Articles – Page 131

February 5, 2018

Today we’re going to talk sound. Two separate stories – one where we can enjoy sound, the other where sound can work for us.

You Sound Well!

Our first story comes from USound, originating in a discussion we had at last fall’s MEMS and Sensors Executive Congress. They’ve developed a small MEMS speaker that can give flat sound-pressure levels (SPLs) from 10 Hz to 16 kHz. That’s below the nominal 20-Hz bottom of the hearing range for humans, and just under the 20-kHz top of the range.

They say that … Read More → "Sound Off – No Wait, Sound On!"

Forecast: Cloudy

IoT Madness Makes Good Devices Frustrating

by Jim Turley

January 31, 2018

“Expectation is the mother of all frustration.” – Antonio Banderas

I don’t like this. I don’t like it at all.

This “cloud” thing has got to stop before it kills somebody. They can make frustration-free packaging for consumer goods, so why can’t someone design frustration-free electronics, too? Oh, and get off of my lawn while you’re at it.

I’m no Luddite. I just hate it when other people (or machines) randomly decide when and … Read More → "Forecast: Cloudy"

Wide Bandgap Wakes Up

Superseding Silicon in Alternative Energy

by Kevin Morris

January 30, 2018

For the five decades of Moore’s Law, the main thrust of semiconductor technology advancement has been about shrinking geometries, lowering voltages, and lowering power consumption. Silicon CMOS has dominated that domain, of course, and most of the world’s semiconductor production is now CMOS for digital circuits.

Quietly, however, significant progress has been made on the opposite end of the spectrum. Wide-bandgap materials such as Silicon Carbide (SiC) and Gallium Nitride (GaN) are pushing in the opposite direction from silicon – towards higher voltages and higher … Read More → "Wide Bandgap Wakes Up"

More EDA Big Data

IC Manage Rolls Out Labs

by Bryon Moyer

January 29, 2018

We’ve been watching new ways of handling data emerge in EDA-land for a while now. One of the earliest we discussed was IC Manage’s Envision product, which used big-data techniques to help manage design progress and resources like people, servers, and licenses. Then came Ansys with their big-data platform. And then Solido with a machine-learning labs offering. And now < … Read More → "More EDA Big Data"

The Changing Face of Distribution

From Box Shifters to Full Outsourcing

by Dick Selwood

January 25, 2018

Once again, a news story has appeared in time to provide a topical twist to a story that was already underway. At the beginning of January, distribution giant Arrow Electronics announced that it had bought einfochips – a 1500-person “design and managed services” company. To quote the release, einfochips’ activities include, “developing custom hardware and software and new business models for the Internet of Things (IoT)”. And this announcement neatly encapsulates how distribution companies are changing.

Distribution has been a part of the electronics industry, one could argue, since before there was a recognisable electronics industry. For example, … Read More → "The Changing Face of Distribution"

Motherhood, Apple Pie, and NXP

Newest i.MX 8M to Enable Voice-Controlled Devices

by Jim Turley

January 24, 2018

“As private parts to the gods are we; they play with us for their sport.” – Lord Melchett, Blackadder

They say you shouldn’t shout at the TV, but evidently that’s going to be mandatory soon. Voice-activated controls are all the rage for consumer electronics, cars, and – soon! – refrigerators. “Hey, Siri, tell Alexa to wake up Cortana.”

Voice activation has been around for several years, of course, but much of it was pretty rudimentary. The first voice-activated car controls had a very limited vocabulary. You’d hold down a button on the steering … Read More → "Motherhood, Apple Pie, and NXP"

eFPGAs Go Mainstream

After Decades of “Why Not?”

by Kevin Morris

January 23, 2018

For decades, the idea of embedded FPGA fabric has been hanging around the industry like a comic sidekick – providing entertaining conversation, but never really taking part in the plot. The concept seemed solid enough on paper. Put some LUT fabric on your ASIC along with the other stuff and you get additional flexibility, maybe avoiding the almost-inevitable need to park an expensive FPGA right next to your ASIC when your chip lands on a board. LUTs are not rocket science, and adding some programmable logic to a design should be a pretty simple proposition – from a hardware design perspective, … Read More → "eFPGAs Go Mainstream"

LoRaWAN Gets an Upgrade

A Look at Three New Features

by Bryon Moyer

January 22, 2018

Has it really been two and a half years? That’s how long it’s been since we did a round-up of the many contenders for low-power, wide-area wireless service. While I haven’t gone back to do a, “where are they now?” review, my suspicion is that winners are shaking out.

Of course, in this early stage of roll-out, a “winner” is, more or less, someone who’s still in the trenches fighting the good fight with the resources to be serious about … Read More → "LoRaWAN Gets an Upgrade"

Spectre and Meltdown Continuing Coverage

Latest from EE Journal

by Kevin Morris

January 20, 2018

Spectre and Meltdown are possibly the most important (and interesting) security vulnerabilities discovered in the past two decades. Because they capitalize on weaknesses in commonly-used architectural features in many processors, they span numerous vendors, processors, and just about every type of computing device. Billions of processors deployed over the past two decades could be vulnerable.

The EE Journal editorial team is working to bring you the “engineer’s view” of Spectre and Meltdown – from the technical details of the vulnerabilities – to the popular misconceptions – to the blatant attempts to profiteer and incite panic.

Jim Turley … Read More → "Spectre and Meltdown Continuing Coverage"

Profiteering from Spectre and Meltdown

The 'Panic Yields Profits' Postulate

by Kevin Morris

January 18, 2018

OK, I’ve got to say something. Within the past week, I’ve seen numerous examples of companies trying to profiteer from the panic surrounding Spectre and Meltdown – and generating even more panic in the process. In my view, this is unethical and irresponsible. As engineers, this kind of corporate behavior damages public trust in our profession, in our work, and in us personally. We have to do all we can to correct and defuse this kind of damaging behavior.

Let’s think about a couple of examples. This week, Office Depot sent out an email to … Read More → "Profiteering from Spectre and Meltdown"