Week In Review: Design, Low Power


With funding from the Semiconductor Research Corporation, a group of 10 universities is banding together to create the Processing with Intelligent Storage and Memory center, or PRISM, led by University of California San Diego. The $50.5 million PRISM center will focus on four different themes: novel memory and storage devices and circuits; next generation architectures; systems and software; an... » read more

Week in Review: IoT, Security, Auto


Internet of Things AT&T reports the activation of its narrowband Internet of Things network in the U.S. The carrier upgraded its 4G LTE cell sites across the country. It now offers two low-power wide-area networks to business customers, including its LTE-M network in Mexico and the U.S. “Both networks are designed for the IoT within licensed spectrum and provide carrier-grade security,�... » read more

Next Wave Of Security For IIoT


A rush of new products and services promise to make the famously un-secured Industrial IoT (IIoT) substantially more secure in the near future. Although the semiconductor industry has been churning out a variety of security-related products and concepts, ranging from root of trust approaches to crypto processors and physically unclonable functions, most IIoT operations have been slow to adop... » read more

Toward IIoT Security Standards


Security is a high priority within Industrial IoT projects, but it is advancing like the rest of the industry—inconsistently, with big gaps between the leaders and everyone else. That isn't unique to one or two industrial segments. It applies to all of them, and even to slices within particularly industries. "There is some confusion about security because it's not just the IT issues," s... » read more

Why IIoT Security Is So Difficult


Despite the high risk of a market filled with billions of at least partially unprotected devices, it is likely to take five years or more to reach a "meaningful" level of security in the Industrial IoT. The market, which potentially includes every connected device with an integrated circuit, is fragmented into vertical industries, specialty chips, and filled with competing OEMs, carriers, in... » read more

Designing Hardware For Security


By Ed Sperling and Kevin Fogarty Cyber criminals are beginning to target weaknesses in hardware to take control of devices, rather than using the hardware as a stepping stone to access to the software. This shift underscores a significant increase in the sophistication of the attackers, as evidenced by the discovery of Spectre and Meltdown by Google Project Zero in 2017 (made public in Ja... » read more

The Week In Review: IoT


R&D National Instruments this week opened the NI Industrial Internet of Things Lab at its headquarters in Austin, Texas. NI and Real-Time Innovations are co-leading the Industrial Internet Consortium’s Industrial Internet of Things Microgrid Testbed, which will be hosted at the NI Industrial Internet of Things Lab. The testbed uses the Data Distribution Service standard and is working to dev... » read more

The Week In Review: IoT


Memory Kilopass Technology uncorked its new eNVM, which includes vertical layered thyristor DRAM technology. The key advantages, according to the company, is that it eliminates the need for DRAM refresh, can be manufactured using existing processes, and improves power and area efficiency. A full memory test chip is currently in the early stages of testing. A thyristor is basically a latch tech... » read more

The Week In Review: IoT


Security The Industrial Internet Consortium this week unveiled the Industrial Internet Security Framework, a set of specifications for connected health-care devices and hospitals, intelligent transportation, smart electrical grids, smart factories, and other cyber-physical systems in the Internet of Things. AT&T, Fujitsu, Hitachi, Infineon Technologies, Intel, Microsoft, and Symantec are among... » read more