Author's Latest Posts


Can Germany’s Auto Industry Keep Pace?


Germany's strength for the past half-century has been its automotive industry. The big question now is whether that also will become its biggest vulnerability. Challenged on all fronts by fundamental shifts in automotive technology, the German auto industry is struggling to transform itself from precision metal bending to advanced electronics, and so far its future in the face of competitors... » read more

Testing In Context Gaining Ground


Testing in context is beginning to gain wider appeal as chip complexity increases, and as ICs are deployed in more safety-critical and mission-critical applications. While design in context has been the norm for SoCs for some time, a similar approach in test has been slow going. Cell-aware testing technology was first described a decade ago, and since then its adoption has been modest. But w... » read more

November 2019 Startup Funding


During November, 16 tech startups raised private funding rounds of $100 million or more, together receiving $3.42 billion. Investors were drawn to many of the same technology fields that were popular in 2019 — automotive and mobility tech, artificial intelligence and machine learning, cybersecurity, platforms, semiconductors, and software. Analytics of multiple different types were big in ... » read more

October ’19 Startup Funding: Mega Harvest


Seventeen startups took in mega-rounds of $100 million or more during October, with a cumulative total of just over $3.2 billion. Cybersecurity startups continued to be popular with private investors during the month of October, with 15 financing rounds. Twenty automotive and mobility technology firms picked up new investments. Analytics firms, artificial intelligence/machine learning techno... » read more

Week in Review: IoT, Security, Autos


Products/Services Rambus reports completing the sale of its Payments and Ticketing businesses to Visa for $75 million in cash. “With 30 years of experience pushing the envelope in semiconductor design, we look toward a future of continued innovation to carry on our mission of making data faster and safer,” Rambus President and CEO Luc Seraphin said in a statement. “Completing this transa... » read more

System Bits: Oct. 15


When self-driving cars collide As self-driving car technology develops and evolves, it is inevitable that there will be collisions while the tech matures. “What can we do in order to minimize the consequences?” asks Amir Khajepour, a professor of mechanical and mechatronics engineering at the University of Waterloo. “That is our focus.” The first rule for the autonomous vehicle (... » read more

Week in Review – IoT, Security, Autos


Products/Services Arm TechCon got under way with a series of announcements. Arm is a founding member of the Autonomous Vehicle Computing Consortium, along with General Motors, Toyota Motor, DENSO, Continental, Bosch, NXP Semiconductors, and Nvidia. More information on the consortium is available here. “Imagine a world where vehicles are able to perceive their dynamically changing environment... » read more

System Bits: Oct. 9


Bringing plasmonic color to solid materials Researchers at the University of California, Riverside, used silver nanoparticles (AgNPs) to produce plasmonic color-switchable films for solid materials. This effect was previously achieved only in liquids. Rapid and reversible tuning of plasmonic color in solid films, a challenge until now, holds great promise for a number of applications,” sa... » read more

Week in Review – IoT, Security, Autos


Products/Services Cadence Design Systems is working with Adesto Technologies to grow the Expanded Serial Peripheral Interface (xSPI) communication protocol ecosystem, for use in Internet of Things devices. The Cadence Memory Model for xSPI allows customers to ensure optimal use of the octal NOR flash with the host processor in an xSPI system, including support for Adesto’s EcoXiP octal xSPI ... » read more

Over $7 Billion Raised In Mega-Rounds By 27 Firms


It was also a good month for private equity firms and venture capitalists to raise their own rounds, with the money to be invested in early-stage companies and more mature ventures. A semiconductor company led the month. Nexperia, once the Standard Products business unit of NXP Semiconductors, took in $1.5 billion of senior credit facilities. The money will go toward refinancing debt and par... » read more

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