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We’re Going Back to the Moon (and LDRA is Helping to Get Us There)!

I’m scared of being in a submarine. I don’t know why because I’ve never been on (or should it be “in”) one of these magnificent machines. One of my friends used to be a submariner and he regaled me with some awesome anecdotes, but nothing he said would persuade me to dive in, as it were. I think it’s the thought of the pressure of all that water above and around.

By comparison, I would have no problem going into space should the occasion arise. For … Read More → "We’re Going Back to the Moon (and LDRA is Helping to Get Us There)!"

A Brief History of the MOS transistor, Part 3: Frank Wanlass – MOS Evangelist, Inventor of CMOS

It’s hardly surprising that semiconductor companies were reluctant to invest much energy into MOSFET development in the early 1960s. Early MOSFETs were 100 times slower than bipolar transistors, and they were considered unstable, for good reason: their electrical characteristics drifted badly and unpredictably with time and temperature. A lot of research and development work would be needed to transform MOSFETs into reliable electronic components. However, when Fairchild Semiconductor hired Frank Wanlass, the MOSFET found its champion. Wanlass was committed to the MOSFET, not to any company. He went anywhere and did anything he could to promote the … Read More → "A Brief History of the MOS transistor, Part 3: Frank Wanlass – MOS Evangelist, Inventor of CMOS"

Synopsys.ai debuts at SNUG 2023

Last week, Synopsys invited a handful of journalists and analysts to attend their annual SNUG (Synopsys Users’ Group) meeting for the first time in 30 years. Why? What message did the company want to get out that was important enough to allow the foxes into the henhouse, to breach the traditional sanctity of the tight company-user relationship that has been guarded at these events for the last three decades?

The headline SNUG 2023 announcement is Synopsys.ai – an all-encompassing adoption of AI technology into the entire EDA ecosystem, from design, verification, and … Read More → "Synopsys.ai debuts at SNUG 2023"

Yes! On-Chip (FPGA, MCU, SoC) Generation of Post-Quantum Secure IDs and Keys

Just to keep things interesting, we’re going to come at things from a slightly different direction to my usual columns. First, I’m going to tell you something you already know. Second, I’m going to tell you something of which you are probably aware. Third, once I’ve lulled you into a false sense of security, I’m going to surprise you with something new (be afraid, be very afraid).

Something You Already Know

Let’s start with the fact that there are a … Read More → "Yes! On-Chip (FPGA, MCU, SoC) Generation of Post-Quantum Secure IDs and Keys"

A Brief History of the MOS transistor, Part 2: Fairchild – The Big Engine that Couldn’t

No company was better equipped and better positioned to capitalize on the development of the first MOSFET than Fairchild Semiconductor. Founded in 1957 to work on silicon transistors, Jean Hoerni developed the planar process and Robert Noyce developed the ideas for the first practical integrated circuit (IC) based on Hoerni’s planar process just months before Atalla and Kahng got the first MOSFET to work at Bell Labs. Like the two keys needed to open a safety deposit box in a bank vault, the planar semiconductor process technology and the planar IC were the two keys needed to … Read More → "A Brief History of the MOS transistor, Part 2: Fairchild – The Big Engine that Couldn’t"

Is This the Future of IoT Product Development?

Prototyping has certainly come a long way since I started my career back in those days of yore that we used to call the 1980s. One of the prototyping techniques we employed was called wire-wrap, which we thought amazing at the time, but which now seems incredibly “clunky” in hindsight.

Wire-wrap was particularly well suited to the sort of designs I was involved with at that time. That is, systems involving large numbers of relatively simple digital logic integrated circuits (ICs). We started with a piece of insulating board that … Read More → "Is This the Future of IoT Product Development?"

A Brief History of the MOS transistor, Part 1: Early Visionaries

The first wave of semiconductor companies started in April 1952 when Bell Labs held its second transistor symposium for its transistor patent licensees, which was attended by representatives from some 40 companies. After the symposium, most of those companies started manufacturing bipolar point-contact transistors within mere months or a couple of years, and many became successful commercial semiconductor vendors. A few of those vendors – including Infineon (formerly Siemens), NXP (formerly Philips), and Texas Instruments – continue to make semiconductors today. (I discussed this history in a 7-part series about the early transistor makers in EEJournal. See the reference section of … Read More → "A Brief History of the MOS transistor, Part 1: Early Visionaries"

Next-Gen AI Vision Processors Target Edge Applications

It’s been a long time coming, but I have to say that artificial intelligence (AI) is finally starting to make my life easier in meaningful ways. I know, right? I’m as surprised to hear myself saying this as I’m sure you are to be reading it.

As a brief aside, I just received an email from my chum Stephane Boucher, who is ruler of all he surveys at Embedded Related. Stephane wanted to remind me that time is running … Read More → "Next-Gen AI Vision Processors Target Edge Applications"

I hear you NOCing, But Can You Close Timing?

Network on Chip (NOC) IP has been around for a while. I wrote an article about academic research papers on NOCs presented at the seventh annual International Symposium on System-on-Chip conference held in Tampere, Finland in late 2005. NOCs were the conference’s theme back then and the jury was out on using NOCs to interconnect large IP blocks, including processors, network controllers, and memory on SoCs. NOCs introduce overhead that wasn’t particularly welcome back in 2005. Today, it’s a different story. Interconnect complexity has risen with general SoC design complexity, as you can see in … Read More → "I hear you NOCing, But Can You Close Timing?"

The Transistor at 75: The First Makers, Part 7

When I wrote the initial six parts of this series on early transistor makers, I worked from a list of initial companies that made transistors using the early Bell Labs transistor patents. That list of attendees to the April, 1952 Transistor Symposium at Bell Labs came from Bo Lojek’s book, History of Semiconductor Engineering, which is an encyclopedic history of semiconductors. Another book, A History of Engineering and … Read More → "The Transistor at 75: The First Makers, Part 7"

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Jan 29, 2026
Most of the materials you read and see about gyroscopic precession explain WHAT happens, not WHY it happens....