Articles – Page 14

The Resharp story: A knife-sharpening robot may have taken root in your local hardware store

March 31, 2025

The practice of putting sharp edges on cutting tools dates back more than two million years. That’s when we think genus Homo started using hammerstones to break off parts of a rock to form sharp cutting edges. Things have changed since then. Based on numerous YouTube videos devoted to the topic, knife sharpening has evolved into high art. Now, it’s reached the point where robots can do a respectable job of sharpening knives. You’ll likely find one of these robots at your local hardware store.

Back in my Cub Scout … Read More → "The Resharp story: A knife-sharpening robot may have taken root in your local hardware store"

Are You Going to RISC-V Con 2025?

by Max Maxfield

March 27, 2025

I’m thinking of a RISC-V IP vendor. One that has a 30% market share of the global RISC-V IP market. One whose IP cores are to be found in more than 16 billion system-on-chip (SoC) devices. Are you thinking who I’m thinking? … Read More →

Lip-Bu Tan steps into the Intel CEO role. Can he save the company?

by Steven Leibson

March 24, 2025

The question in my headline is a bit of a tease. Intel doesn’t need saving, per se, but its reputation sure needs a makeover, and the company’s new CEO – Lip-Bu Tan – certainly has the chops and smarts to rebuild the financial community’s and the electronics industry’s trust in the once (and future?) semiconductor leader. Many pundits have opined already about Intel’s new CEO, so why trust my opinion? I’ve got experience working for a company run by Tan during his years as Cadence’s CEO, so I don’t need to … Read More → "Lip-Bu Tan steps into the Intel CEO role. Can he save the company?"

From Power Supply Block Diagram to Completed Design in 60 Seconds!

by Max Maxfield

March 20, 2025

There are many things I’ve not really thought about before. I don’t like to boast (I pride myself on my humility), but I bet I’ve not thought about more things than most people. One reason I say this is that I keep on being introduced to new things I’ve never even considered.

Take the power supply portion of embedded systems and the “things” part of the IoT, for example. I think it’s fair to say that this is right at the top of the list … Read More → "From Power Supply Block Diagram to Completed Design in 60 Seconds!"

Speeding AI and HPC Workloads with Composable Memory and Hardware Compression / Decompression Acceleration

by Max Maxfield

March 18, 2025

Sometimes I try to capture a column’s intent in a short, snappy title using pithy prose, as it were. I might attempt an aphoristic or epigrammatic turn of phrase while trying not to appear gnomic (which—as we now see—is something I reserve for my opening sentence).

In this case, however, my Speeding AI and HPC Workloads with Composable Memory and Hardware Compression / Decompression Acceleration offering is as short and snappy as I could make it with respect to the topic about which I’m … Read More → "Speeding AI and HPC Workloads with Composable Memory and Hardware Compression / Decompression Acceleration"

Altera announces that Agilex 3 FPGAs are in production and are ready for ordering, immediately

by Steven Leibson

March 17, 2025

At the recent Embedded World held in Nuremberg, Altera made an announcement and wants you to know two things: Agilex 3 FPGAs are now in production, and you can order them now. Altera also announced development support for Agilex 3 FPGAs (along with Agilex 5 E-series FPGAs and MAX10 programmable logic devices) through a no-cost Quartus license, and development boards from iWave and Terasic. The company will continue to offer its Cyclone V FPGAs, which will be less expensive than Agilex 3 FPGAs with similar numbers of logic elements (LEs). During a preview of the Embedded World announcement, Altera CEO Sandra … Read More → "Altera announces that Agilex 3 FPGAs are in production and are ready for ordering, immediately"

Need 3,000A to Power Your Next-Gen XPU?

by Max Maxfield

March 13, 2025

I wish I were going to attend the forthcoming IEEE Applied Power Electronics Conference and Exposition, which is scheduled to take place next week as I pen these words. There’s a buzz building around this year’s event like “I know not wot,” as it were.

APEC 2025 will be taking place March 16 to 20 at the Georgia World Congress Center in Atlanta, Georgia. When I say “Georgia,” I mean Georgia, the state in North America (one state over to the right from where … Read More → "Need 3,000A to Power Your Next-Gen XPU?"

A Deeper Dive into Efinix with VP of Marketing Mark Oliver

by Steven Leibson

March 10, 2025

The FPGA community is tiny. You can count the number of FPGA vendors on one hand, if you neglect to count the three or four vendors in China who are dedicated to their domestic market. Anyone familiar with the FPGA market can likely name AMD (the FPGA company formerly known as Xilinx), Altera (the FPGA company formerly known as Intel PSG, which itself was previously known as Altera), Lattice Semiconductor, and Microchip (which fell into the FPGA market by buying Microsemi, the original purchaser of FPGA maker Actel). If you’re a real student of the FPGA … Read More → "A Deeper Dive into Efinix with VP of Marketing Mark Oliver"

Zero-Code Smart Camera and Robot Controller

by Max Maxfield

March 6, 2025

I can’t believe how fast things are moving in artificial intelligence (AI) space (where no one can hear you scream). As one example, I just saw a video of a high school student called Benjamin Choi who built a prosthetic arm that he can control with his mind using AI.

As reported by Smithsonian Magazine, Benjamin built this low-cost manipulator using his sister’s 3D printer. He employs only two non-intrusive sensors (one on his ear and the other on … Read More → "Zero-Code Smart Camera and Robot Controller"

Want to know the future of new memories (MRAM, FRAM, PCM)? Tom Coughlin and Jim Handy make predictions

by Steven Leibson

March 5, 2025

I’ve been following alternative and persistent memory technologies for 40 years. Back in the 1980s, all we had for semiconductor memory was SRAM, DRAM, EPROM, and {non-Flash) EEPROM. During the late 1980s, when I first transitioned from working as an engineer to an editor for an electronics publication, I wrote about nascent, low-capacity, persistent memories offered by two companies located in Colorado Springs: ferroelectric memory (FRAM) made by Ramtron, and SONOS Flash memory with an SRAM shadow memory array from Simtek. Ramtron’s gone, but FRAM is still kicking, and Cypress bought Simtek in 2008. (Infineon bought Cypress … Read More → "Want to know the future of new memories (MRAM, FRAM, PCM)? Tom Coughlin and Jim Handy make predictions"