Articles – Page 15

Autonomous Trucks are Trucking Our Way!

January 23, 2025

On the one hand, the overly enthusiastic predictions for fully autonomous automobiles have, thus far, fallen somewhat behind schedule (sad face). On the other hand, it now looks like we will see fully autonomous trucks barreling down our interstate highways circa 2027 (happy face).

The idea of autonomous automobiles has been around for longer than most people might think. For example, the concept of self-driving cars was showcased at the 1939 World’s Fair in New York as part of General Motors’ “Futurama” exhibit. This vision included automated highways and predicted autonomous cars “within the … Read More → "Autonomous Trucks are Trucking Our Way!"

Lattice Semiconductor’s Nexus 2 platform brings significant performance benefits to low-end FPGAs

by Steven Leibson

January 22, 2025

While Altera and AMD continue to hammer away at the higher end of the FPGA spectrum – for example, see “AMD ups the ante in the RF-enabled FPGA poker game with the Versal RF family” – Lattice Semiconductor’s recent introduction of the Nexus 2 FPGA platform reconfirms the company’s commitment to smaller FPGA devices. Although the Nexus 2 platform employs a fairly advanced 16nm process node, FPGAs based on Lattice’s Nexus 2 platform will have fewer than 200K logic cells, which is relatively small these days. Instead of going for … Read More → "Lattice Semiconductor’s Nexus 2 platform brings significant performance benefits to low-end FPGAs"

The Rise of the Robots (Cobots)

by Max Maxfield

January 21, 2025

Until relatively recently, robots have been kept in cages. This isn’t to stop them from getting out (although I have a niggling notion that day may come)—rather, to prevent humans from getting in. I’m thinking of honking big industrial robots in facilities like automobile factories.

While members of this class of robots are awesomely good at what they do (picking up an object weighing hundreds of pounds and waving it around as though it were as light as a feather, for example), most of them are as dumb as a … Read More → "The Rise of the Robots (Cobots)"

Measuring Picovolts and Femtoamps

by Max Maxfield

January 16, 2025

I’m ashamed to admit that I don’t know as much about the topic of test and measurement (T&M) as perhaps I should. My only excuse is that there’s so much to learn and I am a bear of little brain (and my little bear brain is pretty much full).

There are lots of things I’ve not done in my life. One of them is to build my own digital multimeter (DMM) comprising a voltmeter (to measure voltage), an ammeter (to measure current), and an ohmmeter (to measure … Read More → "Measuring Picovolts and Femtoamps"

ST’s newest serial EEPROMs support both byte and page access

by Steven Leibson

January 13, 2025

In 1973, the Miller Brewing Company launched the “lite” beer revolution with an ad campaign that proclaimed “Tastes great. Less filling.” The company’s ads backed up the slogan by showing very masculine athletes including Ray Nitschke, Ben Davidson, Bubba Smith, and John Madden drinking (or at least holding) glasses of the lite beer, to make it look more manly. Going back a bit earlier, the Peter Paul Candy Company used a musical jingle that starts with the line, “Sometimes you feel like a nut, sometimes you don’t,” to define the key difference between its Mounds and … Read More → "ST’s newest serial EEPROMs support both byte and page access"

AMD ups the ante in the RF-enabled FPGA poker game with the Versal RF family

by Steven Leibson

January 13, 2025

AMD has made another play in the poker game for RF-capable FPGAs against Altera. AMD’s opening ante, actually Xilinx’s opening ante, was the introduction in early 2017 of the first RFSoC, based on the existing Zynq UltraScale+ SoC. Altera’s counter, in late 2022 back when Altera was still Intel, was to introduce the Agilex 9 Direct-RF series of FPGAs. The two companies have taken different manufacturing approaches to making these RF-enabled FPGAs.

AMD took the monolithic route, which fabricates high-speed analog converters on the same die as the FPGA fabric. Conversely, Altera employs … Read More → "AMD ups the ante in the RF-enabled FPGA poker game with the Versal RF family"

This One’s for the Techno-Dweebs

by Max Maxfield

January 9, 2025

I’m afraid I’m in a techno-dweeby mood at this moment in time. My head is filled with thoughts that are bouncing around my noggin like demented ping pong balls. Speaking of which, do you remember my 12×12 ping pong ball display?

If so, then—as you may recall—the last thing I did with this bodacious beauty was to implement a Lava Lamp Effect. This program employs something called Read More → "This One’s for the Techno-Dweebs"

Ask Steve: Career and management advice from the former CEO of Microchip

by Steven Leibson

January 8, 2025

It’s a new year and New Year’s resolutions may be on your mind. You’ll find some helpful hints on making resolutions, or just getting your career into gear, in Steve Sanghi’s new book, “Ask Steve: Everyday business advice from a successful CEO.” Sanghi based his new book on a decade’s worth of advice columns he wrote for the “Arizona Republic” newspaper from 2004 to 2014. The advice Sangi dispenses is based on his four decades of industry experience, starting with Intel and ending with him extracting Microchip, a growing semiconductor company, from the ashes … Read More → "Ask Steve: Career and management advice from the former CEO of Microchip"

One More Step on the Path to AIIE (AI-In-Everything)

by Max Maxfield

January 7, 2025

Almost anyone involved in developing new products today wants those products to have an artificial intelligence (AI) component [for the purposes of this column we will take AI to embrace machine learning (ML) and deep learning (DL)]. The problem is that AI is still very new in the scheme of things—everyone has heard about it, almost everybody uses it, but relatively few people know how to implement it.

A case in point is Original Equipment Manufacturers (OEMs), which are companies that make parts or products for other companies to use in their … Read More → "One More Step on the Path to AIIE (AI-In-Everything)"

I See Holograms Everywhere

by Max Maxfield

January 2, 2025

I have seen the future, and it’s going to be even more amazing than our wildest dreams. Do I have your attention? Good. Then I’ll begin…

Have you seen The Time Machine movie? Well, I should say “movies” because there was the classic 1960 version starring Rod Taylor, Yvette Mimieux, and Alan Young, and then … Read More → "I See Holograms Everywhere"