Fish Fry – Page 58

June 13, 2014

What has your distributor done for you lately? Maybe more than you know. In this week’s Fish Fry, we look beyond the rows and rows of pieces and parts, beyond the microcontrollers and ADCs – to the softer side of distribution – to the place where the rubber meets the road but you’re not quite ready to race at Indy yet. We’re talking development boards and FAEs with Jim Beneke and Ron Moore from Avnet. Together we look into the specifics of the Zedboard and investigate the changing role of field application engineers in our … Read More → "Icing on the Disty Cake"

Baby Got DAC

The Design Automation Conference Returns to the City by the Bay

by Amelia Dalton

June 6, 2014

Do you know the way to San Francisco? Do you know the way to rows and rows of obscure interesting and innovative point tools? In this week’s Fish Fry, we examine two sides of the multi-faceted ecosystem that is the Design Automation Conference – EDA and IC. On the EDA side, we chat with Chris Porter and Salem Kapetanovic from IBM about how EDA can leverage the Cloud in a whole new way. On the integrated circuit side of DAC life, we chat with eSilicon CEO Jack Harding about how eSilicon is … Read More → "Baby Got DAC"

Hackin’ in the Hood

How Boom Boxes Are Inspiring a New Age of Engineers

by Amelia Dalton

May 29, 2014

Do you remember your first EE project? Do you remember the delight in your soul when you first saw that LED light up or that plume of blue smoke rise across the room? In this week’s Fish Fry, we harken back to the days when we were all budding engineers trying to make our circuits work for the first time. My guest is John Weiss, Director of Bayview BOOM. John is here to to introduce us to Bayview BOOM – a revolutionary program that brings engineering education to the young people of San … Read More → "Hackin’ in the Hood"

Two by Tools

Virtual Prototyping and DAC 2014 Preview

by Amelia Dalton

May 16, 2014

In this week’s editorial matrix, Fish Fry has EDA on all sides. In one corner, we have Chuck Alpert (DAC 2014 Technical Program Chair) here to give us the skinny on this year’s Design Automation Conference and Expo. Chuck gives the low down on what kind of cool conference tracks and tutorials are being offered, how you can attend the conference on the cheap, and where the hip and happenin’ parties will be found. Then, keeping with our EDA theme, we also sit down with Tom De Schutter (Synopsys) and discuss the benefits and best … Read More → "Two by Tools"

Connected Dots

Wireless Connectivity and a Whole Lot of Sensors

by Amelia Dalton

May 16, 2014

Smart, ultra-low power wireless modules are the name of the game in this week’s Fish Fry. We sit down with Nick Kanopoulos (CEO of Econais) to chat about the pain of end product WiFi integration, why the need for low power consumption in IoT devices is becoming a bigger issue these days, and how software can ease our pain in both of these realms. Also this week, we’ll unveil some of the cool details of this year’s Sensors Expo and Conference and we’ll also let you in on a secret code to get in … Read More → "Connected Dots"

Only A HeartBleed Away

Security in the Age of IoT

by Amelia Dalton

May 6, 2014

There’s a break in the wall. It’s tiny but it’s there. The water will seep through at some point, we know this. Will we be ready for the rising tide or will we flounder to find a patch to save the day? Security in our embedded systems is no longer an issue we can ignore and in this week’s Fish Fry, we get down to the heart of the matter with Alan Grau (President – Icon Labs). Alan and I chat about the rise of intrusion detection in RTOS-based systems and we address … Read More → "Only A HeartBleed Away"

Plasmons With a Soft GUI Center

RTOS, Nanoelectronics and Scripted Flows

by Amelia Dalton

May 2, 2014

This week’s Fish Fry will not melt in your mouth or in your hand. It will not be crispety, crunchety, or peanut buttery, but it will be coated in EE Journal’s signature mixture of electronic design news, in-depth interviews, and nerdy humor. Sweetening the pot, John Carbone (Express Logic) and I dig into some of the evolving trends in embedded software development and baseball franchise loyalty. And finally, fire up your plasmon resonators for a sci-fi trip into the terahertz with the latest nanoelectronic circuit research from the National University of Singapore.

Google’s Smartphone Revolution

Inside Project Ara

by Amelia Dalton

April 22, 2014

A coup d’état is imminent. A mobile revolution. With “Modular!” banners held high and money where their mouths are, Google is marching through the streets determined to overthrow the status quo in smartphone technology. This week’s Fish Fry is all about Google’s Project Ara – why it’s cool, why you should care about this modular smartphone technology, and how you can get started designing your OWN modules. My guests are Ara Knaian (NK Labs) and David Rutledge (CTO – Lattice Semiconductor) and we are going to talk about what’ … Read More → "Google’s Smartphone Revolution"

When Eight Is Enough

Microchip's 8-bit Challenge

by Amelia Dalton

April 18, 2014

There is a common assumption that innovation cannot be inspired in the world of 8-bit microcontrollers. If that is the case, then why haven’t they disappeared like the telegraph or the 8-track tape? Perhaps it’s because we still need them and sometimes they are just what the doctor (or engineer as the case may be) ordered. In this week’s Fish Fry, I check out some cool new 8-bit MCUs from Microchip Technology with Greg Robinson (VP – Microchip Technology) and we dive down into the guts of these new 8-bit masterpieces – from the intelligent … Read More → "When Eight Is Enough"

Hard Hats in Place

EELive! Part 2: Safety-Critical Systems

by Amelia Dalton

April 11, 2014

On the heels of Michael Barr’s keynote at EELive this year – “KILLER APPS: Embedded Software’s Greatest Hit Jobs,” this week’s Fish Fry takes a closer look at embedded software for safety-critical systems. At the helm is Jim McElroy – VP at LDRA. Jim and I discuss the challenges of designing safety-critical embedded systems, and Jim explains where LDRA fits into the embedded software ecosystem. He also gives us the low down on why Boston Baked Beans get a bad wrap. (Spoiler: According to Jim, they … Read More → "Hard Hats in Place"