Articles – Page 176

June 30, 2015

Patent Law was created to protect and encourage inventors. The original intent is noble: when you invent something, the patent system is designed to give you a period of exclusivity where you can profit from your work and creativity without fear of someone copying your idea without compensating you.

However, the patent system didn’t contemplate the reality of today’s professional engineering environment, where the majority of engineers are employed in a work-for-hire situation by large corporations, and where those engineers frequently move from one large corporation to another. In that situation, … Read More → "Selling Your Brain"

IoT Security

Hints of Solutions to Come

by Bryon Moyer

June 29, 2015

Security is the last unsolved problem of the Internet of Things (IoT). Really; all we have to do is make a security and it will all be good.

Poke around in IoT-Land a bunch, and you could come to that conclusion. Over the last year, I was excited to see the appearance of various whitepapers and presentations on IoT security, hoping to learn what solutions would get us over the security hump. But most just reiterated the fact that security was important and missing and someone should do something about it.

While security isn’t … Read More → "IoT Security"

A Bluetooth/ZigBee Mashup

Freescale’s Kinetis MCUs Offer a Choice of Interface; or No Choice At All

by Jim Turley

June 24, 2015

Itching to invent your own electronic door locks? Freescale has the chip for you. Or your new LED lighting project. Or that home-automation system you’ve been meaning to create. If it’s small, cheap, and needs low-energy wireless communications – a trifecta that covers just about everything these days – you may want to look at the new Kinetis.

What’s that? Don’t know about the new Kinetis? You’re forgiven, because Freescale (soon to become part of NXP) has an awful lot of Kinetis chips already, and it’s not easy to keep them all straight. … Read More → "A Bluetooth/ZigBee Mashup"

After Intel and Altera

What Happens to FPGA?

by Kevin Morris

June 23, 2015

For decades, the FPGA market has been a well-balanced duopoly. Something like 80% of sales have been split by two ferocious competitors, Xilinx and Altera, constantly jousting for single points of relative market share. This dynamic has driven everything from the FPGA technology itself to the tools, IP, and services that make the whole concept work. It has determined what we pay for FPGAs, what they can do, and how we use them.

Now, Intel plans to buy Altera, and the duopoly that has dominated the FPGA universe will come to an end. What … Read More → "After Intel and Altera"

Micro-Metallica

Developments in Interconnect

by Bryon Moyer

June 22, 2015

OK, folks, time to get out the copper polish and the soft cloth. We’re going to dress up the metal that adds a patina of shiny to our work. (OK, patinas often aren’t shiny, but you can forgive a tarnished metaphor, can’t you?)

Things are happening in the world of metal. And three of those things are topics for today. They come to us from Applied Materials (AMAT) and Imec. And we’ll take them in that order.

A Difficult Hardmask

The first involves metallization, although the material … Read More → "Micro-Metallica"

2D or Not 2D

Is Graphene the Wonder Material?

by Dick Selwood

June 18, 2015

You don’t need an expensive lab and a ton of equipment to win a Nobel Prize. How about a pencil and a reel of Sellotape (the British alternative to Scotch Tape) and standing your thinking on its head? That is how Andre Geim and Kostya Novoselov, two Russian-born researchers at The University of Manchester, first extracted graphene.

Carbon is an amazing element. It exists naturally in a variety of crystalline structures and in amorphous forms – the soot in your chimney is just random carbon atoms, while a diamond is a collection of carbon atoms arranged to … Read More → "2D or Not 2D"

The Laws of Automotive Robotics

Synopsys Rolls Out ASIL-Certified IP for Automotive Systems

by Jim Turley

June 16, 2015

“What we’ve got here is failure to communicate.” – Strother Martin, Cool Hand Luke

Congratulations! You have an electric car. No, I don’t mean that you’ve suddenly won a Tesla, Nissan Leaf, BMW i3, or the late-lamented Fisker Karma. Or the not-so-lamented GM EV1. (And no, Mister Pedantic, I didn’t forget any of the original electric cars from the early 1900s, either.) No, you’re the proud owner of a rolling data center.

We all had a hunch that our cars were full of electronics. But how full … Read More → "The Laws of Automotive Robotics"

Why Verify?

Musings from the Design Automation Conference

by Kevin Morris

June 16, 2015

I just returned from attending the 52nd annual Design Automation Conference (DAC) in San Francisco, CA. This was my 30th time to attend this event, so I’ve had more than a little time to contemplate what the whole thing is about. It is fascinating to me that DAC, which celebrates electronic design automation (EDA) – one of the most important enabling technology sectors in the advancement of Moore’s Law – began even before Gordon Moore’s prophetic article laid out the roadmap for the last 50 years of exponential progress in electronic technology.

Yep, … Read More → "Why Verify?"

Golgi and the IoT

Or, Does the IoT Demand a Cloud Platform?

by Bryon Moyer

June 15, 2015

We hereby embark on a reverie that commenced before and continued during the writing of this article. And I’m not quite sure if it’s done yet. The evolution of thought practically happened in real time as I tried to explain… stuff. And to draw said stuff. In the end, perhaps this is an etude in defining the Internet of Things (IoT). As usual, it may raise more questions than it answers.

I can’t believe it’s been almost two years since I made a feeble attempt to put some structure behind this nebulous concept … Read More → "Golgi and the IoT"

Bossing Like a Boss

Adding to the Pile of Management-Consulting Advice

by Jim Turley

June 10, 2015

“Employers only handle the money – it is the customer who pays the wages.” – Henry Ford

So you’ve risen through the ranks of engineering, and you’re about to be promoted. Kicked upstairs. Climbing the corporate ladder. Moved to the corner office. One step closer to Mahogany Row. Leaving the gang behind. You’re no longer the Dilbert, you’re the pointy haired boss. Kudos.

Will you make a good boss? Of course you will! Your spouse was all supportive of your move, right? And your mother said she always knew you had … Read More → "Bossing Like a Boss"