The maker community and the learn-to-code movement is growing with many ideas built on small, power-efficient, easy-to-use 8-bit microcontrollers. If you want to be one of the next famous makers and maybe win some cash in the process, Atmel has a contest open until September 30, 2014 – here are tips on getting your #8bitideas in … Read More
Author: Don Dingee
You didn’t say it has to work
“Failure to plan is planning to fail.” If that is true – and it has been quoted verbatim or slightly modified so many times throughout modern history, there has to be some truth – why does most of the engineering community seem to detest planning so much?
Engineering planning doesn’t mean whipping out a block diagram or pseudo code,… Read More
NVM central to multi-layer trust in cloud
Pop quiz: Name one of the hottest applications for non-volatile memory – A) processor and code configuration; B) RFID tags; C) secure encryption keys; D) all the above. The answer is D, but not in the way you may be thinking; a new approach is using all these ideas at once, combined in SoC designs targeting advanced security … Read More
Sensor clusters at edge call for NoCs nearby
In his recent blog on EETimes, Kurt Shuler of Arteris took a whimsical look at the hype surrounding the IoT, questioning the overall absence of practicality and a seemingly misplaced focus on use cases at the expense of a coherent architecture. I don’t think it is all that bleak, but when it comes to architecture, Kurt is right, and… Read More
What, SD doesn’t have enough pins?
I was in a Twitter conversation over the weekend with some very smart people, and one of the discussion points was how slow and painful the formal standardization process can be. One suggestion was that IoT companies should “just do it”, creating specification-by-implementation. … Read More
4G shalt thou not count, neither count thou 2G
Five years from now, what will be the leading mobile connectivity standard? If you said 4G, please report to the brainwashing remediation center nearest you immediately. 3G is not only here to stay for the long haul, it’s growing – and will quickly become the preferred choice for M2M deployments.… Read More
How Qualcomm crushed the mobile roadmap
Qualcomm’s Snapdragon 810 announcement this week may seem like just another mondo-core SoC on a way-cool TSMC 20nm advanced process. Looking past the technology shows an understated genius in creating a roadmap – and why yours and most everyone else’s probably sucks.… Read More
Sketch Router and auto-assist PCB layout
Archaic tech metaphors abound, stuck in the psyche of users everywhere. We still “dial” numbers, long after the benefit of a short pull area code disappeared. (Humans could dial 1, 2, or 3 a lot faster on a rotary phone, and there were fewer dialpulses for central office switches to decode – thus big cities with more phone traffic like… Read More
Bluetooth Smart radio IP, backed by ARM
For most devices, the on ramp to the Internet of Things means wireless, connecting a microcontroller or SoC via some kind of radio. It seems every merchant semiconductor company and embedded software firm has jumped on board the IoT wagon. There is a litany of chips, modules, operating systems, and protocol stacks already, and … Read More
Care and trimming of MEMS sensors
My first job in electronic design circa 1981 was making analog autopilots and control devices for RPVs – the early form of what today we call UAVs. A couple of really delicate boxes with gyroscopes, accelerometers, and magnetometers, and several boards full of LM148 quad op-amps surrounded by a lot of resistors and capacitors made… Read More
The Semiconductor Growth Numbers are Insane but the Real World Doesn’t Tally!