You may be aware that Intel went through a layoff recently. Whatever you think of the merits of the layoff itself, it would be hard to argue that it was executed smoothly. But, to hear some tell it, the result has left something of a crater in the morale and confidence of at least some of the surviving workforce. And this is a group that has seen many layoffs in the past. So … Read More → "Fear and Trepidation at Intel"
WiFi, Bluetooth, and Zigbee are vying for primacy, and none of them is likely to disappear anytime soon (if ever). WiFi is the granddaddy, and arguably the most familiar. So, of course, WiFi is going onto all kinds of stuff. We see plenty of WiFi modules and chips, but CEVA suggests that you can save space if you integrate the WiFi directly into your SoC. (Assuming you’re doing an SoC…)
Sounds straightforward, but if you dig in just a little, an obvious question comes up: which WiFi? If you’re going the route … Read More → "WiFi Three Ways from CEVA"
mCube made more noise recently with their announcement of a very small, low-power accelerometer. There were a number of aspects to the release; some intriguing, some… less so.
Let’s start with intrigue. The whole focus here is on a small device that can be used in space-constrained, power-stingy applications – like wearables. Obviously space is critical in any such device, but they point out that flexible circuit boards can enable more… well… flexible shape designs. And, while the accelerometer isn’t itself flexible, the closer you can come to an infinitesimal … Read More → "mCube’s New Low-Power Accel: What It Is and Isn’t"
We’ve heard about the role of the Cloud in the Internet of Things (IoT). It’s analytics and other decision-making that happens in some remote server farm somewhere to serve some “edge-node” device connected over the internet. And you’ve probably heard of the variant on that called the “fog,” where some of that computing is done on a machine local to the edge node, reducing communication traffic and latency.
But… did you know that there are two flavors of fog? And that this actually has an analog … Read More → "Two Kinds of IoT Fog"
While at the recent Sensors Expo, I had a conversation with Anaren that drove home a point: with all of the focus on all of the fancy things that are theoretically possible with the burgeoning Internet of Things (IoT), back in the lab, folks are spending a lot of energy just to get devices connected. And many of the tasks – such as getting the radios up – require expertise that not everyone has.
Their focus is on the RF aspects of the design, with a couple radio modules leveraging Broadcom’s WICED (pron. “wicked,& … Read More → "Free RF Connectivity Tool"
What could you do if you had access to a ton of data about semiconductor design? Things like:
Well, you could mash them all into a Big Data repository, set the dial to … Read More → "Design Management Goes Big Data"
A new inertial measurement unit (IMU), the FIS1100, was announced by Fairchild, and it gives us a couple things to talk about.
First, well… Fairchild. I remember when I started in the industry [kids roll their eyes, “Oh, there goes grampa on one of his stories again”], you’d have these genealogy charts showed how various companies evolved from prior companies. And one of the very few root companies was Fairchild. Anyone who had any time in the industry had, at one point or another, worked at Fairchild.
And then, well, … Read More → "Fairchild Debuts MEMS"
