Articles – Page 2

September 2, 2020

“Every day sees humanity more victorious in the struggle with space and time.” — Guglielmo Marconi

Well, that escalated quickly. Wi-Fi was invented only 20 years ago, and already there are 20 different standards based on it. There are the familiar 2.4-GHz and 5-GHz versions that we use on our laptops, but also 802.11ax, -aj, -bb, and more. They’re even starting to get names so we can keep them all straight, like Wi-Fi 6 and WiGig.

Add to that list Read More → "Wi-Fi HaLow Close to Making Its Debut"

Punching Above Their Weight, Achronix Beats the Odds

by Kevin Morris

September 1, 2020

We first met Achronix back in 2004 and have been following them constantly for sixteen years now. We’ve seen the company go from a founder-funded startup developing revolutionary asynchronous FPGAs in New York using technology licensed from Cornell – to an innovative, successful, mature, Silicon Valley fabless semiconductor and IP company giving the likes of Intel and Xilinx constant trouble in the programmable logic market and staking out a bold swath of eFPGA IP, chiplet, and accelerator board territory.

Throughout their history, Achronix has perfected the pivot, executing a sequence of … Read More → "Punching Above Their Weight, Achronix Beats the Odds"

Taking Photos with a Clock

University Research Uncovers a Weird and Spooky Way to Take Pictures

by Jim Turley

August 31, 2020

“Ticking away the moments that make up a dull day.” – Pink Floyd

This definitely falls into the “red pill” category. What if I told you that you don’t need a camera to take pictures? Or even an image sensor? Or light? Or that you can capture high-resolution images – with just a single pixel?

Remember, all I’m offering is the truth, nothing more. Follow me.

A team of researchers has developed a way to take … Read More → "Taking Photos with a Clock"

Handling Radiation in SRAM-Based FPGAs (Part 2)

by Max Maxfield

August 27, 2020

As we discussed in Part 1 of this two-part mega-mini-series, radiation in its various forms has long been the bane of designers of electronic systems, and the effects of radiation become more insidious and pervasive as integrated circuit fabrication processes employ smaller and smaller structures.

We also introduced the concepts of electromagnetic radiation (EM radiation or EMR), whose force carrier is a massless particle called a photon, along with radiation in the form of particles with mass — predominantly electrons, protons, neutrons, and atomic nuclei … Read More → "Handling Radiation in SRAM-Based FPGAs (Part 2)"

Tachyum Demos Four-Way Software Translation

Universal “Prodigy” Processor Runs x86, ARM, RISC-V in Emulation

by Jim Turley

August 25, 2020

“There is no prodigy in our profession.” – Luciano Pavarotti

So far, so good. That’s the status report from Tachyum, the ambitious startup creating Prodigy, a chip design it calls “the world’s first universal processor.” Prodigy is billed as being faster, cheaper, smaller, and more … Read More → "Tachyum Demos Four-Way Software Translation"

Red Points Catches Online Counterfeiters

How Do You Spot a Fake Handbag From an Online Ad?

by Jim Turley

August 24, 2020

“Quis custodiet ipsos custodes?” (Who watches the watchers?) — Decimus Junius Juvenalis

Most of us are familiar with the RIAA, copyright infringement, and online piracy. Those are common, but new, problems. Much older is the problem of actual physical counterfeited goods. People have been selling knock-off Rolex watches and Gucci handbags for ages, since well before there was an Internet. But online commerce has made the problem worse – and different. How can you tell if the goods advertised online are genuine, or pirated, or counterfeit, or even real? </ … Read More → "Red Points Catches Online Counterfeiters"

Handling Radiation in SRAM-Based FPGAs (Part 1)

by Max Maxfield

August 20, 2020

Radiation in its various forms has long been the bane of the designers of electronic systems. Unfortunately, the effects of radiation become more insidious and pervasive as integrated circuit fabrication processes employ smaller and smaller structures. The problem is most acute in the case of FPGAs, which also have their configuration cells to contend with. Happily, a new fabrication process can dispel radiation-induced FPGA woes.

More (Processing) Power!

These days, many of the systems we need to keep our civilization running demand humongous amounts of computing power.

There are various computational … Read More → "Handling Radiation in SRAM-Based FPGAs (Part 1)"

Video Ergo Sum – Perceive’s AI Breakthrough in TOPS/Watt

by Kevin Morris

August 19, 2020

With literally dozens of chip startups working on edge AI inference these days, it’s easy to get caught up in a blur of marketing hype around the various “novel” and “revolutionary” architectures under development. The potential rewards are enormous, as AI has invaded just about every application space, and the intense demands AI inference puts on computing hardware have resulted in a mad dash to find new architectures that can outperform traditional CPUs on inference and break the reliance on cloud-based inference for devices at the edge.

The killer … Read More → "Video Ergo Sum – Perceive’s AI Breakthrough in TOPS/Watt"

An Epic Feat of Reverse Engineering

Could You Crack a CPU Design from One Single Program?

by Jim Turley

August 18, 2020

“It’s just 1s and 0s. How hard can it be?”

Here’s the ultimate debugging challenge. You’re presented with a string of 20,000 binary bits and told you have to identify it – what it does, how it works, and what machine it’s written for. Unfortunately, you don’t have a disassembler. Or any source code. In fact, you don’t know anything at all about the programming language, instruction set, whether it’s big- or little-endian, or even the word length of the machine. All you … Read More → "An Epic Feat of Reverse Engineering"

Two New Ways to Program Your AI

NXP and Eta Compute Roll Out ML-At-The-edge Programming Tools

by Jim Turley

August 17, 2020

“Some people have a way with words, and other people, uh, not have way.” – Steve Martin

The scariest part of moving to a new country is learning a new language. You step off the plane and into a new land with illegible signs, strange customs, and unfamiliar culture. Which way do I go? Whom do I ask for help? Where do I even start?

The strange world of AI/ML is terra incognitaRead More → "Two New Ways to Program Your AI"

featured blogs

Hands Off My Brain Data!

Sep 25, 2020

What do you think about earphone-style electroencephalography sensors that would allow your boss to monitor your brainwaves and collect your brain data while you are at work?...