Articles – Page 146

March 22, 2017

The VP was obviously impressed. In fact, “blown away” wouldn’t have been overstating it. The demo had gone perfectly, and even when he’d asked questions that took us off script, we were able to show what he wanted to see. His excitement was palpable. I knew before he walked out the door that we’d get what we wanted.

Funding.

Our little team, made up of some of the most talented software engineers I’d ever met, had been working 12-14 hours per day for the past … Read More → "The 90 Percent Trap"

Cypress Tames Two-Headed Monster

M4 + M0 Equals More

by Jim Turley

March 21, 2017

“While my friends were busy listening to the Talking Heads… I was busy teaching myself to program on the Atari.” — Steven Sinofsky

What would you do with 104 I/O pins, two CPU cores, two 8K caches, a touchscreen interface, Bluetooth, four AA batteries, and a gaggle of analog components? You may be about to find out.

Cypress has upgraded its programmable system-on-chip (PSoC) family of flexible microcontrollers with a new dual-core, security-enhanced, low-power family it calls PSoC 6. It’s the first dual-core chip from Cypress, and the first to use ARM’s Cortex-M4 … Read More → "Cypress Tames Two-Headed Monster"

An Old Cantilever Is New Again

Menlo Micro Looks to Materials for a Better Switch

by Bryon Moyer

March 20, 2017

It’s been a while since we’ve talked about a new company in the MEMS space. All that quantum fluctuation a few years back – companies popping into and out of existence as MEMS experienced the cool factor – have settled into proper family lives, with PTA meetings and birthday parties and all.

So it caught my eye when I got wind of a company called Menlo Micro (a GE spinout) doing switches – RF and power in particular. What could possibly be new to one of the most basic MEMS structures? And how could a miniaturized switch manage … Read More → "An Old Cantilever Is New Again"

World Doesn’t End, Part II

Microsoft’s Experiments with ARM Don’t Signal the End of Intel Servers

by Jim Turley

March 15, 2017

“Whenever I hear the word culture, I reach for my revolver.” – Hermann Göring

Here we go again. This is the year of “fake news.” Maybe it’s because we’re all starved for novelty, or because the government has stopped putting the Ritalin in our drinking water. Maybe future sociologists will look back and blame Facebook, Twitter, and Twinkies for our short collective attention spans. Whatever the reasons, it’s all too easy to jump to the exciting conclusion over the mundane one. “Man bites dog” always grabs more headlines than the reverse.

< … Read More →

Teaching Machines to See

Xilinx Launches reVISION

by Kevin Morris

March 14, 2017

The IoT world is all about sensing, and no sense is more important or empowering than vision. We humans rely on our sight to understand the world around us more than any other source of information, and it’s likely that the same will be true for our intelligent machines. From automotive applications like ADAS to drones to factory automation, giving our systems the ability to “see” brings capabilities that are difficult or even impossible to achieve in any other way.

But vision is one of the most challenging computational problems of our … Read More → "Teaching Machines to See"

A New IC Design Model

eFabless Moves Engineering into the Gig Economy

by Bryon Moyer

March 13, 2017

This is a story with a flipside. Probably a couple of flipsides, actually. And it has me rather conflicted.

It’s a simple story about a new way to design circuits, leveraging ideas from other industries. Uber was called out by name as an inspiration, although, as we increasingly see, Uber isn’t necessarily an ethical model to follow. But there are others in that same space, and it’s the common ideas that apply. And we’re going to apply them to design.

Today, if you need a circuit of some sort, you have … Read More → "A New IC Design Model"

Safety-Critical Systems

An Evaluation of the Last 25 Years

by Dick Selwood

March 9, 2017

Security, particularly for the IoT, has been hogging the headlines recently, but safety and safety-critical applications are still a major topic of interest. February saw the 25^th Safety-Critical Systems Seminar (SSS). It was organised by a group called the Safety-Critical Systems Club (SCSC) – the UK’s professional network and community for sharing knowledge about safety-critical systems, with membership from a wide range of disciplines including practicing engineers, academics, and regulators, as well as tools suppliers. The seminar also coincided with a change in the Club’s management team, and a relocation from Newcastle to York. The event … Read More → "Safety-Critical Systems"

Quantum of Solace

IBM Gets Serious About Quantum Computers

by Jim Turley

March 8, 2017

“It’s a long way to the top if you wanna rock ‘n’ roll.” – AC/DC

You’ll never lose your job for buying IBM. That was the conventional wisdom in the days of large mainframe computers, the heavy metal that ran your uncle’s downtown business. IBM was considered the safe choice, the blue-chip, reliable, businesslike (“It’s in their name!”) supplier of computers, typewriters, and assorted office technology. Big Blue.

Now we have Big Weird.

But weird is good. More to the point, weird is where we’re heading, … Read More → "Quantum of Solace"

Picking Up Bad Vibrations

Mentor Debuts Shaky New PCB Tool

by Kevin Morris

March 7, 2017

It feels great to finish a printed circuit board (PCB) project, doesn’t it? By the time a project goes out the door, the design feels almost like a child you’ve raised. You’ve nurtured, guided, argued, questioned your own competence, and even fought. Then, at the end, you’ve finally settled into a nice rhythm of blissful acceptance where you realize you’ve done your best, and your creation will now have to head into the world to stand on its own.

Then, liberated by the emptying of the nest, you … Read More → "Picking Up Bad Vibrations"

A Radio with Minimal Analog(ue)

Pizzicato Pushes More into Digital

by Bryon Moyer

March 6, 2017

Economics is never far from a semiconductor discussion. Even Moore’s Law, often articulated in physical terms (die size, feature size, etc.) is really an economic law that deals with cost. Yeah, it’s a bit more drab than bits and bytes, but, heck, it pays a lot of bit-and-byte salaries (at least for now, until our AI overlords take over that industry), so it’s not to be given short shrift.

And yet, as much as we think we’re turning out amazing stuff at lower-than-ever cost (probably true), the IoT industry still pushes back on … Read More → "A Radio with Minimal Analog(ue)"