Article Abstract:
Manufacturers of complex programmable logic devices (PLD) and field-programmable gate arrays (FPGA) are searching for ways to marry the two technologies into one package to make it easier for their OEM customers to design products. Lucent Technologies is offering pre-packaged functions in software cores and is poised to introduce a field programmable systems chip (FPSC), a hardwired hybrid, as part of its ORCA product line. The company considers both software and hardware macros necessary to avoid redesigning gate devices repeatedly. One of its customers, Cascade Commuications, welcomes the development of Lucent's hardwired hybrid devices because they ensure reusability and work faster. Other PLD makers, such as Altera, have not had much success with hardwired hybrids, however. Altera's Buster, which offered a fixed bus interface section with field programmability, was a bust.
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Article Abstract:
Electronics companies are implementing more and new incentives for retaining talented managers in the face of growing competition for those employees and changes in management roles and responsibilities. Finding and retaining good managers is an even greater challenge in the 1990s because of the growth and prosperity of the industry. Money is not necessarily the solution because of the number of offers good managers are receiving. Shareholders are also pressuring companies to restrict excessive management pay. Consequently, the major trend in the electronics industry is performance-related incentives, including stock options, profit sharing and tying compensation to how customers rank the company. Performance-related incentives may be tied to how teams, operations, and/or the entire company performs.
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Article Abstract:
Semiconductor vendors are producing single-chip systems, but questions concerning reliability and affordable testing remain. Test concerns have risen as integrated circuits (IC) continue to increase in complexity. The system-on-a-chip has compounded the problems because they frequently contain technologies from a variety of vendors. Several electronic design automation (EDA) vendors are promoting the built-in self-test (BIST) approach as a solution. The BIST approach embeds tester functions in a controller on the chip. A low-cost external tester examines random test patterns generated by the controller and evaluates the results. The technique can provide continual monitoring at the board or system level through the use of ASICs or FPGAs.
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