In 1987 I made my first trip to Japan for business, then rode in my first high-speed train on the fabled Shinkansen (aka bullet train) traveling up to 200 mph on the way from Tokyo to Kyoto. Compared to the USA, our engineering friends in Japan have the most futuristic high-speed trains in the world. Today there’ s talk about another… Read More
CEO Interview with Vamshi Kothur, of Tuple TechnologiesIt was my pleasure to meet with Vamshi…Read More
Webinar – Power is the New Performance: Scaling Power & Performance for Next Generation SoCsWhat if you could reduce power and extend…Read More
Reachability in Analog and AMS. Innovation in VerificationCan a combination of learning-based surrogate models plus…Read More
Flynn Was Right: How a 2003 Warning Foretold Today’s Architectural PivotIn 2003, legendary computer architect Michael J. Flynn…Read More
What’s Driving Real Medical Tech
I just watched a webinar on non-invasive bio-imaging as a way to detect and track disease, which gave me a sense of the way tech progresses in the medical field and makes for a positive counterpoint to my views on medical IoT, at least as envisioned in much of our industry. The webinar, on new approaches to in-vivo imaging was hosted … Read More
Challenges in IP Qualification with Rising Physical Data
With every new technology node, there are newer physical effects that need to be taken into account. And every new physical effect brings with itself several new formats to model them. Often a format is also associated with several of its derivatives, sometimes an standard reincarnation of a proprietary format further evolved… Read More
Why Did Apple Buy a Fab?
It was announced today that Apple has purchased a 200mm fab located in San Jose from Maxim Integrated Products for $18.2 million dollars. My initial reaction to this announcement was shock but then I started thinking through what Apple might use the fab for and I concluded this announcement is less significant and surprising than… Read More
IEDM Blogs – Part 2 – Memory Short Course
Each year the Sunday before IEDM two short courses are offered. This year I attended Memory Technologies for Future Systems held on Sunday, December 6[SUP]th[/SUP]. I have been to several of these short courses over the years and they are a great way to keep up to date on the latest technology.… Read More
Tis the Season to be kWh Wasteful!
As the world gears up for the upcoming holiday shopping season, the technology needed by online retailers to meet demands will bring with it many unintended negative byproducts: increased inefficiency, waste and pollution, to name a few. Online sales are expected to grow by 12 percent in the holiday season, on top of an already … Read More
Why Connect to the Cloud with Atmel SMART SAM W25?
Atmel SMART SAM W25 is in fact a module, Atmel names it “SmartConnect Module”. As far as I am concerned I like SmartConnect designation and I think it could be used to describe any IoT edge device. The device is “smart” as it includes a processing unit, in this case ARM Cortex M0 based SAMD21G, and “connect” remind the Internet part of… Read More
Freescale Semiconductor: The End of a Long Journey
“You don’t argue with success,” said Paul Galvin back in 1949 at the creation of a new venture that would eventually become known as Motorola Semiconductor Products Sector. He was referring to how Daniel E. Noble, one of Motorola’s top managers, had persuaded him to set up a small electronics research… Read More
Semiconductor capital spending consolidating
Shipments of semiconductor wafer fab equipment are expected to grow 2.5% in 2016 after 0.5% growth in 2015 according to the December forecast from Semiconductor Equipment and Materials International (SEMI). Gartner is more pessimistic, with its October forecast calling for fab equipment to decline 0.5% in 2015 and drop 2.5%… Read More
Latest Crop of Energy Harvesting Chips Powers IoT Sensor Nodes
Like death and taxes, changing batteries in remote sensor nodes and wireless IoT devices is often inevitable. Huge effort has been expended on reducing power consumption for battery operated devices, but the day always comes when the battery goes dead. Taking care of this can be as simple as popping open a battery cover and swapping… Read More
Flynn Was Right: How a 2003 Warning Foretold Today’s Architectural Pivot