CEVA DSP Cores … Inside Intel

CEVA DSP Cores … Inside Intel
by Majeed Ahmad on 04-22-2015 at 3:00 pm

Intel Corp. is gaining discernible market share in the LTE chips business, and Qualcomm, the 800-pound gorilla in the mobile baseband market, suddenly looks in Intel’s crosshairs. A closer look at Intel’s journey from a mobile silicon underdog to the owner of a swelling LTE footprint shows that design ingredients… Read More


Rockchip Bets on Arteris FlexNoC Interconnect IP to Leapfrog SoC Design

Rockchip Bets on Arteris FlexNoC Interconnect IP to Leapfrog SoC Design
by Majeed Ahmad on 04-19-2015 at 9:00 am

China was a virgin territory for Arteris Inc. before July 19, 2012 when Fuzhou Rockchip Electronics announced that it has licensed the Arteris FlexNoC network-on-chip (NoC)-based interconnect IP technology for its multicore SoCs for budget Android tablets. Rockchip mostly targets the tablet and set-top box (STB) markets … Read More


Nokia on Top of the World, Again

Nokia on Top of the World, Again
by Majeed Ahmad on 04-15-2015 at 4:00 pm

Nokia is no more a mobile phone dynamo, but it’s now the world’s largest telecom equipment supplier ahead of Ericsson AB and Huawei Technologies. Nokia is buying Alcatel-Lucent for $16.6 billion and the new global networking behemoth created as a result of this mega-merger—called Nokia Corp.—will be headquartered… Read More


Safety Dominates Agenda in DAC’s Automotive Track

Safety Dominates Agenda in DAC’s Automotive Track
by Majeed Ahmad on 04-12-2015 at 4:00 pm

The connected car movement is in full bloom, making headlines in the trade media on how the cutting-edge electronics will transform the twenty-first century driving experience. However, a closer look at the Internet of cars juggernaut shows that safety and security of the networked vehicle are still a major stumbling block.… Read More


Archives from TI’s Baseband Glory – Part 1

Archives from TI’s Baseband Glory – Part 1
by Majeed Ahmad on 04-08-2015 at 7:30 pm

In 1992, nearly two years after Britain’s Acorn Computers joined hands with Apple and VLSI to create Advanced RISC Machines or ARM, the semiconductor upstart landed its first major licensing breakthrough. In retrospect, while Apple’s Newton handheld computer had played a key role in creating the ARM venture, Texas… Read More


Atmel’s L21 MCU for IoT Tops Low Power Benchmark

Atmel’s L21 MCU for IoT Tops Low Power Benchmark
by Majeed Ahmad on 03-30-2015 at 7:30 am

The Internet of Things (IoT) juggernaut has unleashed a flurry of low-power microcontrollers, and in that array of energy-efficient MCUs, one product has earned the crown jewel of being the lowest-power Cortex M-based solution with power consumption down to 35µA/MHz in active mode and 200nA in sleep mode.

How do we know if AtmelRead More


CEVA Eyes DSP Scale in China’s $65 LTE Handsets

CEVA Eyes DSP Scale in China’s $65 LTE Handsets
by Majeed Ahmad on 03-27-2015 at 8:00 pm

China Mobile’s bid to go for 3-mode Long-Term Evolution (LTE) has led to the first major breakthrough, $65 LTE handsets, and here baseband and application processors provided by chipmakers like Leadcore Technology, MediaTek and Spreadtrum Communications have all one thing in common: DSP cores from CEVA Inc.

The advent… Read More


Apple’s ARMed History

Apple’s ARMed History
by Majeed Ahmad on 03-24-2015 at 7:00 pm

Apple has redefined three industries within a decade: media player with the iPod, mobile handset with the iPhone and portable computers with the iPad. If there is anything common in these three game-changing product development stories other than Apple, it’s the ARM footprint. Even now the technology media is abuzz with speculation… Read More


Apple’s Ax Chronicle

Apple’s Ax Chronicle
by Majeed Ahmad on 03-22-2015 at 7:00 pm

In April 2008, Apple baffled the semiconductor industry by acquiring the system-on-chip (SoC) pioneer PA Semi for US$278 million. The acquisition, took place at the height of the iPhone fever, left the technology and trade media with an endless suite of guessing games. In the end, it was just about Apple’s quest for having… Read More


Arteris Flexes Networking Muscle in TI’s Multi-standard IoT Chip

Arteris Flexes Networking Muscle in TI’s Multi-standard IoT Chip
by Majeed Ahmad on 03-14-2015 at 7:00 am

Arteris Inc., a network-on-chip (NoC) interconnect IP solution provider, has joined hands with Texas Instruments Inc. to create an ultra-low-power chip that helps Internet of Things (IoT) devices go battery-less with energy harvesting and support coin cell-powered IoT operation for multiple years.

Another low-power MCU… Read More