Articles – Page 104

May 14, 2019

“You have to fight against being an antique.” – Burt Lancaster

Constant improvement brings constant obsolescence. When we keep updating our operating systems, processors, DRAM, and applications, we also leave behind the old apps and data that we used to use.

Normally, that’s not a huge problem. Most programs are backward-compatible with their predecessors. You can open dusty old Word documents using the latest version of Office or edit old Photoshop images with the newest release from Adobe.

Software-Defined Manufacturing

Bright Machines Wants to Do to Mfg What’s Been Done to Radio, Networking

by Bryon Moyer

May 13, 2019

You might say that it all started with radio. For most of us, “radio” means what you listen to in your car (where today it’s but one choice rather than the only choice it used to be). AM and FM were, and are, the main variants for that. Take TV into account, and you have VHF and UHF – if you’re receiving it over the airwaves.

Each of those types of radio has its own transmitter and receiver for what are, essentially, four different protocols. Not a huge burden … Read More → "Software-Defined Manufacturing"

eASIC’s Big Win

Intel’s Acquisition Finds Its New Legs

by Kevin Morris

May 8, 2019

Here at EE Journal world headquarters, we get a lot of press releases informing us that company A has made a deal with important customer B. Seriously. Many per day. Yawn. You may also notice the number of articles we typically do on those topics. Let’s count here… zero… uh, can we borrow from the tens place… no… yeah, zero. And yet, here we go talking about an announcement that is essentially that. eASIC – newly acquired by Intel and rolled into the (formerly Altera) programmable systems group (PSG) has won a deal with … Read More → "eASIC’s Big Win"

InnoPhase Crafts Digital Radio Chip

Unusual Approach to Wi-Fi and Bluetooth Should Save Power

by Jim Turley

May 7, 2019

“Gossip is the Devil’s radio.” – George Harrison

A radio, by definition, pumps energy into the air. It wastes power, in other words. How could it not? Unless you’re doing some really elaborate beam forming, most of that energy is splattered all over the room instead of transporting useful data. In a battery-powered world, radio is a bad idea.

And yet…

And yet, most battery-powered devices today do have 4G cellular, Bluetooth, Wi-Fi, ZigBee, Z-Wave, or some other wireless … Read More → "InnoPhase Crafts Digital Radio Chip"

Lithography Update

Notes from SPIE Advanced Litho

by Bryon Moyer

May 6, 2019

It was recently SPIE Advanced Litho time again, and… well, the belle of the ball appears to be changing. For several years, now, it’s been “all EUV all the time.” OK, there’s always lots of other stuff going on, but everyone (including your intrepid reporter) breathlessly awaited the latest EUV details.

EUV a Done Deal?

Well, EUV is kind of old news now. Yeah, there’s lots of work ongoing to bring further improvements, but, to address the big issue of the past, “Source … Read More → "Lithography Update"

EFINIX – Yet Another FPGA Company

Novel Devices Target AI, Low Power

by Kevin Morris

May 1, 2019

We’ve been around the FPGA startup merry-go-round numerous times over the past few decades. It generally does not end well. The usual script goes something like this: brilliant engineers come up with novel ways to make FPGAs smaller, faster, cheaper, more energy efficient, or some combination of those. Brilliant engineers get some venture funding and start working toward first silicon tape-out. Marketing and management folks come on board and start touring the town, PowerPoint in tow, looking for signs of interest from potential customers. Software team works to get a reasonable tool flow up and … Read More → "EFINIX – Yet Another FPGA Company"

Microsoft Buys Express Logic RTOS Company

Everything is a Component

by Jim Turley

April 30, 2019

“The future lies in designing… computers that users don’t realize are computers at all.” – Adam Osborne

The big fish eat the small fish. That’s a law of the jungle… er, aquarium.

Last week, software leviathan Microsoft gobbled up minnow Express Logic and its well-regarded RTOS, ThreadX. The financial terms of the agreement were not disclosed by either side, but my finger-in-the-breeze estimate is that the price was in the range of tens of millions of dollars, not hundreds of millions. Figure on eight figures … Read More → "Microsoft Buys Express Logic RTOS Company"

Automatic Security Policy Implementation

Secure Thingz and IAR Simplify Security Infrastructure

by Bryon Moyer

April 29, 2019

They say that security can’t be designed as an afterthought. That security must be thought through as an early aspect of planning and architecture design. (“They” being… well, the same “they” that say lots of things.)

It would be so much easier if a small design house could have one security expert (at most) that everyone could run to with last-minute implementation requests. “Hey, we need PKI authentication. Can you quick add that in?” Or, “Hey, it turns out that, if we bury the same private key in every … Read More → "Automatic Security Policy Implementation"

Self-Driving Cars: What the Engineers Think

Survey Suggests That Developers Don’t Even Yet Know What They’re Facing

by Jim Turley

April 24, 2019

“Your car goes where your eyes go.” – Garth Stein

A brand-new survey of autonomous-vehicle designers tells an interesting story about their progress, their concerns, and their outlook for fully autonomous vehicles.

If I may offer a brief summary: they’re scared $#!%-less.

The survey was conducted by Forrester Consulting and paid for by microprocessor company ARM, so we can assume that ARM had a hand in designing … Read More → "Self-Driving Cars: What the Engineers Think"

Intel Acquires Omnitek

FPGA AI Race Heats Up

by Kevin Morris

April 23, 2019

Following on the recent announcement of the new Agilex FPGA family, Intel announced they are acquiring Omnitek – a developer of video and vision acceleration IP for FPGAs. As the market for FPGA-powered acceleration heats up, one of the killer applications is video and machine vision. FPGAs are extremely well suited to video analytics, as the combination of acceleration capabilities and flexible handling of high bit-rate data streams, plus the adaptability to various application-specific parameters is a near ideal fit.

Omnitek is a UK-based company with about 40 employees that has been … Read More → "Intel Acquires Omnitek"