Bidding War On H-1B Visas?


Good help is hard to find. It's about to get harder—and more expensive. The U.S. tech industry's solution until now has been to leverage expertise from around the world, drawing top graduates and entry-level professionals under the H-1B visa program. Last year, there were 85,000 H-1B visas issued, of which 20,000 are required to hold a U.S. master's degree or higher. There are some exce... » read more

Ethics And The Singularity


A couple of weeks ago, I wrote an article entitled The Multiplier and the Singularity. That article has been well received and I thank those who have made some kind and interesting comments on it. Such articles can be difficult to write without inserting writer's bias. As a writer, I have many of my own thoughts and possibly even prejudices, but those are not meant to make their way into my wri... » read more

Not All Software Is Like Elvis


January is traditionally my look-back and outlook month. Five years ago my year-end wish had been a census of software developers, and it is fascinating how software in the context of verification has evolved since then (more on this below). Also, most years I go into my garage, dust off my collection of IEEE Spectrum print editions from January five, ten and 15 years back to assess which of th... » read more

Formal Verification Takes Safety-Critical Applications For A Drive


The high reliability of safety-critical chips for automotive applications is a well-known imperative for today’s higher-end cars and as driverless cars move closer to reality. Uber, in fact, is testing autonomous cars in Boston of all places, where aggressive driving reigns supreme and honking the horn is considered an art form. As automotive manufacturers realize that their differentiatio... » read more

It Feels Like Magic


Over the holidays I visited Universal Studios in Los Angeles with my family. The entire park is full of high tech so-called 4D rides as they add motion and other effects, like spraying water when someone sneezes, to a 3D movie. We were, for example, able to experience what it would be like if a bus gets caught in between King Kong and a t-rex fighting with each other. Despite a wide range of... » read more

Real-Time Performance Across The Factory Floor


Next generation processors continue to push the performance envelope. It seems the price continues to drop while the processing speeds increase with each new processor release. I recall discussions not that long ago in which the future utility of real-time operating systems and middleware were being bantered about as if they were not going to be required going forward. After all, with each subs... » read more

Happy 25th Birthday, HAL!


“Good afternoon, gentlemen. I am a HAL 9000 computer. I became operational at the H. A. L. plant in Urbana, Illinois on the 12th of January, 1992.”—Stanley Kubrick and Arthur C. Clarke, 2001: A Space Odyssey (1968). Nearly a half-century ago, Arthur C. Clarke and Stanley Kubrick introduced us to cinema’s most compelling example of artificial intelligence: the HAL 9000, a heuristicall... » read more

So Much For Pure Science


Math is supposed to be the pure science, but numbers appear to be far less pure than mathematicians let on. There are examples of this everywhere. Consider the latest process nodes. One foundry's 10nm is another foundry's 7nm. And 7nm isn't necessarily 7nm. It might be 7.5nm or 6.5nm. It's not so much that the measurements aren't accurate. It's how they're applied that causes the problem. ... » read more

Crazy Christmas Patents


For the past several years, I have been writing a blog that pokes fun at patent applications related to Christmas. It now appears that I am an expert in this subject matter because I received two e-mails during the course of this year. One asked how they should go about getting their Christmas ornament manufactured and marketed. The other asked if I would feature their newly released ornament i... » read more

Transistor-Level Defect Diagnosis


Each new semiconductor process node represents exciting opportunities for suppliers of design, manufacturing, test, and failure analysis solutions. A new process means new challenges to solve, and hopefully more money to be made. On the flip side, whenever solutions that address these new challenges are presented, we seldom hear how useful these are to more mature process nodes. One technology ... » read more

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