Flex Logix is a Different Kind of IP Company!

Flex Logix is a Different Kind of IP Company!
by Daniel Nenni on 12-13-2016 at 7:00 am

The embedded FPGA business has been getting quite a bit of press lately so it is definitely worth a closer look. Intel started it all when they acquired the #2 FPGA company Altera for $16.7B last year. Microsoft is also a big FPGA fan for search and deep learning. In fact, Microsoft’s commitment to FPGAs, specifically Altera FPGAs,… Read More


Sensing Without (much) Power

Sensing Without (much) Power
by Paul McLellan on 04-16-2015 at 7:00 am

Do you have one of those step-tracker things? They seem to be one of the earliest IoT devices that are actually selling in large quantities. Smartphones are also starting to contain this sort of sensor to provide similar functionality without requiring a separate device, as are smart-watches such as the Jumpy watch for kids on the… Read More


Getting a Grip on the Internet of Things

Getting a Grip on the Internet of Things
by Paul McLellan on 03-12-2015 at 7:00 am

QuickLogic’s CTO Tim Saxe gave a keynote Getting a Grip on the Internet of Things at the IoT Summit last week.

He started by relating how things have changed over the last 3 years when he talks to customers.

  • Three years ago it was sensor hubs in smartphones and the power budget was 3mW (so one day between re-charging, something
Read More

QuickLogic betting big on sensor hubs

QuickLogic betting big on sensor hubs
by Majeed Ahmad on 01-05-2015 at 12:00 pm

QuickLogic Corp.—the former FPGA maker that reinvented itself through configurable design for consumer electronics (CE) products—is taking its sensor hub arsenal to high pitch at the 2015 International Consumer Electronics Show (CES) in Las Vegas. Sensor hub, a companion to application processor, offloads data from sensors… Read More


Components for Wearables, Making the IoT Real

Components for Wearables, Making the IoT Real
by Paul McLellan on 12-22-2014 at 4:12 pm

The screenwriter William Goldman is famous for saying that in Hollywood “Nobody knows anything.” Meaning that there is simply no way for any of the people involved to be able to predict which movies will turn out to be hits and which will be flops. I think the internet of things (IoT) is going to be like that. There will … Read More


Quicklogic Delivers First Wearable Sensor Hub with Under 150uW Standby

Quicklogic Delivers First Wearable Sensor Hub with Under 150uW Standby
by Paul McLellan on 09-03-2014 at 9:00 am

I have talked before about how the Internet of Things (IoT) doesn’t require enormous power-hungry SoCs. We all accept, or at least put up with, having to recharge our phones daily. But smart pedometers (or whatever a good name for Fitbit-like products are) had better last for a week or two between charges.

Today, Quicklogic… Read More


A Brief History of QuickLogic

A Brief History of QuickLogic
by Paul McLellan on 06-19-2014 at 10:18 am

Quicklogic was founded in 1988 as a fables semiconductor company supplying anti-fuse devices. In fact VLSI Technology, where I was working at the time, was their foundry.

Although today anti-fuse is often used as a generic word for one-time-programmability, the origins of the name are grounded in reality. In a fuse, like the things… Read More


Sensor Hub and Wearable Gestures

Sensor Hub and Wearable Gestures
by Paul McLellan on 06-13-2014 at 10:00 am

One of the challenges with the internet of things (IoT) is that many devices are both always on and battery powered (and not with a large battery). The responsibilities need to be split so that the device senses when it needs to wake up without requiring the application processor to be waking up all the time to make the decision since… 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


Wanted: FPGA start-up! …Dead or Alive?

Wanted: FPGA start-up! …Dead or Alive?
by Eric Esteve on 04-05-2011 at 6:23 am

The recent announcement from Tabula about the $108 million raised in its Series D round of funding is putting the focus on FPGA technology, and FPGA startups in particular. Who are these FPGA startups, what is their differentiation, where is the innovation, in the product or the business model?

When you say FPGA, you first think:Read More