Author's Latest Posts


PurpleAir: IoT Sensor Soars To 13,000 feet


Startup PurpleAir makes a living counting dust. Its consumer-level sensors measure particles of dust in air—airborne particulate matter (PM)—using laser particle counters that can count particle sizes 0.3µm up to 10µm. Add power, WiFi, the Internet, and PurpleAir pulls all the data from the devices into an online map showing extremely local air quality around the world, wherever devices a... » read more

Aspinity’s Analog Neural Net Wake-Up Call


Putting an analog chip in front of an always-on system for digitizing speech and having the analog chip listen for sounds of interest may help avoid huge power waste and data congestion in current voice-recognition systems. Aspinity, an analog neuromorphic semiconductor startup, has worked the problem and just announced its Reconfigurable Analog Modular Processor (RAMP) platform yesterday. RAMP... » read more

AiMotive Is EDA For Self-Driving Cars


The team at aiMotive, a tool and IP company for OEMs making automated vehicles, isn’t waiting for smart infrastructure or 5G to make self-driving cars possible. The four-year-old startup based in Budapest, Hungary, is taking a self-sustainable route for the foreseeable future. The key to staying in business is not to compete with Waymo, Cruise or automotive companies, but to build the softwar... » read more

Hacking SoC IP Under Pressure


Hack@DAC certainly shows that some teams can find bugs faster than others. The hackfest, now in its third year, is a bug-finding contest for teams of university students joined by a smattering of industry members whose task is to find a bugs implanted in SoC IP.  The teams follow the practices of real-world security teams. “[The teams'] objective is to identify the security vulnerabilitie... » read more

Shedding Pounds In Automotive Electronics


Weight is emerging as a key concern for carmakers as more electronic circuitry is added into vehicles that are either fully or partially powered by batteries. As a result, chipmakers and OEMs are exploring alternative substrate materials, different types of sensor fusion, and new ways to reduce the number of wires. Adding pounds reduces driving range for electric or hybrid vehicles. The auto... » read more

Week In Review: Design, Low Power


Tools & IP Engineering simulation company ANSYS says thanks to new features in its ANSYS Twin Builder, product developers may be able save money in warranty and operational costs. The Twin Builder creates a digital twin of a systems in the field, enabling a convenient way to monitor and maintain systems remotely. The latest release adds predictive maintenance features for digital-twin runt... » read more

Week in Review: Design, Low Power


The U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) has awarded $35 million for 12 projects involving ultra-efficient power management. Called Arpa-E, the program encouraged participants to use medium-voltage electricity in new ways with real-world applications, such as industry, transportation and the grid. The top two award winners were Eaton Corp. (Arden, NC) for its DC wide-bandgap static circuit breaker, ... » read more

Top Stories from 2018


After years of consolidation, the semiconductor industry in 2018 underwent an interesting time of transition and uncertainty. From concerns about scaling limits, aging chips and new architectures, here are most-read stories of 2018. [gallery columns="1" size="full" ids="24134285,24135205,24142311,24137395,24131667,24137111,24131651,24140136,24131128,24133163,24138972,24139330"] » read more

Training a Neural Network to Fall


Who knew falling was so complicated? “I don’t want to work on a fall detection system ever again,” said MbientLab CEO Laura Kassovic in front of an ARMTech Con audience. The audience laughed as she flashed a picture of what could now be a better approach—the Apple Watch Series 4, which had recently been announced. “The Apple 4 has the fall detection sensor built in. It’s probably... » read more

Dirty Data: Is the Sensor Malfunctioning?


Sensors provide an amazing connection to the physical world, but extracting usable data isn't so simple. In fact, many first-time IoT designers are unprepared for how messy a sensor’s data can be. Every day the IoT motion-sensor company MbientLab struggles to tactfully teach its customers that the mountain of data they are seeing is not because the sensors are faulty. Instead, the system d... » read more

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