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
How Pebble Reinitiated the Inning for Smartwatch
The effort for adding phone function into watch had started much earlier in 1999 when several tech companies joined the crusade to enter the big watch market. Notable among them were Samsung, IBM, Microsoft, Fossiland Sony Ericsson. The effort lasted for about a decade before showing its signs of fatigue. Microsoft SPOT (Smart… Read More
What is Inside of the Samsung Galaxy S6?
I’ve always been curious about what is inside an electronic device, and it was seeing the very first TI handheld calculator that got me started into a career as an Electrical Engineer. Next to Apple, the most popular brand in smart phone devices these days has got to be Samsung and they have just launched the Galaxy S6 device.… Read More
Linley Mobile Microprocessor Conference
As The Who sang on Who’s Next:Keep me movin’, groovin’, groovin’, yeah
Movin’, Yeah
Mobile, mobile, mobile, mobile, …
On April 22nd and 23rd the place to be moving (or movin’) to will be the Hyatt Regency in Santa Clara. Because What’s Next is this year’s Linley Mobile Conference… Read More
Passage of Time with Watches
During my childhood in my native place in India, although there were good watches around from Seiko, Citizen and some of the Indian companies, I used to see some old men and women never using any watch but still being fairly accurate in perceiving time by just watching the position of sun, or moon, or the shadow formed by a certain object.… Read More
CEVA Eyes DSP Scale in China’s $65 LTE Handsets
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 Ax Chronicle
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
Intel and the Intel-of-Things
When I joined Calma in 1982, Intel was a small company making microprocessor chips in a crowded marketplace. They had scored big with IBM who was using their 8088 in the very first personal computer. Wind River was a hatchling with David Wilner and Jerry Fiddler working out of a rented warehouse in Berkeley – I know, I hung out… Read More
Apple Watch Announcement
Rock music, invitation only tickets, hollywood lighting, journalists from around the world, live streaming on the web, yes, another typical Apple-orchestrated product launch on Monday, March 9th at the Yerba Buena Center in California.
Up first was a video about Apple’s store opening in West Lake China with superb cinematography.… Read More
Intel and Samsung in Barcelona
This week it was Mobile World Congress in Barcelona. Everyone who is anyone in mobile is there. Unfortunately I’m not since Barcelona is one of my favorite cities to visit. Two companies that set high expectations before the show were Samsung and Intel.
Samsung announced the new Galaxy S6 and S6 Edge smartphones on Sunday.… Read More
More Headwinds – CHIPS Act Chop? – Chip Equip Re-Shore? Orders Canceled & Fab Delay