Articles – Page 111

February 5, 2019

We now live in a data-driven world. With the proliferation of IoT, we are rapidly ramping toward a trillion connected sensors on the planet, all gathering data at an ever-accelerating pace. In just the last year or so, it is likely that we have gathered more data than in all of human history prior to that. But data is useless unless we do something with it, and this deluge of data makes the challenge of extracting information even more difficult.

The science of big data has exploded in recent years, … Read More → "Modernizing the Memory Hierarchy"

Outside the Silicon Valley Bubble

Notions of “Always Connected” are Overblown

by Bryon Moyer

February 4, 2019

Anecdote 1. The familiar chime goes off on my phone: a text has arrived. I go to the phone to see what someone has to say, and I see the rather cryptic, “Unreceived message.” Well that’s odd… cuz the sound means I just received a text, right?

I click the “Download” button to receive the text I just received (but didn’t), and it cycles away… on… and on… and on… and nothing ever comes of it. And that’s when I remember: because I have no cell service, I’ … Read More → "Outside the Silicon Valley Bubble"

In the Shadow of Moore’s Law

Lithography Pulls Progress in its Wake

by Kevin Morris

January 31, 2019

For the last half century, a large segment of the world’s electronic engineers have worked in the insane vortex of Moore’s Law. Entire engineering careers from college through retirement have been spent with the only constant being exponential change. Whatever you learned in engineering school was obsolete before your first job promotion. Whatever you managed to design one year, you had to double to stay competitive two years later. Just about every tool, technique, or technology you invested time in learning had lost relevance within a couple of years, and your professional life was … Read More → "In the Shadow of Moore’s Law"

Firefox Snippets, Inconsistent UIs, and Demon Developers

Are You Tormenting Your Customers with Inconsistent UI “Upgrades”?

by Steven Leibson

January 30, 2019

The road to hell is paved with good intentions – Proverb

I’ve been using the Firefox browser for a very, very long time, and that’s in spite of the browser’s ups and downs. Yes, I know that Google’s Chrome rules the browser roost these days, and I have Chrome on my daily-use laptop. It’s just that I’m so used to the Firefox interface. But pay attention Mozilla:

You’re not making it easy for me.

< … Read More →

Don’t Trust the Robot Driving Your Car

Testing Automotive Braking Systems Reveals Major Differences

by Jim Turley

January 29, 2019

“It feels good when it stops.”

It’s beyond dispute that cars are safer than ever before. Some of that is due to basic physics – cars have thicker doors, tougher roofs, shatterproof glass, bigger bumpers, and so on – and some is due to electronics. We now have cars with automatic cruise control, automatic distance-keeping, and limited automatic piloting.

What’s not clear is whether the same electronic nannies that make cars smarter also make drivers dumber. (Hard to tell, I know…) There’ … Read More → "Don’t Trust the Robot Driving Your Car"

Priming the RISC-V Pump

NXP Creates Open-ISA.org

by Bryon Moyer

January 28, 2019

We’re probably all aware at some level of the new processor upstart, the open-source RISC-V… core? No… architecture? No… instruction set architecture (ISA)? Yeah, that’s pretty much what it is. Which means… if you want to use it, and you’re starting from scratch, then there are lots of steps necessary to do anything.

Given all the hoopla, it’s easy to think that you can simply go out and buy these handy new RISC-V chips, which will cost less, cuz open source, right? But, while excitement is … Read More → "Priming the RISC-V Pump"

Repeating Fast Radio Bursts Ring Canada’s CHIME

FPGAs, GPUs, and CPUs Sift Through the Universe’s Electromagnetic Spectrum to Make the Discovery

by Steven Leibson

January 24, 2019

On January 9, Canada’s CHIME (the Canadian Hydrogen Intensity Mapping Experiment) radio telescope team described the detection of a repeating, milliseconds-long FRB (fast radio burst), only the second to ever be detected. The announcement appeared in two letters published in the same January 9 issue of Nature magazine and a third paper presented that same day at the 233rd American Astronomical … Read More → "Repeating Fast Radio Bursts Ring Canada’s CHIME"

How to Get Rich (I Think)

Make Yourself Indispensable by Getting in the Way

by Jim Turley

January 23, 2019

“Plastics.” – Mr. McGuire, “The Graduate”

Silicon Valley, like Las Vegas and parts of New York, is full of people with get-rich-quick schemes. But I’ve got a foolproof plan. I want to say just one word to you. Are you listening? Infrastructure.

Forget making must-have products or killer apps. The real path to riches in this industry is to insert yourself into the middle of something. Get in the way. Be an enabler. Become infrastructure. </ … Read More → "How to Get Rich (I Think)"

Intel FOVEROS 3D Packaging

They Said it Couldn’t be Done

by Kevin Morris

January 22, 2019

Moore’s Law said that we could double the number of transistors on an integrated circuit every two years. But there were a lot of variables in that equation. For example, the industry has always assumed that an “integrated circuit” was a single, 2D monolithic silicon chip. But Moore’s Law didn’t make that distinction. It also didn’t specify an area for the silicon chip, meaning the “more transistors” could be crammed onto larger chips without breaking the rules of the game. And, for decades, engineers have wondered about breaking down the third wall, … Read More → "Intel FOVEROS 3D Packaging"

Putting Strays in their Place

A Look at Stray Magnetic Field Rejection

by Bryon Moyer

January 21, 2019

There’s a big change coming in the automotive world. “Duh,” you say? “Um, hello! Self-driving!” you insist? Well, yes, that too, but that’s not the change I’m talking about. This change applies whether self-driving ever happens or not.

It’s electrification. Drive-by-wire. As we alluded to last week. Replacing mechanical linkages with electrical signals. (So, yeah, your battery better never die, or else you can’t … Read More → "Putting Strays in their Place"