The ‘Dual diode’ approach is one of the most used on-chip and off-chip concept for ESD protection of IO interfaces. It is simple to implement, smaller than any other IO/ESD concept, has a low parasitic capacitance and low leakage.… Read More



New NVIDIA Tesla M10 Could Drive Enterprise VDI Reassessment
NVIDIA is well known for its leadership in graphics processors (GPUs) for gaming, but their business is quickly diversifying with significant growth in other areas like their datacenter and automotive businesses. Within the datacenter, NVIDIA has been evangelizing a vision for a number of years about the benefits of GPUs for… Read More
AMD Brings More Console Features To PC Gaming
Advanced Micro Devices made a big press splash when they won all three major game console platforms. Their presence inside the Microsoft Xbox One, Sony PS4 and Nintendo Wii U has benefited the company financially at the operating income level and has governed how they design their future GPUs. As Advanced Micro Devices has remained… Read More
The CyberSecurity Emperor Has No Clothes
In the past year, I’ve written numerous articles that have a common theme: the security world is badly broken as crypto schemas developed in the 90’s are no defense for today’s sophisticated hackers. For the most part, my blogs have been very well received, and have been picked up and posted by multiple sites and publications worldwide.… Read More
ARM sets up quagmire-free ecosystem for IoT
Wandering around DAC this week, I found much of the discussion focused on the EDA community being at an inflection point. How do we get more design starts from new places with new ideas without jeopardizing existing business? It’s not as simple a transition as it sounds.… Read More
Driverless Policy Making
The Vision Zero movement, embraced by Sweden and select U.S. and foreign cities around the world, continues to elude the grasp of U.S. Department of Transportation leadership. I was reading an impassioned letter to the President by Marianne Karth on the issue this morning – impassioned because Karth lost two daughters … Read More
How crowdfunding can help save Silicon Valley from its harebrained investors
There are fears that another Ice Age is about to hit Silicon Valley because of the implosion of its unicorns — start-ups valued at more than one billion dollars. By one estimate there were 229 such companies in January of this year. Their valuations are dropping precipitously because they were overpriced and overhyped. The fear … Read More
Facebook and the Internet of Things
Something very important happened recently at the annual developer conference (F8). Facebook firmly staked its claim on IOT. Facebook events (like the Google annual developer events) are always interesting, as they give a tantalizing view of what is coming next. Yes, it lacks the panache the Apple events have. However, just … Read More
How to prevent Electrical Overstress failure in NFC interfaces
Last year, about 40% of new smartphones included Near Field Communication (NFC). Analysts predict that by 2017 there will be 1 billion NFC enabled phones. Clearly, the use of NFC is ramping up because it can simplify aspects as diverse as communication, secure payments, user authentication, and retail loyalty programs for instance.… Read More
Semiconductor market going negative?
Several recent forecasts for the 2016 semiconductor market point to a decline. The title of this post is the same as we used for in October 2015. In October, Semiconductor Intelligence projected the market would grow 1.0% in 2015 despite several predictions of the market going negative. 2015 finished with a slight 0.2% decline.… Read More
Should Intel be Split in Half?