The Week In Review: IoT


Tools Google this week updated its Internet of Things platform, releasing a Developer Preview for Android Things, enabling application developers to create IoT devices running on the mobile Android operating system. “We incorporated the feedback from Project Brillo to include familiar tools such as Android Studio, the Android Software Development Kit (SDK), Google Play Services, and Google C... » read more

Smartphone Innovation Ignites IoT Creativity


The unrelenting drive to add more sensor-based features at a lower cost in smartphones has opened up opportunities for companies large and small to create innovative IoT edge products. With close to 15 billion MEMS-based sensors shipped in 2015 (expanding to 30 billion by 2020) at an average selling price of $1 (Yole Développement “Status of the MEMS Industry report for 2015”), many design... » read more

Ready For Social Robots?


After years of steady growth, innovation and sometimes disappointment, the robotics market is heating up on several fronts amid some new breakthroughs in the arena. Both the industrial and service robotics markets are hot. In addition, the consumer market is seeing a new level of interest, as the industry is invaded by the next wave of so-called personal assistant robots or social robots for... » read more

Fingerprint Sensor Technology And Security Requirements


Biometrics is a technology that uses a human’s biological features, such as facial characteristics, fingerprint patterns, retina, DNA or behaviors (voice and signature) to authenticate a person’s identification and authorize specific actions. Of all of them, fingerprint analysis technology is the most mature and has the widest acceptance. Several factors contribute to fingerprint technol... » read more

Are We Looking At The IoT Through Rose-Colored Glasses?


There’s been a lot of anticipation and promise associated with the explosive growth expected from the deployment of the Internet of Things. The prospect of 30 billion to 50 billion connected devices and all the associated electronics brings rosy visions of a return to double-digit semiconductor industry growth rates. Let’s take a look at the realities of the impending impact. MEMS, ... » read more

Rethinking The Sensor


Sensor technology is beginning to change on a fundamental level as companies begin looking beyond a human’s five senses, on which early sensors were modeled, to what can be done with those sensors for specific applications. In some cases, [getkc id="187" kc_name="sensors"] don’t have to be as accurate as the sight, smell, touch, taste and hearing of a person. In others, they can be a... » read more

High Performance And Scalable Sensor Connectivity With MIPI I3C


The MIPI Alliance is working on a new standard called I3C (or SenseWire) that incorporates and unifies key attributes of I2C and Serial Peripheral Interface (SPI). MIPI I3C enhances the capabilities and performance of each approach with a comprehensive, low pin count and scalable interface as well as architecture. It supports sensor interface architectures that mobile, mobile-influenced, and em... » read more

The Trouble With MEMS


The advent of the Internet of Things will open up a slew of new opportunities for MEMS-based sensors, but chipmakers are proceeding cautiously. There are a number of reasons for that restraint. Microelectromechanical systems are difficult to design, manufacture and test, which initially fueled optimism in the MEMS ecosystem that this market would command the same kinds of premiums that analo... » read more

Toward Better Acoustic Resonators


After some lively conversations with the top researchers in MEMS acoustic resonators during the 2014 Sensors and Actuators Workshop (familiarly known to the MEMS community as “Hilton Head”), we set to work on a simulation solution to better serve researchers and commercial designers. Acoustic resonators for RF filtering have received a lot of attention in the past few years as the number... » read more

Wafer Shortage? Reality Versus Perception


The promise of explosive growth associated with IoT has semiconductor unit forecasts growing at double-digit rates for key product categories. Anything with the word ‘sensors’ seems to be in vogue today. Sensors, image sensors, sensor hubs are all expected to benefit from the billions of connected devices that are forecasted to be in place by 2020. Semico agrees. Unit growth for key product... » read more

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