One of the IP companies that I track is CEVA, the largest licensor of DSP cores. CEVA is the fifth largest IP company behind ARM, Synopsys, Imagination Technologies, and Cadence (Lattice acquired Silicon Image). CEVA is actually a combination of companies which started with the DSP Group and Parthus Technologies in 2002 and RiveriasWaves… Read More
Tag: bluetooth
An Open Letter to Qualcomm CEO
Dear Steve,
Let me first clarify about myself that I am a humble blogger at Semiwiki and admire your company as the #1 Semiconductor Fabless Company and #4 in terms of overall semiconductor sales of the top10 semiconductor companies in the world as per 2014 data. Also, I must mention another point of admiration that your company is… Read More
A Key Aspect Missing for IoT to become NBT
The IoT (Internet of Things) is not one product, technology, segment, or market. It’s a combination of many things, many markets, and many technologies. However, it’s one thing that needs to connect everything together; edge device to gateway to cloud. That brings the complexity, how’s that possible amid large heaps of heterogeneous… Read More
Synopsys Buys Bluetooth IP
There is obviously a broad spectrum of semiconductor IP but broadly speaking it seems to fall into three buckets:
- foundation IP: standard cells, memories
- microprocessors and associated peripherals
- interface IP
Foundation IP is where it all started. When I was at Compass Design Automation in the 1990s that was pretty much what… Read More
Apple Watch Design Revisit with a Wi-Fi Twist
Apple Watch is the world’s most celebrated gadget in 2015. At the same time, however, early product reviews highlight some issues about slow apps, less than impressive user experience, and short battery life.
Apple, the master of artful integration, has done well for its reputation of elite hardware and has been able to … Read More
A Perfect Catalyst at the Right Time
There cannot be a product without a need. The need is the first essential aspect which has to be created or at least felt and then comes a slew of motivator factors including style quotient and fashion statements. It’s possible that a genuine but ill conceived need can be undermined by an overwhelming fashion statement although under-serving… 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
Mentor Moves to Enter IoT Fray
In December I signed up for an IoT “lunch and learn” hosted by Mentor Graphics. There were a number of surprising things about the session. The first and most obvious is that it was really a “breakfast-to-lunch and learn”. Starting at 9AM and going through the end of lunch, it was packed full of ‘learning.’ It was also packed full of … Read More
Bluetooth Smart Crashes IoT Party
When you hear the term Internet of Things the first image that comes to mind is, well, a lot of things talking over TCP/IP, maybe using WiFi or god forbid Ethernet. But upon closer examination it seems that Bluetooth is crashing the IoT party. This was driven home for me when my girlfriend gave me a FitBit Flex. For those unfamiliar, … Read More
Sensing, Processing and Connecting: IoT Fundamentals
Internet of Things, or Internet of Everything, is certainly the buzzword of the year. Does IoT describe one product family? Not really as the acronym describes a family of concepts, each of these concepts could effectively be turned into a family of products, if this concept reach the market, or fulfill a market need. Nevertheless… Read More