correct to say “there is more to virtual platforms than SoC”, as that is what several very smart comments to this post has said. ESL is not necessarily tied to SoC, it is in theory at least a broader term. But currently, most tools retain an SoC focus.

Continue reading “Is SoC (was: ESL) all there is to virtual platforms?”

Serendipity and Music

I often listen to Leo Laporte’s “This Week in Tech” podcast. It is not particularly focused, but thanks to the quality of the participants it always enjoyable and I tend to end up learning something about general IT and general desktop computing that I did not know before. However, there are a few annoying themes that tend to pop up. One of these is the idea that traditional paper journalism and journalism in general is dead, to be replaced by smart news search engines finding “just what I need” based on my preferences. I think that idea is utterly broken. There is immense value to reading a collection of news and articles put together by someone skilled in the craft, and not just a search bot looking for stuff like what I already know and like.

Here is nice example of what such a bleak world would be missing…

Just last week I found the group “Universal Poplab“. A Swedish trio making nice pop music in a style that is quite reminiscent of classic 1980’s Synthpop. Which I happen to like. How I found it? Pure serendipity of the kind that will never happen in a world of agent-based targeted search and information. I was moving the car to the garage, and just tuned in to P3 on the radio. Where they happened to interviewing the group and played some short bits from their hits from recent years (hits that had completely gone me by, as I tend to be quite out of touch with cultural developments since we had a child a few years ago). “This is brilliant” I thought and logged into iTunes and bought a record immediately.

Without that purely random act, I probably would never have found out about them. There is so much good stuff out there hidden in enormous mass of indifferent stuff that the only really good way to get a handle on it is to let someone better informed tell you. Not some search bot. I guess this qualifies for “Rant” status.


Off-topic: “Vit” is here again for another summer

Slottskällans vitThis is way off-topic and not very relevant to anyone located even remotely far from Uppsala. But my favorite summer beer is back for another season.  Slottskällans Bryggeri here in Uppsala (in which I was a shareholder in an earlier incarnation before the reconstruction a couple of years’ ago) has once again decided to a run of “Vit“, their local idea of a German-style Weissen. It is a perfect summer beer, and a good beer any time of the year. Get it while supplies last, seems to be fairly limited in production.

Slottskällan is a true microbrewery, despite recent increases they are still producing only enough to cover the Uppsala and Stockholm markets, and some special orders from some places more distant. Their customer list is a good hint for good places to find their good beers.