Paul McLellan wrote about how he stumbled into blogging and it inspired me to share my story as well. I grew up in Minnesota and attended the U of Minnesota earning a bachelor’s degree in Electrical Engineering so that I could design computer chips. After interviewing in 1978 with HP, IBM, Intel and Motorola I decided to join… Read More
Blogging for Dummies
I am often asked how I became a blogger (or a journalist if you want to make it sound more professional). I think people assume that I planned it in some way but I never did. Life is what happens while you are making other plans. To see how unlikely it is, you need to know a bit of my background.
I have a PhD in computer science so I’m actually… Read More
All things being unequal for NXP and Freescale
When I read the news that NXP was buying Freescale, it felt like a part of me – and a big part of the history of high tech industry in Arizona – died. There was a time not that long ago where Motorola was the biggest employer in this state, way before Freescale and ON Semi separated from the mothership. Somehow, even with moving headquarters… Read More
Product Review: Google Chromecast
Our household members own both Apple and Android devices, so we wanted a way to share our photos or videos on the Samsung TV. The device we ended up buying is called Chromecast from Google, and it’s a small media streaming device that plugs into an HDMI port on our TV. We’ve had Chromecast for about six weeks now.… Read More
Earnings Calls: Behind the Scenes
Last weekend I wrote about the Applied Materials earnings call. And over the last couple of years I’ve written about lots of other earnings calls. Most people have never been on an earnings call, I mean in the conference room where the call is being conducted, not just listening. So I thought it might be interesting to describe how … Read More
Product Review: Bose – SoundTrue Around-Ear Headphones
My old headphones with microphone lost a channel, so it was time to upgrade and I went shopping for something that had high fidelity and fit over my ears, instead of on my ears. After some online research I opted for the Bose headphones, because that brand has been around for decades, they offer many models to choose from, and are readily… Read More
Opto-Electronics to Take Care of Data Explosion
As we come nearer to an intelligent IoT world, one of the major concerns we talk every day is about data explosion, its storage, and access and so on. In the beginning of the year, I had blogged about some facts that indicated successful emergence of IoT in very near future. My faith gets further strengthened when I envision the semiconductor… Read More
IBM to Humiliate 20% of Workforce?
There are four big technology companies that I grew up with: Intel, Apple, Microsoft, and IBM. I still follow all four but it is sometimes hard to watch. Last week there was talk of a massive layoff at IBM and I have just confirmed it with my Upstate sources. According to an article in Forbes it will be 25% of the more than 400,000 workforce.… Read More
Je Suis Charlie
Last Monday was the first working day of 2015, dedicated to installing a new PC. Tuesday was also dedicated to an admin work, asking for a new passport, so Wednesday was supposed to be the first real working day for me. In fact, because the Radio is on when I am working, I heard about this crazy offense against the complete editorial board… Read More
Facts Support New Emergence in Semiconductor Landscape
As we left an exciting year 2014 which is poised to record 7+ % increase in semiconductor revenue (~ $338 B) compared to 2013 (~ $315 B) and entered into another promising year 2015 for semiconductors, I looked back over the year bygone and collected inferences from some of the major important events which clearly convey how 2015 can… Read More
AI RTL Generation versus AI RTL Verification