Ultra-Low Power Non-Volatile Memory Solutions for the Smart Connected Universe

Ultra-Low Power Non-Volatile Memory Solutions for the Smart Connected Universe
by Tom Simon on 06-01-2015 at 6:00 pm

DAC is a great place to gather information about products and technologies. However it can be difficult to chase down the information you need because you may need to cover a lot of ground to hear or talk to the people with the right knowledge. Fortunately there are a few places you can go to learn about a number of products at one place.… Read More


How Sidense Sees The Smart Connected Universe

How Sidense Sees The Smart Connected Universe
by Tom Simon on 05-17-2015 at 7:00 am

Sidenserecently conducted a webinar on what they call the Smart Connected Universe. They consider the Smart Connected Universe as something that includes a collection of market segments that are both smart and connected. This casts a big net, and includes what many are calling IoT, but goes further into medical, automotive and… Read More


IoT Security: Your Refrigerator Attacks!

IoT Security: Your Refrigerator Attacks!
by Paul McLellan on 04-15-2015 at 7:00 am

Every time I see a presentation on IoT the forecast for the number of devices in 2020 seems to go up by a few billion. But behind the hype there are clearly going to be a large number of devices on (and even in) our bodies, our homes and cars. Not to mention in factories and workplaces. IoT devices cover a wide spectrum. Realtors like to expand… Read More


Sidense NVM Scores Qualification on GLOBALFOUNDRIES 28nm SLP and HPP

Sidense NVM Scores Qualification on GLOBALFOUNDRIES 28nm SLP and HPP
by Tom Simon on 04-12-2015 at 7:00 am

A tremendous number of chips being designed for today’s products require some sort of onboard data storage. The size of these needs range from a handful of bytes, for trim and calibration storage, to something much more substantial like boot code storage. In both of these examples the storage ideally should be nonvolatile, with… Read More


A Brief History of Kilopass

A Brief History of Kilopass
by Paul McLellan on 03-24-2015 at 7:00 am

Kilopass was founded back in 2001 by Jack Peng, whose background was in FPGAs with his most recent position being manager of technology development at Actel (now part of Microsemi). The idea was to build a company making one-time-programmable (OTP) memories using anti-fuse technology. Fuses in home-wiring (OK, I know, we all … Read More


NVM IP now Available for On-Chip MCU Code

NVM IP now Available for On-Chip MCU Code
by Eric Esteve on 01-29-2015 at 11:14 am

As of today NVM IP has been mostly used in SoC or IC to support very specific needs like analog trimming and calibration or encryption key integration for Digital Right Management (DRM) purpose. In other words small size (less than 1K-bit) few times programmable (FTP) NVM IP was enough to support these needs, thus most of the NVM IP… Read More


Did we forget non-volatile memory?

Did we forget non-volatile memory?
by Don Dingee on 10-15-2014 at 7:00 pm

In our rush to shrink SoC nodes more and more to achieve better performance and more complex devices, we may have forgotten a passenger in the back seat: non-volatile memory. There has been little discussion of this in the pages of SemiWiki until now. Let’s give it a closer look.

Embedded flash has usually been associated with microcontrollers,… Read More


Care and trimming of MEMS sensors

Care and trimming of MEMS sensors
by Don Dingee on 03-28-2014 at 2:00 pm

My first job in electronic design circa 1981 was making analog autopilots and control devices for RPVs – the early form of what today we call UAVs. A couple of really delicate boxes with gyroscopes, accelerometers, and magnetometers, and several boards full of LM148 quad op-amps surrounded by a lot of resistors and capacitors made… Read More


Using OTP Memories for High-performance Video

Using OTP Memories for High-performance Video
by Paul McLellan on 11-01-2013 at 4:15 pm

One of the most demanding applications where semiconductors are used is in the various applications of digital video from tablet computers, to home entertainment. iPad with a retina display is already at high-definition (HD) resolution (2048×1536) and all indications are that video is racing towards what is known as 4K… Read More


Always-on Context-aware Sensors in Your Phone

Always-on Context-aware Sensors in Your Phone
by Paul McLellan on 10-16-2013 at 8:00 am

Smartphones are smart but they are about to get smarter. The next big thing in mobile phones is to have a rich sensor environment: proximity, temperature and humidity, atmospheric pressure, light color, cover, gyroscope, magnetometer, accelerometer, ambient light, gesture and more. Some of these are already here, of course,… Read More