Quantum Madness


The race is on to commercialize quantum computing for everything from autonomous vehicles to supercomputers for hire. IBM has been working on a 50-qubit computer. Intel and QuTech, its Dutch research partner, showed off a 17-qubit test chip last month. And Alphabet, Google's parent company, is developing a 20-qubit computer. These numbers sound paltry compared to the billions of transistors ... » read more

Auto Suppliers: More Than Chips


The semiconductor industry is revving up its present and future contributions to advanced driver-assistance systems and autonomous driving. Those areas represent tremendous growth opportunities for chips, modules, and software going into automotive electronics. There’s also the development of artificial intelligence and machine learning applications in automotive design, which are brand new c... » read more

Advanced Packaging Moves To Cars


By Ann Steffora Mutschler and Ed Sperling As automotive OEMs come up to speed on electrification of vehicles, each at their own pace, they are starting to embrace novel packaging approaches as a way to differentiate themselves in an increasingly competitive market. Wirebond used to dominate this market, where most of the chips were relatively unsophisticated and product cycles were slow�... » read more

System Bits: July 3


VW emissions tests cheat code found A team of researchers from UC San Diego, Ruhr University along with an independent researcher has uncovered the mechanism that Volkswagen used to circumvent U.S. and European emission tests over a period of at least six years before the EPA put the company on notice in 2015 for violating the Clean Air Act. The researchers found the code that allowed onboa... » read more

The Week In Review: IoT


Consortia Optimal+ said this week that it has joined the Industrial Internet Consortium. “The Industrial Internet of Things (IIoT) will have a tremendous impact on industries worldwide. The application of smart manufacturing, combined with the collection and analysis of in-use/field stage data, will deliver powerful insights to brand owners and enable them to achieve dramatic improvements in... » read more

Aftermarket Autonomous Vehicle Race Heats Up


It’s not just car companies that are racing to build self-driving vehicles. An entire ecosystem is sprouting up around retrofitting existing vehicles with autonomous technology, despite the fact that the technology, infrastructure, regulatory and insurance issues are still not fully formed. Uber already is using self-driving taxis, accompanied by a human driver, in Pittsburgh, Pa. And many... » read more

Hello, It’s Your Pet Calling


As we entered into the new year of 2016 with the worldwide economic cloud of uncertainty hovering like an unregistered drone—particularly in China—CES was still setting records. Bustling with more than 170,000 attendees and more than 3,600 companies displaying their new products, the event was as hectic as ever. There was a big showing from all the major automotive manufacturers and supp... » read more

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