Articles – Page 77

December 7, 2020

“Make me one with everything.” – Buddhist monk to a hot dog vendor

Why don’t polar bears eat penguins? Easy: because polar bears live at the north pole and penguins live at the south pole. A polar bear in the wild has never seen a penguin.

Did a Tyrannosaurus rex ever hunt a Stegosaurus? Nope, because the two species were never contemporaneous; they lived millions of years apart. In fact, we’re closer in time to T. rex than any Stegosaurus ever … Read More → "How Magical is Apple’s M1 Chip, Really?"

Bosch HW + Cartesiam SW = Rapid Prototyping of AI on the Edge

by Max Maxfield

December 3, 2020

I just heard some mega-exciting news from the folks at Cartesiam.ai, whose claim to fame is that they enable embedded developers to bring artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning (ML) to edge devices easily and quickly.

How easily? How quickly? The answer to both of these questions is “Very!” So, what’s the exciting news? Well, I’ll tell you in a minute, but first…

Read More → "Bosch HW + Cartesiam SW = Rapid Prototyping of AI on the Edge"

New Nonvolatile Memory Takes Shape

FMC’s Ferroelectric Memory Looks Like a Transistor

by Jim Turley

December 2, 2020

“Time moves in one direction, memory in another.” – William Gibson

Memory is different from logic. We learn this early in our careers, especially if the job involves fabricating one or the other. Logic gates scale. Memory cells scale, too, but not the same way. In extreme cases, we even do multi-chip modules or flip chips just to keep the memory and the logic apart. Intel makes logic ICs. SK Hynix makes memory chips. Different fab processes. Different recipes. Never the twain shall meet.

Read More → "New Nonvolatile Memory Takes Shape"

VSORA Pushes the PetaFLOPS for Autonomous Driving

Startup Delivers Accelerated Compute IP

by Kevin Morris

December 1, 2020

Autonomous driving is a wildly challenging problem. Of all the headline-grabbing technologies in development today, replacing the human driver in a car probably takes the most computing power, although you wouldn’t guess that from the obvious lack of computing power demonstrated by many of our fellow human drivers on the road. But the invention of “artificial stupidity” notwithstanding (did you SEE the way that idiot cut me off?), the industry is taking a methodical, phased approach to the task, with six levels of automation (numbered zero to five) starting with no automation whatsoever (level zero) … Read More → "VSORA Pushes the PetaFLOPS for Autonomous Driving"

Erasing Your Network Footprint

Startup LEVL Bypasses the Hard-Wired MAC Address

by Jim Turley

November 30, 2020

“You wouldn’t worry so much about what others think of you if you realized how seldom they do.” – Eleanor Roosevelt

Like most things about computers and the Internet, MAC addresses were created with the assumption that people aren’t jerks. Sadly, that notion proved incorrect, and we’ve spent the last 40-odd years trying to curb spam, malware, Wi-Fi spoofing, ad tracking, and any number of other modern ills.

To that list add the many and varied attacks on online privacy. … Read More → "Erasing Your Network Footprint"

Do Robot Dogs Dream of Cyborg Cats?

by Max Maxfield

November 27, 2020

Were you wondering if anyone was in the process of using decentralized artificial intelligence (AI) to create a pack of robot dogs? If so, I can put your mind to rest by informing you that the answer to your question is a resounding “Yes!”

Did you notice that I used the term “decentralized AI” as opposed to “distributed AI” in the preceding paragraph? If so, were you also wondering about the difference between decentralized and distributed AI? Should such be the case, then you’ll be happy to know that … Read More → "Do Robot Dogs Dream of Cyborg Cats?"

Adding Brains to Cars

Imagination’s 4NX NNA Scales Massively

by Jim Turley

November 25, 2020

“I not only use all the brains that I have, but all that I can borrow.” – Woodrow Wilson

There’s an episode of Star Trek where the Enterprise goes back in time to 20th-century Earth. Looking down over freeways packed with cars, a crewmember marvels that mere humans could pilot so many vehicles so close together without constant collisions. </ … Read More → "Adding Brains to Cars"

Intel Drives FPGA Expansion

Dual Announcements Highlight Differentiation

by Kevin Morris

November 24, 2020

The winds of change are blowing strongly in the FPGA market these days. As programmable logic has matured, a number of lucrative market opportunities have opened up, driven by the rapid deployment of 5G, the revolution in application of AI technology across numerous design types, the transformation of the data center into a complex heterogeneous computing cluster, the overhaul of automotive and transportation technology, and the explosion of new IoT applications. All of these trends are contributing to an unprecedented growth in the amount of data being generated, transported, stored, processed, and used.

Microchip TrustAnchor Holds the Keys

Tiny Add-on Chip Provides Security

by Jim Turley

November 23, 2020

“One of the keys to happiness is a bad memory.” – Rita Mae Brown

You’ve got a problem. You designed a nice microcontroller-based system a few years ago and it’s selling well, with thousands of units out in the field. That’s not the problem. The problem is, now your boss wants you to add security features to it. You know – just slap them on. No big deal, right?

But to add secure boot, and crypto acceleration, and secure key storage … Read More → "Microchip TrustAnchor Holds the Keys"

Eeek! Biology-Gated-Transistor Sensors

by Max Maxfield

November 19, 2020

Irrespective of the aspersions cast by the non-biological alien characters in Terry Bisson’s short story, “They’re Made Out of Meat,” I’m proud to be a carbon-based lifeform. In fact, although I don’t like to boast (I pride myself on my humility and you’ll have to travel a long way to find someone more unpretentious than your humble … Read More → "Eeek! Biology-Gated-Transistor Sensors"