Bringing up Baby - product development thoughts
Things have just started to get exciting. After months of defining, specifying and designing my latest product, I finally have semi-functional prototypes. After a few side steps during the building and bring-up process, power is applied and most of the low level functions have been verified. Soon, software will meet hardware and debugging can begin in earnest.
Before jumping in and really enjoying the fun (besides I'm now waiting for some new parts to arrive), I thought it would be nice to...
VHDL tutorial - Creating a hierarchical design
Complex VHDL files quickly become hard to read and maintain. This tutorial demonstrates how to break a design into reusable entities by building a divide-by-10 component, explaining ports, sensitivity lists, and the inout usage for a toggled output. It then shows how to instantiate and chain three instances into a ÷1000 divider, with synthesis notes from compiling to an XC2C128 device.
VHDL tutorial - combining clocked and sequential logic
Need the ADC clock to sometimes be the raw 40MHz input? Gene Breniman shows how to extend a reloadable, counter-based VHDL clock divider to support a master-clock pass-through by using a conditional signal assignment to switch between the internal ADCClk and Mclk. The article also covers remapping ClkSel values and includes a working XC2C32A CPLD build that leaves room for future enhancements.
Small business tackling big jobs.
Greetings and a Happy New Year to all!
I have been extremely busy the last few months tackling a small job that turned into a big job. A few months ago, while working on starting my own company and product line, I answered a job posting for a 'part-time engineer'. The posting specified approximately 10 hours a week assisting another engineer in the completion of a new product development cycle. This sounded like an ideal opportunity to generate a little income for my company while...
Great men in my life.
In my first post on this site (Will work for Tools!), I mentioned how my Grandfather had inspired me to become an Engineer. Today, I write in sadness about the loss of three men, all this year, and the profound effects each of them had on my life and my engineering career. Please allow me to honor each of these men in the order in which I came to know them.
Ron Borrelli, December 1, 1933 to November 3, 2007. Ron, a Co-founder of Zehntel, a manufacturer of automatic test systems (later...
VHDL tutorial - part 2 - Testbench
In this follow-up Gene Breniman builds a VHDL testbench in Xilinx ISE, showing how to generate a continuous master clock, apply a power-on reset, and sequence register strobes to change clock divisors. He walks through timing waits and observation delays needed to verify ADC clock rates. The article also shows how simulation exposed a copy-paste bug in the original design.
VHDL tutorial
Gene Breniman presents a hands-on VHDL walkthrough for a programmable clock divider implemented on a Xilinx CoolRunner CPLD (XC2C32A). The example shows how to declare ports and internal signals, implement a clock-division process with reset and falling-edge detection, and create a simple addressable latch to select clock rates from a 40MHz master clock. It’s a compact, practical guide for embedded engineers learning VHDL and CPLD design.
No, I'm not retired!
For many years now, I have been looking for the right opportunity to strike out on my own. At first I had a few ideas that looked promising, but I was not in a position to leave my full-time employment. Being the sole bread winner in the family, or later, being a single parent, the prospect of trading in a guaranteed paycheck for a long shot at future wealth, just didn't seem like a good plan.
This time around, things worked out a better. This time, I had a great idea and enough of a...
Will work for tools!
I have always believed that tools are necessary to the creative process. This is something I learned early in life and it's a lesson that has stuck with me to this day.
When I was 7 years old, I made my first trip to see my Grandparents on my father's side of the family. What I remember most about the trip, besides the great food and the company of my Grandparents, was my Grandfather's shop. My Grandfather had built one of the most amazing shops that I have seen to this day in the...
Will work for tools!
I have always believed that tools are necessary to the creative process. This is something I learned early in life and it's a lesson that has stuck with me to this day.
When I was 7 years old, I made my first trip to see my Grandparents on my father's side of the family. What I remember most about the trip, besides the great food and the company of my Grandparents, was my Grandfather's shop. My Grandfather had built one of the most amazing shops that I have seen to this day in the...
Small business tackling big jobs.
Greetings and a Happy New Year to all!
I have been extremely busy the last few months tackling a small job that turned into a big job. A few months ago, while working on starting my own company and product line, I answered a job posting for a 'part-time engineer'. The posting specified approximately 10 hours a week assisting another engineer in the completion of a new product development cycle. This sounded like an ideal opportunity to generate a little income for my company while...
Software Prototyping
In my recent blog entry on the product development process (way down, near the end of the entry), I wrote the following:
"I continue these sorts of tests, building more and more complexity, until I am satisfied that my circuit is basically functional. Then, using the test code that I have created as a model, I begin to write the real software for my product. As my software grows, to complete the full functionality of my design, I sometime find it useful to drop back to my 'test software'...
Size matters - System success depends on initial design
A seemingly small UI choice can reshape an entire embedded system. Gene Breniman uses a real product example to show how picking a graphic touchscreen instead of a character LCD can multiply CPU, memory, OS, and licensing needs. The post explains why capturing requirements early and planning for growth paths keeps complexity and cost under control, and how to size hardware to fit real needs.
Lightweight hardware abstraction
Hardware pin reassignments turned a small firmware tweak into a tangled mess of #ifdefs and scattered port references. Gene Breniman shows how a lightweight hardware abstraction, implemented with per-board include headers and meaningful macros like MODE_LED and LED_ON, cleans up the code and makes it easy to target multiple prototypes. The post emphasizes keeping changes local to configuration headers to reduce validation scope and maintenance.
No, I'm not retired!
For many years now, I have been looking for the right opportunity to strike out on my own. At first I had a few ideas that looked promising, but I was not in a position to leave my full-time employment. Being the sole bread winner in the family, or later, being a single parent, the prospect of trading in a guaranteed paycheck for a long shot at future wealth, just didn't seem like a good plan.
This time around, things worked out a better. This time, I had a great idea and enough of a...
Bringing up Baby - product development thoughts
Things have just started to get exciting. After months of defining, specifying and designing my latest product, I finally have semi-functional prototypes. After a few side steps during the building and bring-up process, power is applied and most of the low level functions have been verified. Soon, software will meet hardware and debugging can begin in earnest.
Before jumping in and really enjoying the fun (besides I'm now waiting for some new parts to arrive), I thought it would be nice to...
Great men in my life.
In my first post on this site (Will work for Tools!), I mentioned how my Grandfather had inspired me to become an Engineer. Today, I write in sadness about the loss of three men, all this year, and the profound effects each of them had on my life and my engineering career. Please allow me to honor each of these men in the order in which I came to know them.
Ron Borrelli, December 1, 1933 to November 3, 2007. Ron, a Co-founder of Zehntel, a manufacturer of automatic test systems (later...
I owe, I owe, so off to work I go.....
Gene recounts swapping startup plans for paid work to support family, taking an evening teaching role and then a full-time engineering job. He rediscovers the satisfaction of hands-on embedded design on an ARM9 system with FPGA/CPLD, learns which parts of entrepreneurship drained his time, and decides to keep his product work low-effort while finishing current projects. The post blends career lessons with practical engineering enthusiasm.
A true pioneer passes away... A farewell to Ritchie.
Dennis Ritchie's work on C and UNIX quietly shaped the tools we use every day. Gene Breniman recalls becoming a convert after reading Kernighan and Ritchie's The C Programming Language and how C replaced assembly in his embedded projects. This personal farewell explains why K&R remains a near-biblical reference for many engineers and why Ritchie's influence still matters.
Software Prototyping
In my recent blog entry on the product development process (way down, near the end of the entry), I wrote the following:
"I continue these sorts of tests, building more and more complexity, until I am satisfied that my circuit is basically functional. Then, using the test code that I have created as a model, I begin to write the real software for my product. As my software grows, to complete the full functionality of my design, I sometime find it useful to drop back to my 'test software'...
A part of history
At KVHS's 40th anniversary Gene Breniman reflects on how a tiny 100-milliwatt AM experiment grew into a high-power FM station and a launchpad for engineers. He credits teacher Ernie Wilson's hands-on mentorship for turning students into builders, and laments the loss of his high school's electronics program amid budget cuts. The post is a personal reminder why practical tech education and resourceful projects still matter.
Size matters - System success depends on initial design
A seemingly small UI choice can reshape an entire embedded system. Gene Breniman uses a real product example to show how picking a graphic touchscreen instead of a character LCD can multiply CPU, memory, OS, and licensing needs. The post explains why capturing requirements early and planning for growth paths keeps complexity and cost under control, and how to size hardware to fit real needs.
Bringing up Baby - product development thoughts
Things have just started to get exciting. After months of defining, specifying and designing my latest product, I finally have semi-functional prototypes. After a few side steps during the building and bring-up process, power is applied and most of the low level functions have been verified. Soon, software will meet hardware and debugging can begin in earnest.
Before jumping in and really enjoying the fun (besides I'm now waiting for some new parts to arrive), I thought it would be nice to...
I owe, I owe, so off to work I go.....
Gene recounts swapping startup plans for paid work to support family, taking an evening teaching role and then a full-time engineering job. He rediscovers the satisfaction of hands-on embedded design on an ARM9 system with FPGA/CPLD, learns which parts of entrepreneurship drained his time, and decides to keep his product work low-effort while finishing current projects. The post blends career lessons with practical engineering enthusiasm.
Great men in my life.
In my first post on this site (Will work for Tools!), I mentioned how my Grandfather had inspired me to become an Engineer. Today, I write in sadness about the loss of three men, all this year, and the profound effects each of them had on my life and my engineering career. Please allow me to honor each of these men in the order in which I came to know them.
Ron Borrelli, December 1, 1933 to November 3, 2007. Ron, a Co-founder of Zehntel, a manufacturer of automatic test systems (later...
Small business tackling big jobs.
Greetings and a Happy New Year to all!
I have been extremely busy the last few months tackling a small job that turned into a big job. A few months ago, while working on starting my own company and product line, I answered a job posting for a 'part-time engineer'. The posting specified approximately 10 hours a week assisting another engineer in the completion of a new product development cycle. This sounded like an ideal opportunity to generate a little income for my company while...
No, I'm not retired!
For many years now, I have been looking for the right opportunity to strike out on my own. At first I had a few ideas that looked promising, but I was not in a position to leave my full-time employment. Being the sole bread winner in the family, or later, being a single parent, the prospect of trading in a guaranteed paycheck for a long shot at future wealth, just didn't seem like a good plan.
This time around, things worked out a better. This time, I had a great idea and enough of a...
