Blog Review: Sept. 17


Ansys’ Benoit Debbaut looks at the Pitch drop experiment, which was started in 1927 (yes, that date is correct) to observe the excruciatingly slow movement of a thick liquid weighted down by gravity. Since inception, a total of nine drops have fallen. So when will the tenth drop fall? Place your bets...when you get around to it. Mentor’s Matthew Ballance highlights an interesting challe... » read more

More Than Moore


Semiconductor Engineering sat down to discuss the value of feature shrinks and what comes next with Steve Eplett, design technology and automation manager at [getentity id="22664" e_name="Open-Silicon"]; Patrick Soheili, vice president and general manager of IP Solutions at [getentity id="22242" e_name="eSilicon"]; Brandon Wang, engineering group director at [getentity id="22032" e_name="Cadenc... » read more

Apple Legitimizes The IoT


There have been plenty of reviews this week about the new iPhone 6 and the Apple Watch, both of which are either extremely cool or ho-hum, depending upon the disposition of the reviewer. But what’s really significant about all of this has nothing to do with the device. It’s a follow-the-money innovation. What made the iPod, and singlehandedly resurrected Apple’s reputation, wasn’t th... » read more

Design For IoT


In our already mind-bogglingly connected world where you can control your BMW with a Samsung smartwatch or monitor and pay your parking meter with a credit card on your smartphone, the semiconductor design community is mulling over the opportunities from design kits to embedded software as far as the best ways to equip design teams for the [getkc id="76" comment="Internet of Things"] (IoT) era.... » read more

Following Real Money On The IoT


We probably need to change the wording, but the next killer apps for the Internet of Things likely will be ones that save lives. A common approach by vendors looking to capitalize on the IoT is simply to mash together different vertical segments and technologies that never went together in the past. A crowd-based real-time GPS/traffic system like Waze would never have existed a decade ago (... » read more

Supply Chain Corruption


The more the chip supply chain relies on third-party sources, the greater the risk for a design containing potential malicious code or functions. Today, complex and sophisticated ICs are ubiquitous in virtually every industry. They are being relied upon, as never before, to control critical infrastructure subsystems such as power, finance, communications, and transportation. In a recent r... » read more

IoT Growing Pains


The Internet of Things is having one of those defining moments — and not in a good way. Only a limited number of things will work together at first. Only in rare case will they actually cross boundaries between vertical markets such as consumer or home, automotive and medical. And in no cases will there be any guarantees, at least in the short term, that communications will be reliable, secur... » read more

Quantum Cryptography: A Magic Bullet For The IoT?


Quantum cryptography (QC for this discussion) theory—and it is still just theory—is potentially a very powerful security process that could be implemented for the dissemination of information over communications channels, using the principles of quantum mechanics. This is particularly intriguing because it is impossible to measure a photon, the fundamental element in the creation of QC secu... » read more

Blog Review: Sept. 3


Ansys’ Bill Vandermark flags the top five engineering technology articles of the week. A couple of these are unusual, such as e-mailing brain waves, and hoverbikes, which could really improve bike safety—as long as you don’t hit a bird. Synopsys’ Marc Greenberg looks at just how fast DDR4 can run. But what do you call it when you overclock everything? Is that still DDR4? Cadence�... » read more

Looking For The Next Big Thing


With [getkc id="74" comment="Moore's Law"] slowing down or coming to an end, finding the next big thing may be very different than it was in the past. We cannot assume that more of the same will be a winner. The semiconductor industry has been blessed with two new product categories that have catapulted it through what should have been a very difficult period with barely a scratch. Those techno... » read more

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