In technology, simple concepts can have huge implications, and sometimes what you might dismiss as a minor feature, turns into a major improvement. For example, let me tell you about my experience with the Apple MacBook Pro Retina display, how it improved my satisfaction and usability of the laptop, and relate it to how a simple concept in the Cadence Incisive Debug Analyzer (IDA) can add a productivity boost to your debugging task.
For several years my wife had been using a 13" Apple MacBook Pro, and was very happy with it -- she'd better have been because I gave it to her as a gift! ; )
Then it came time to upgrade. At first, I recommended that she get a MacBook Air, particularly for its significant weight advantage, and because my wife does not do any heavy-duty computing. However, the MacBook Air default configuration only includes 4GB of RAM. We did not want to custom order more RAM and have to wait for delivery.
The MacBook Pro includes 8GB of RAM by default, was in stock at the store, and uses a much better Intel processor (2.6GHz dual-core Intel Core i5) than the MacBook Air. Additionally, with advanced Intel memory architecture and a PCIe interface to the SSD drive, its performance overwhelms the MacBooks Air's, which never hurts, even when you primarily only use word processing, email, and web browsing.
Therefore, I concluded that a new 13" MacBook Pro with the Retina display would be a better choice.
When we got the new laptop home and I installed some software, it was the first time I really saw the ultra high-resolution display. Before that point, I considered the high pixel density as just a feature that was nice to have and comes for free, because what I was really interested in was the default RAM configuration.
In other words I thought the high-resolution Retina display was not a big deal, just another goodie. However, I was wrong and I publicly admit that I grossly misjudged this feature.
After about 10 minutes of using the laptop it was clear to me: The Retina display is a killer feature and purely amazing.
Many of us have had high-density displays on our smartphones for quite some time now. But a high-density display on a laptop is a whole different ballgame that I now consider essential due to its usefulness--the fonts and the graphics just look gorgeous.
Since most of you are probably not reading this using a MacBook Pro, a simple side-by-side screen capture of a standard laptop screen and Retina display will not properly show the resolution difference. But these photos will.
I have been using computers for three decades now, and the display pixel density has only improved marginally during that time. I must have so gotten so used to the status quo that I could not even imagine that it could be much better-that screen resolution could become so dense that you can no longer see pixels. In other words, that a display would look the way it ought to. The Retina display's improvement in pixel density is not incremental--it is a step function that was long overdue.
For me, it was a great experience to be positively surprised by a seemingly simple technological evolution. When you get a chance, check out a high-density display on a new laptop - any laptop - not just an Apple, play with it for a while, and you will get hooked like I am. Caution, you might regret this experience, as it can be pretty painful to work on a standard resolution display afterwards.
Apple isn't alone in developing technological improvements in products that may seem straightforward at first, but actually deliver major productivity enhancements.
As I work in the Cadence business unit responsible for developing Incisive verification products, I am privileged to get my hands on these tools and test them long before they hit the market.
In October of 2012, Cadence released the Incisive Debug Analyzer (IDA), which I used and tested a while ago. The concept and the implementation of IDA sounded very interesting and useful, and it includes the ability to:
- Step forward or backward through the HLV or HDL source code
- Click directly on a source line or variable to jump forward or backward through time to the point when the line was executed, or when a variable value changed.
- Use integrated, interactive log file analysis with smart filtering to go directly to the point of interest in either the source code or the waveform database
But there is always the question of whether a design concept applied to a test model will be successful and useful in an industrial setting.
I was pleasantly surprised that the usefulness of IDA was much better than I expected. And, for several of our customers, this product has made a huge difference in their debug productivity.
For example, ST Microelectronics has deployed IDA on real-life projects, and they were able to get even more productivity out of IDA than our marketing collateral suggested! In fact, they were able to reduce their time spent debugging by up to 50%. This is huge, because debugging is very resource intensive and can be a major drag on a project.
I love it when I get positively surprised liked this. For all you technology innovators out there: Keep them coming and make my day!
Axel Scherer