A Brief History of Test


The history of semiconductor test systems is the subject of this blog post. We’ll turn to printed circuit board testing at another time. Boston-based Teradyne sold its D133 diode tester to Raytheon in 1961. Five years later, it introduced the J259 integrated circuit tester, which had a minicomputer to run the test programs. For many, this marks the beginning of automatic (or automated) tes... » read more

5G & IoT


“Designing to Evolving 4G and Pre-5G Requirements” was the title of a Tuesday morning tutorial at DesignCon 2017 in Santa Clara, Calif. Talk of 5G naturally segued into Internet of Things discussion during the session. Parviz Yegani, a consultant with GHB Intellect, laid out the IoT use cases that could be enhanced by 5G technology: Shopping, population-dense urban areas, remote computin... » read more

Looking Back On IoT In 2016


The Internet of Things was going great guns for most of 2016. Until October 21, that is. That’s the date of the coordinated cyberattacks on Dyn, an Internet performance management services firm. The distributed denial-of-service attacks quickly had impacts on Airbnb, Amazon, Facebook, Netflix, PayPal, Reddit, Twitter, and other popular websites. Dyn was able to fight off the aggressive att... » read more

Is The IoT Here To Stay?


Look at almost any forecast for the Internet of Things market, and you’ll see some big, impressive numbers. Bain says IoT vendor revenues will top $470 billion by 2020. McKinsey predicts the IoT market will be increasing from last year’s $900 million to $3.7 billion in 2020 for a compound annual growth rate of 32.6%. IHS estimates the number of installed IoT devices will rise from 15.4 bill... » read more

Qualcomm + NXP = IoT Powerhouse


Coverage of the merger agreement between Qualcomm and NXP Semiconductors often focused on how the combination would yield the world’s largest supplier of chips for automotive electronics. Somewhat overlooked was its significance for the Internet of Things market. NXP CEO Rick Clemmer said in a statement, "The combination of Qualcomm and NXP will bring together all technologies required to... » read more

IoT Has Always Been With Us


By most accounts, Kevin Ashton of the Auto-ID Center at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology coined the term “the Internet of Things” in 1999, referring to a system of ubiquitous sensors connecting the Internet with the physical world. We were well into the 21st century before the Internet of Things, as a marketing term or a short description of a certain technology, came to be wide... » read more

What’s Better than the Internet of Things?


We all like the Internet of Things, whatever that is. Would you be interested in the Innovative and Intelligent Internet of Things? The Semiconductor Research Corporation can get you involved in that project, also known as I3T. “This research enables breakthrough technologies for the next generation of intelligent, connected, and autonomous devices,” the I3T website reads. The program is... » read more

Behind The ARM-SoftBank Deal


Weeks after SoftBank announced plans to buy ARM for $32 billion, the deal continues to reverberate across the global semiconductor industry. Any acquisition of this magnitude leaves customers, suppliers and partners a little skittish. And for good reason—ARM is the No. 1 supplier of commercial processor IP. Much of the fabless semiconductor market, as well as some IDMs, cross paths with AR... » read more

The Grammar Police Have Spoken


The Associated Press has made “internet” its standard spelling for the global collection of interconnected computer networks, previously known as the Internet. And it decreed that “web” would take the place of the Web, as in the World Wide Web, the initials of which are found at the beginning of most website addresses. It’s a style change, as journalists call it, which has been adv... » read more

The Numbers Game


Industry executives making presentations on the Internet of Things often cite the famous estimate by Cisco Systems – 25 billion connected devices in 2015 will double to 50 billion connected devices in 2020. Also, the worldwide IoT market will grow 21% a year to $7 trillion by the end of this decade, according to IDC. Billions and trillions are at stake. Many chip companies, especially I... » read more

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