Articles – Page 182

March 9, 2015

Wow, here it is March, and there’s still more to talk about from IEDM. That said, this will wrap it up – just in time to enter the new conference season.* We round up our coverage by surveying some of the MEMS and NEMS ideas presented.

MEMS was the darling topic a couple of years ago, when every few weeks heralded some radically new MEMS structure or approach. That pace seems to have slowed as winners and losers have shaken out (or are still battling), and the spotlight has moved as we’ve become accustomed to the … Read More → "On the MEMS/NEMS Leading Edge"

At Least This Time It Was OUR OWN Barbarians

The Latest Advanced Persistent Threat (APT) Comes from the “Home Team”

by Dick Selwood

March 5, 2015

Just 48 hours after the world discovered the Carbanak APT …

“[Carbanak] is likely the most sophisticated attack the world has seen to date in terms of the tactics and methods that cybercriminals have used to remain covert.”
Chris Doggett (security vendor Kaspersky Labs)—14 February 2015

… We learned about a far, FAR more sophisticated and long-lived APT:

“As we uncover more [Equation Gang] cyber-espionage operations we realize how little we understand about the … Read More → "At Least This Time It Was OUR OWN Barbarians"

Storm the Barricades and Pro Test

New EEMBC Pro Benchmark Tests Higher Level Processors

by Jim Turley

March 4, 2015

Those darn processors. They keep getting faster and we keep running out of ways to keep track of them.

In the beginning, there was clock speed. Faster clock meant faster processor, right? Not so fast. Some processors – like some people – did more work than others in a given amount of time. So your 5-KHz UNIVAC might or might not be faster than my 3-KHz ENIAC.

So we created benchmarks. Let’s run LINPAC or Whetstone on both of ’em and see who finishes first. That was better, but it still told you only how well … Read More → "Storm the Barricades and Pro Test"

Plunify’s FPGA Proof Point

Putting Your Tools Where Your Mouth Is

by Kevin Morris

March 3, 2015

Breaking into any part of the FPGA market ecosystem is a substantial challenge. Countless companies have launched with various novel ways to take advantage of FPGA technology, and the countryside is littered with the carnage of their decaying carcasses. It’s not a friendly environment out there in FPGA land.

Ironically, the biggest danger for FPGA startups is the FPGA companies themselves. Their track records over the past couple of decades have established them as shining examples of the “frenemy” concept. In order to succeed in FPGAs, you have to partner with the … Read More → "Plunify’s FPGA Proof Point"

Quilt Packaging

A New Twist on 2D – or 3D

by Bryon Moyer

March 2, 2015

So you’re working on a big die, eh? Maybe a huge imaging die – sized to capture a wide field with high resolution? Yeah… die manufacturing yield isn’t so great, eh? What to do?

When you’re on an unfriendly part of the yield curve, yield drops non-linearly with die size, meaning that 4 dice that are ¼ the size of one big die will yield more than four times better, combined, than the one big die. (If both big and small dice are already yielding 99%, then four small dice won’t yield better than 100%…)

So … Read More → "Quilt Packaging"

Return of the Hobbyist

New Boards, Power Electronics, and Software Tinkerers

by Dick Selwood

February 26, 2015

Now bear in mind that I am a mature Englishman, so when I talk boards I am not looking at the sort of thing that you see on the US Pacific coast and that the Beach Boys sang about. (There, that rather demonstrated “maturity”. For those of you wondering what I am on about, the Beach Boys were a Californian 1960s band who sang about surfing, cars and girls – very exotic in early 1960’s, pre-swinging London.)

Instead we are looking at Raspberry Pi and its rivals, which have sparked off a whole new wave of tinkerers – a … Read More → "Return of the Hobbyist"

Tools! Tools! Tools!

Debuggers and Boards and IDEs! Oh, My!

by Jim Turley

February 25, 2015

If this is February it must be Nürnberg. Or Barcelona. Either way, it’s the month when embedded developers head to Central Europe. (The ones with travel budgets, anyway.) And it’s the month when embedded vendors roll out their latest toys. It’s like attending Milan Fashion Week or the Paris Auto Show except… you know… less glamorous.

Two of my favorite announcements this week came from smallish companies, and both have been in the business for a while. And both have to do with tools. Software-development tools. The things that make the embedded world … Read More → "Tools! Tools! Tools!"

Xilinx Throws Down

Unveils New 16nm UltraScale+ Families

by Kevin Morris

February 24, 2015

When the #1 FPGA company makes what is arguably their biggest new-technology announcement in a decade, you’d expect there to be a lot of substance. With this week’s announcement of UltraScale+ Virtex, Kintex, and Zynq devices planned to roll out on TSMC’s 16nm FinFET process, the company did not disappoint. This is one of the broadest, most complex announcements we have ever heard from Xilinx. So, with that preface, let’s take a look at what those folks on the south side of San Jose have been up to lately.

In … Read More → "Xilinx Throws Down"

A Harvest of Heat

Getting Back a Bit of What We Waste

by Bryon Moyer

February 23, 2015

You’re wasting energy right now. You and many of the things all around you.

OK, perhaps it’s unfair to assign such specific agency – it’s not really your fault. Perhaps it’s better to say that energy is being wasted by some vague, abstract agent that shall remain nameless and blameless. Because it just happens.

Your mind may have immediately shifted to thoughts of energy harvesting, conjuring up visions of energy capture from all manner of inadvertent or residual motions: vibrations, steps, waves, wind. But our topic for today, unlike those approaches, involves … Read More → "A Harvest of Heat"

Barbarians at—damn, make that INSIDE—the Gate

Beyond Computer Viruses and Worms, Prepare for Advanced Persistent Threats

by Kevin Morris

February 19, 2015

Fasten your seatbelts, this is going to be a long one. And perhaps my most important EE Journal article yet, though I will leave that determination to you and the perspective of time.

“I found the Duqu and Flame cyber espionage attacks more interesting AND more unnerving [than Stuxnet]. Duqu and Flame were arguably the most sophisticated malware attacks ever undertaken.”
From Silicon Valley—7 January 2015

“This story does not end … Read More → "Barbarians at—damn, make that INSIDE—the Gate"