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A Giant Sensor Standard

Cutting Through IEEE 1451 Confusion
by Bryon Moyer
May 4, 2015

[Editor’s note: update appears at end.]

What if I were to tell you that there was a standard in place – in fact, a relatively old one – that establishes plug-and-play sensor capabilities, low-level sensor module subsystem interconnect formats, communication protocols, and even a sensor web services component? Sounds crazy, doesn’t it? Maybe even crazy good?

Well, if you’re in the mil/aero world, or maybe automotive, using conventional (not so much MEMS*) sensors, you might say, “Yeah, well, what of it?” If not, your response might more likely be, “Wait, whaaaat?”

… Read More → "A Giant Sensor Standard"

Intel and Altera – Eleven-Figure Chicken

Stakes are Raised and Tensions Build
by Kevin Morris
May 1, 2015

We’ve written a few times now about the rabidly rumored Intel bid to buy Altera. In fact, we actually predicted the whole thing almost a year ago: 

When Intel Buys Altera — Will FPGAs Take Over the Data Center? 

Were we right? It’s still too early to tell. And all we really have to go on are: reports of leaked information, … Read More → "Intel and Altera – Eleven-Figure Chicken"

Insights from the 3D Printing Conference and Expo

Technology and Art Attempt to Walk Hand-in-Hand Toward the Future
by Larra Morris
April 30, 2015

The exhibit floor at the Inside 3D Printing Conference and Expo in New York City is packed. While other tech conferences (like DAC and whatever they’re calling the Embedded Systems Conference this year) have faced dwindling attendance each year, this one is so well attended that it can be difficult to make your way from booth to booth. The panelists and attendees are excited and enthusiastic. And they have every reason to be — this is a technology that is exploding. Even since World Maker Faire in New York less than a year ago, the 3 … Read More → "Insights from the 3D Printing Conference and Expo"

Choices On Top of Choices

Tensilica Fusion DSP Core Geared for Low-Power Devices
by Jim Turley
April 29, 2015

“Embedded” has a new spelling, and it’s written IoT.

Tensilica is a company that made its name as an early pioneer of tweak-it-yourself microprocessors. Actually, the name itself is a play on the words “tensile” (as in, stretchable) and “silicon,” which pretty well encapsulates the company’s unique selling proposition. Its microprocessor IP is just like any you’d get from ARM or MIPS or anyone else – except that it’s not. Instead of delivering you a prepackaged CPU core, Tensilica instead hands you a configuration tool. Pick your instruction set, pick your bus width, pick … Read More → "Choices On Top of Choices"

Changing the PCB Axis

Mentor PADS Redefines the Board Genre
by Kevin Morris
April 28, 2015

Anybody who has ever bought professional PCB software has probably noticed a problem with the way PCB tools have always been packaged, priced, and marketed. Well, anybody except for the folks who actually sell PCB tools, that is. For some reason, PCB tools have always been sold with a built-in wrong assumption – that only big companies with large design teams are doing sophisticated designs. If you were a huge company with giant design teams that required all the “enterprise” features related to team design, collaboration, IP sharing, and library management, the PCB tool vendors gave you all … Read More → "Changing the PCB Axis"

3D Silicon Measurements

They Require New Approaches
by Bryon Moyer
April 27, 2015

The 3D nature of aggressive silicon nodes continues to make life difficult for semiconductor equipment guys. Metrology is particularly troublesome, since seeing where edges lie isn’t always sufficient. I’m being somewhat liberal with the term “3D” since it involves more than just the usual 3D structures – FinFETs and 3D NAND stacks. I’m including the impact of multiple-patterning, which involves multiple overlay confirmations on stacks of masks that, in an earlier era, would have been a single mask. So they’re like a 3D decomposition of an erstwhile planar mask.

Let’s break the issues … Read More → "3D Silicon Measurements"

A Circuit Board for the Bees

Unexpected Technology on the Farm
by Bryon Moyer
April 23, 2015

This is a story about some of the finickiest customers you can imagine. It’s also a story of great patience.

Let’s start with bees. Bees make three things: wax, honey, and eggs. OK, only the queen makes the eggs, but she still qualifies as a bee. In modern commercial beekeeping, a hive consists of a stack of boxes. Each box has several “frames” inside. Each frame holds the familiar wax honeycombs built by the bees. Each new frame has a starting pattern that guides the bees as they create the honeycomb.

By hive … Read More → "A Circuit Board for the Bees"

A Case of Double Paranoia

Athena Makes Its Crypto Blocks Harder to Hack
by Jim Turley
April 22, 2015

“In theory, there is no difference between theory and practice. In practice there is.” – Yogi Berra

There’s theory, and then there’s practice.

In theory, nearly anyone should be able to throw a baseball at 90 MPH. In practice, very few can actually do it. In theory, Windows 3.1 was an intuitive, easy-to-use operating system GUI. In practice, people screwed up their PCs with alarming regularity. In theory, cryptography is an intensive subgenre of mathematics. In practice, it’s mostly about the sloppy analog nature of submicron electronic circuits.

The math behind … Read More → "A Case of Double Paranoia"

Cramming Moore Components

Moore’s Law Turns Fifty
by Kevin Morris
April 21, 2015

It’s been a half-century since Gordon Moore published “Cramming More Components Onto Integrated Circuits” in the April 19, 1965 edition of Electronics Magazine. It was another five years before Carver Mead dubbed Moore’s prediction in that article – about progress in integrated circuit density – “Moore’s Law,” and another five years after that before Moore revised his original “doubling every year” prediction to “doubling every two years.” At its simplest level, then, Moore’s Law predicts that the number of transistors that can be fabricated on a single chip will double every two years.

The fifty years that … Read More → "Cramming Moore Components"

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