Embedded Insiders

Send us Fan MailIn this week’s Embedded Insiders, Brandon and Rich try to decide if data sheets specs are reliable, or if industry benchmarks are the only reasonably- accurate measure of component performance without actually testing them yourself. Later, NVIDIA CEO Jensen Huang discusses how the company’s pending acquisition of Arm is progressing, and what benefits the combined company will bring to each other and the market as a whole if the deal passes regulatory checks. Jensen also weighs in on the semiconductor shortage and how his company plans to keep pricing in check amidst supply and demand volatility. Finally, Tiera Oliver investigates the world of voice processing at the edge, where companies are adding more AI but not necessarily more processing. Engineers from Knowles Intelligent Audio and Cadence Design Systems weigh in on how classical DSP is being used to make your smart virtual assistant as clever as possible at battery-scale power consumption. And, to bring things full circle, Tiera introduces MLPerf Tiny Inferencing benchmark that can help voice recognition designers determine how fast, accurate, and low power their edge AI stacks can be before building out complete systems.  Stay tuned.For more information, visit embeddedcomputing.com

Send us Fan MailIn this episode of the Embedded Insiders, Brandon and Rich wonder if residential solar power is really worth it. The question stems from Littelfuses’ release of 400PV Fuse series of photovoltaic solar fuses, which can be embedded directly into roof shingles or tiles. But with so much government meddling in the solar industry, and big energy looking to protect its existing interests, is it prudent, or even worth it, to bother with the technology? Later, the last leg of our ADLINK Technology edge AI series sees Zane Tsai, Director of the company’s Platform Product Center, join Rich to discuss why the massive amounts of data being collected by intelligent systems requires an entire ecosystem. Looking forward, this edge AI ecosystem will also include 5G.Finally, despite all of the downs in 2020, Xilinx was actually up. Victor Peng, the company’s CEO, attributes some of this success to big wins in AI sockets. But beyond innovations in their Adaptive Compute Acceleration Platform (ACAP) portfolio, he and his team have bet big on making their technology more accessible, and it appears to be paying off. Tiera Oliver reports.Tune in for more. For more information, visit embeddedcomputing.com

Send us Fan MailIn this episode of the Embedded Insiders, Brandon and Rich discuss Silicon Laboratories recent divestiture of its infrastructure and automotive business units to SkyWorks Solutions. The sale includes the company’s power, isolation, broadcast, timing, and other products and IP. Silicon Labs CEO Tyson Tuttle said several years ago that the company is “all-in” on IoT, and this move appears to be him keeping his word. But was it the best move?Afterwards, Rich is rejoined by Zane Tsai, Director of the Platform Product Center at ADLINK, and Amit Goel, Director of Product Management for Embedded AI Platforms at NVIDIA. After discussing enabling technologies in previous episodes, the three get down to how this functionality can be applied to autonomous mobile robots. The market opportunity for AMRs is vast, but so are the challenges. The three dive into a collaboration between ADLINK, NVIDIA, and BMW to increase productivity, improve efficiency, and reduce cost in the German automakers manufacturing facilities.Finally, Perry Cohen investigates the long tail of the ongoing semiconductor shortage, and how market dynamics that limited the supply of multi-layer ceramic capacitors back in 2018 are playing out again in the broader electronics market. Of all the sectors feeling the squeeze, none has been pinched more than automotive. Why is that, what can be done about it, and how long until things are back to normal? Richard Barnett of SupplyFrame helps explain that our definition of normal may need to change.For more information, visit embeddedcomputing.com

Send us Fan MailArmv9 is here, and although it took nearly 10 years to arrive, it comes right at a major inflection point in the semiconductor industry where all of the major chipmakers have started dabbling in processor architectures outside of their heritage. The implications of this are currently being felt in more advanced use cases like the data center and high-performance computing, but the roadmap decisions of today – such as the massive emphasis on AI and ML workload processing in Armv9 that will surely continue under NVIDIA leadership – will  have significant ramifications for the embedded systems of tomorrow. And, oh yeah, what does NVIDIA’s potential stewardship of Arm mean for NVIDIA competitors who also happen to be Arm licensees, like Intel and Xilinix? Brandon and Rich discuss.Later, Intel’s Sailesh Kottapalli, Senior Architecture Fellow, and Mandy Mock, VP and GM of Product Engineering Systems, join the Insiders to help set the record straight on Moore’s law. To be fair, the number of transistors keeps increasing at a rate that’s fairly consistent with Gordon Moore’s original projections, it’s actually some of the ancillary benefits that we’ve come to expect from that transistor scaling that aren’t keeping pace. So, is it fair to say it’s dead? And, maybe more importantly, should anyone even care?Finally, in this week’s Tech Market Madness, Perry Cohen tries to make sense of “the edge” with Matt Trifiro of Vapor O and Jacob Smith of Equinix, who co-chaired the LF Edge’s 2021 “State of the Edge” report. All these years later, do we have a definitive answer to the question, “What is the IoT edge?” And, if we can agree on something, how will it reach critical mass? Here’s a hint: Open source. Tune in.For more information, visit embeddedcomputing.com

Send us Fan MailIn this week’s Embedded Insiders, the Insiders comment on a recent fire that shut down the Renesas Naka semiconductor fab where the company manufactures automotive chips. Later, Rich is joined again by Zane Tsai, Director of the Platform Product Center at ADLINK Technology, to discuss how logistics companies are being affected by the race to deploy AI at the edge, and insights for developers looking to increase the efficiency and productivity of logistics automation systems.The two are also joined by NVIDIA’s Amit Goel, Director of Product management for embedded AI platforms, who examines the complexities of integrating reliable performance into AI-based applications like independent automation. NVIDIA is currently building a hardware platform that will bring greater compute intelligence to autonomous systems at the edge. However, a solid software framework that can streamline the development, deployment, and management of the AI applications that will run on these devices is still critical. The company’s Isaac SDK and DeepStream SDK for AI-based multi-sensor processing, video, audio, and image understanding are positioned to support these workloads across the engineering and operational lifecycles of AI-enabled robots.Finally, Tiera Oliver addresses the evolution of real-world AI. How do we transition from our historical lack of understanding about what’s going on under the hood of complex neural networks, and into an era of AI explainability around how these models operate? Will we ever be able to test, verify, and validate these workloads to the point that they can be heavily relied upon in safety-critical systems? Johanna Pingel and David Willingham, deep learning project managers at The MathWorks, believe we’re already on the way.For more information, visit embeddedcomputing.com

Send us Fan MailDuring a recorded presentation from  embedded world 2021, Rich and Brandon are joined by Technology Editor Curt Schwaderer, who doubles as Vice President of Engineering at intelligence and security provider Yaana Technologies. The three discuss how the tech industry in particular and connected organizations in general have transitioned from protecting devices from attacks to accepting they will be hacked and mitigating losses to modern threat intelligence and modeling strategies. They then look at this evolution through the lens of employees, who are handling and working with sensitive information and IP, working from home.DON'T  FORGET  TO REGISTER  FOR A FREE EMBEDDED WORLD-IN-A-BOX! LESS THAN 100 REMAIN! GET YOURS TODAY: https://www.embeddedcomputing.com/pages/ew-in-a-box-regLater, Vincent Scott, Founder of Defense Cybersecurity Group, Chief Security Officer at STI-TEC, and former Navy cryptologist joins the Insiders to review the Department of Defense's Cybersecurity Maturity Model Certification (CMMC) and what it will mean for companies delivering technology to the U.S. Armed Forces. In Scott's view, the CMMC presents obstacles – such as an assumption of on-premise infrastructure – that may make companies just starting out reconsider serving those markets and subsequently impact the nation's cyber readiness.Finally, Brandon fills in for Perry in this week's Tech Market Madness. A recent report from Dragos indicates that threats to industrial control systems tripled in 2020,  while 90 percent of organizations  don't  have visibility into what's taking place beyond the IT/OT network boundary. Brandon investigates just what could be going on back there as he reviews how another industrial cybersecurity firm,  Claroty, uncovered vulnerabilities in  WIBU Systems' CodeMeter licensing software deployed on ICSs worldwide. Sharon Brizinov, a Claroty researcher, demonstrates just how easy it could have been to compromise systems running the software, both locally and remotely.For more information, visit embeddedcomputing.com

Send us Fan MailWith time to market pressures constantly increasing, technology organizations are moving away from traditional waterfall development workflows and towards Agile/DevOps software development practices. Originally introduced in enterprise, IT, and data center contexts, these methodologies have made their way into embedded engineering organizations, but at the potential expense of software quality. Can embedded tech companies, especially safety- and security-critical ones, afford to sacrifice quality for speed? Brandon and Rich debate.Later, the Insiders are joined by Yannick Moy of AdaCore to discuss how the MISRA C coding standard, which was originally developed in 1998, is holding up given the complete overhaul of automotive (and other) technology stacks since the standard’s inception. Is C, a notoriously compliance-challenged language, still the best bet for safety-critical systems that are now operating alongside a host of other connected applications?Finally, Perry Cohen looks into the true cost of bad software in this week’s Tech Market Madness. After reviewing Herb Krasner’s “The Cost of Poor Software Quality in the U.S.: A 2020 Report,” he finds out just how much defunct software projects, bad legacy code, and operational software failures set back the industry, and considers how DevQualOps could help recoup some of those losses while maintaining time to market. For more information, visit embeddedcomputing.com

Send us Fan MailEmbedded world is just about here, but this year’s event is different – like so many other conferences and trade shows, it’s completely virtual.Embedded Computing Design is the show’s official 2021 North American content partner, so Brandon and Rich have spent extra time thinking about how this new era of interaction has, is, and will affect the electronics industry moving forward.Is it just events that are changing, or is it the entire industry?After, the Insiders are joined by Zane Tsai, Director of the Platform Product Center at ADLINK Technology. Zane and Rich discuss the growing demand for AI at the edge, and how it is impacting mission critical applications. They go on to discuss the impact edge AI can have on fiscal capital and human life in general.Later, Tiera Oliver gets to the root of how COVID-19 is impacting electronics in academia labs. What are professors and their students to do without access to labs and equipment? Sid Deliwala of UPENN thinks we should just start throwing labs into backpacks. Learn more in this new segment, Patenting the Project with Tiera Oliver.For more information, visit embeddedcomputing.com

Send us Fan MailIn this edition of the Embedded Insiders, Brandon and Rich discuss factors and use cases that have kept the 8-bit MCU alive much longer than anyone expected. After, Brandon is joined by Steve Kennelly, 8-bit Business Unit Manager, at Microchip Technologies, to continue the discussion. Surprisingly, the company is still developing NEW low cost, low power 8-bit MCUs. But, why? And how long will that market continue to hold? Finally, in this week’s Tech Market Madness, Perry investigates how the COVID-19 pandemic affected supply chains in the electronic component market, sourcing industry data from Supplyframe that suggests technology procurement is headed for a self-service, e-commerce, Amazon-like model.Tune in to learn what’s been happening in theses markets, and what you can expect in the future.For more information, visit embeddedcomputing.com

Send us Fan MailWe’ve finally made it to the year 2021 and the Embedded Insiders have five predictions for what we may expect in the embedded space this year. Rich kicks things off with a bold prediction: 2021 will NOT be the year of 5G. Do you agree? Later, James Kimery, Vice President of Product Management at Spirent Communications, joins Brandon to discuss how research wireless research he was part of back in 2010 is finally coming to fruition with the dawn of 5G, and how industry initiatives like the Open Radio Access Network (ORAN) Alliance are working to prove Rich wrong. Here, James details the progress and adoption of ORAN, some tips and tricks for 5G network infrastructure and device developers, and thoughts on the role of testing in this brave new world of wireless.Finally, Perry is joined by Dr. James Edmondson for Tech Market Madness segment that addresses the future of the 5G market. Dr. Edmondson shares insight from the IDTechEx report, "5G Technology, Market and Forecasts 2020-2030" on current 5G deployment challenges, what’s being done to address them, and what he views as the biggest upside for 5G.For more information, visit embeddedcomputing.com