Self-Driving Hits The Safety Reset Button


All of a sudden the autonomous future is looking a bit more uncertain, which is somewhat surprising given what tech and auto boosters have been saying for years now — namely, that self-driving cars are “just around the corner.” (Google that phrase to see just how often they’ve been saying it. Even the starchy Economist trumpets this very meme.) The American Center for Mobility (ACM... » read more

Design Automation For Silicon Photonics: Pushing Research Into Production


Silicon photonics is a transformative technology that will have a major impact on system architectures in future IC design applications. Already a major solution for Datacom applications and emerging applications in sensing, design techniques in silicon photonics, with the ability to leverage CMOS technology to integrate large numbers of photonic components, are now being applied to enable opti... » read more

The Coming Golden Age For Automotive E/E Design Services And Consulting


By Andrew Macleod and Scott Majdecki The discipline of automotive E/E systems design is being transformed by trends like electrification and autonomous vehicles, which means there is a premium on methodologies like rapid platform (hardware/ software) prototyping, simulation and test, and electrical architecture optimization. Such methodologies hinge on advanced software design tools and the ... » read more

Addressing The Productivity Gaps In IIoT


The Industrial Internet of Things (IIoT) can be enabled by many different topologies and permutations of underlying infrastructure, but the one constant is that it brings new levels of profitability, efficiency, and productivity to businesses and industries near and far. The IIoT is enabled by connectivity from device to device, and device to and from the cloud. However, it’s not only abou... » read more

A New Approach To A Fragmented Industrial IoT


By now, we’ve all seen or experienced the transformational change the Internet of Things (IoT) has had in our daily lives. The emerging area of industrial automation, often referred to as the Industry Internet of Things (IIoT) or Industrie 4.0, has also quickly transformed itself. Suddenly within IIoT we have thousands, even millions of devices, connected to the seemingly infinite potential o... » read more

ECAD-MCAD Co-Design Promotes Automotive First-Pass Success


Achieving first-pass success is the goal of every automotive design team, both electrical and mechanical, as it minimizes or even eliminates costly design iterations. In the automotive industry, first-pass success is more challenging than ever because of the increasing electro-mechanical complexity and density of modern vehicles. Most modern cars run their critical systems, such as the throttle... » read more

Sensors Drive IoT Intelligent Systems


Back in 1980, it is believed that the first intelligent electronic sensor was proposed (by S. Middelhoek and J.B. Angell). Their idea was to combine a MEMS sensor, an analog-to-digital convertor, and a processor to analyze the analog data generated by the sensor. But, as many great electronics ideas, the technology to put this all together on a CMOS IC was not nearly ready at that time. Toda... » read more

How To Sleep Easier If You Test Auto ICs For A Living


Last month, I looked at the product definition process of automotive ICs, using the $7 billion microcontroller market as an illustration of design exploration to optimize performance, features, die size and product cost. Now I’d like to look at the back end of the process — the final IC testing that’s still critical no matter how sound the upfront work in defining a featuring set and aptl... » read more

Recipe For Automotive IC Design Success


“Not a computer science project!” That’s how an automotive IC design manager I worked with once described IC design in a product definition meeting. I liked his viewpoint. What he meant was: This is a business, not an academic exercise or homework assignment. There are competitors, customers, and opportunity for success and failure. Despite the massive opportunity for the chip industry, d... » read more

IoT Security: Technology Is Only One Part Of The Equation


Survey after survey on the adoption of the IoT punctuates that security and data privacy continue to be the top concerns with any new implementation. It used to be that security was all about protecting data (business, personal ID, etc.), but as more devices are connected to the IoT, security concerns reach far beyond just the value inherent in the data. According to Gartner, nearly 5.5 ... » read more

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