Lessons From The Cold War


With the ongoing threats to our electronic devices, it is obvious that security needs to be improved in the application and communication chips on the mobile platform. The ideal solution would be as secure as the celebrated red phone on the U.S. president’s desk in the Oval Office during the Cold War. The implementation of the red phone is actually much more complicated than red-colored ha... » read more

What’s Important For IoT—Power, Performance Or Integration?


Semiconductor Engineering sat down with Steve Hardin, director of product development for AT&T's IoT Solutions Group; Wayne Dai, CEO of VeriSilicon; John Koeter, vice president of the Solutions Group at [getentity id="22035" e_name="Synopsys"]; and Rajeev Rajan, vice president for IoT at [getentity id="22819" comment="GlobalFoundries"]. What follows are excerpts of that conversation. To vie... » read more

Embedded Evolution


The design of embedded systems has changed drastically from the days when I was directly involved with them. My first job after leaving college was to design aircraft control systems. I had the dubious honor to be working on the first civilian fly-by-wire aircraft – the Airbus A310. The reason I say dubious is that we had so many eyes trained on us, and that system contained so much redundanc... » read more

Will Hypervisors Protect Us?


Another day, another car hacked and another report of a data breach. The lack of security built into electronic systems has made them a playground for the criminal world, and the industry must start becoming more responsive by adding increasingly sophisticated layers of protection. In this, the first of a two-part series, Semiconductor Engineering examines how hypervisors are entering the embed... » read more

Putting Design Back Into DFT


Test always has been a delicate balance between cost and quality, but there are several changes happening in the industry that might cause a significant alteration in strategy. Part one of this two part series about [getkc id="47" comment="Design for Test (DFT)"] looked at changes in areas such as automotive, where built in self-test is becoming a mandated part of the design process. This co... » read more

Is Security A Priority?


Ask any two executives in the semiconductor industry about security threats and there is a good chance you will get two totally different answers. The disturbing part is they both may be right. In markets where there is no physical danger to people, security always has been viewed a risk versus profit equation. At conferences over the past year, numerous executives have touted the Transport... » read more

Designing Automotive Security For Connected Vehicles


The general concept of basic automotive security has been around for a number of years. Nevertheless, its scale and scope is rapidly evolving, with new classes of vulnerabilities brought to the fore as more and more electronic systems go online. Put simply, the automotive industry is connecting systems that weren’t originally designed to be part of the rapidly burgeoning Internet of Things (I... » read more

The Growing Need For OTP


Historically, when someone from our industry uses the acronym OTP, or one-time programmable, they think of eFuse, invented by IBM in 2004.  Using electromigration, IBM was able to program a fuse without damaging other parts of the chip. In this way, fuses could dynamically alter the configuration of a chip after it was manufactured. Applications range from analog trimming and calibration to re... » read more

The Week in Review: IoT


Deals Analog Devices this week agreed to purchase Linear Technology for $60 a share in cash and stock, a proposed purchase worth about $14.8 billion. The transaction will wrap up next year, if antitrust regulators and Linear Tech’s shareholders give it the green light. Both chip companies are very active in Internet of Things technologies, with ADI acquiring Switzerland-based SNAP Sensor ear... » read more

Mixed-signal/Low-power Design


Semiconductor Engineering sat down to discuss mixed-signal/low-power IC design with Phil Matthews, director of engineering at Silicon Labs; Yanning Lu, director of analog IC design at Ambiq Micro; Krishna Balachandran, director of low power solutions marketing at [getentity id="22032" comment="Cadence"]; Geoffrey Ying, director of product marketing, AMS Group, [getentity id="22035" e_name="Syno... » read more

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