Embedded Insiders

Send us a textRISC-V has caused a slew of start-ups. One of those, SiFive, is composed of some of the folks behind the original spec, derived at Berkeley. Jack Kang, SiFive’s Vice President of Product and Business Development, had a great perspective on the RISC-V instruction set architecture, and cleared up some of the misconceptions. On this week’s Five Minutes with…interview, Jack went through everything from the latest silicon announcements to the all-important ecosystem. https://riscv.org/ https://www.sifive.com/For more information, visit embeddedcomputing.com

Send us a textIt always seems like it's a ways away, and then you look at the calendar and it's right around the corner. The Embedded Insiders' inboxes are already overflowing with CES 2018 meeting requests, and unfortunately there's not enough time to meet with everyone. Tune into this week's Embedded Insiders podcast as the two try to decipher which meetings are most appropriate. They also discuss technologies they're excited to see at the show, such as autonomous vehicles and voice recognition.For more information, visit embeddedcomputing.com

Send us a textLast week, the RISC-V Foundation held a workshop in Silicon Valley. The purpose was to update developers on the progress of the technology and also let some of the partners talk about their own developments/products. By most measures, the workshop was deemed a success. I spoke to Rick O’Connor, the Executive Director of the RISC-V Foundation in this week’s Five Minutes with…discussion to see if he agreed. Rick also went through one of the key announcements that were made last week, and we talked about where the RISC-V instruction-set architecture (ISA) is headed, including its tradeoffs. https://riscv.org/ https://riscv.org/risc-v-isa/For more information, visit embeddedcomputing.com

Send us a textIndustrial IoT has a huge upside from a manufacturing perspective. In other words, there’s a lot of money to be made here. That’s the lead in to this week’s Five Minutes with…discussion, where I spoke to Enrique Herrera, from OSIsoft. We talked about the specific areas that could best profit from IIoT in the both the short term and the long term. https://www.osisoft.com/For more information, visit embeddedcomputing.com

Send us a textA recent tour of Europe revealed several advances in automotive safety technologies, with companies such as ON Semiconductor and Toshiba making big pushes into ADAS. Meanwhile, Broadcom continues to eye Qualcomm, and industry still seems ignorant of RISC-V.For more information, visit embeddedcomputing.com

Send us a textThere have been some significant changes with respect to Java recently. If you’re a developer and/or you support a Java-based product, you had better be up to speed on these changes. To get the information directly from someone in the know, I turned to Scott Sellers, the President, CEO, and Co-Founder of Azul Systems for this week’s Five Minutes with…discussion. Azul bills itself as being “the world’s only company exclusively focused on Java and the Java Virtual Machine (JVM).” https://www.azul.com/For more information, visit embeddedcomputing.com

Send us a textIndustrial IoT is here—just about. We’re already taking advantage of some of the technologies that are available to us in the manufacturing sector, but there’s still a long way to go. According to Ed Baca, the IoT Technical Manager at TTI, retrofitting your factory is a great path to go, as opposed to starting from scratch. Ed let loose with lots of ideas for those in this IIoT space in this week’s Five Minutes with…discussion. https://www.ttiinc.com/content/ttiinc/en.htmlFor more information, visit embeddedcomputing.com

Send us a textVoice input is all the rage, with Amazon’s Echo, Apple’s Siri, Google’s Home, and so on. According to Paul Beckmann, the Founder and CTO of DSP Concepts, we’ve just scratched the surface on where this technology is going and what it’s capable of. In this week’s Five Minutes with…discussion, Paul and I talk about some specific applications, including automotive, and what it’ll take to make voice recognition something that’s way more useful than it is today. https://dspconcepts.com/For more information, visit embeddedcomputing.com

Send us a textTuangru is a software company focused on data-center management. In layman’s terms, the company manages their customers’ data. It seems like a lot can be obtain by the analysis of that data, thereby allowing decisions to be made based on facts rather than opinion or hunches. Just how that happens and how those decisions are made and the impact of those decisions are what I discussed with Jad Jebara, Tuangru’s President and CEO in this week’s Five Minutes with…discussion. https://www.tuangru.com/For more information, visit embeddedcomputing.com

Send us a textGetting into the Halloween spirit, the Embedded Insiders pick ten "spooky" trends in the embedded electronics space for engineers to keep an eye on. Topics Include: - Machine Learning and Artificial Intelligence - IoT Networking - Security - Processors and IP - Development Tools and Open Source SoftwareFor more information, visit embeddedcomputing.com

Send us a textAdesto Technologies is a provider of non-volatile memory. That said, they claim to be able to reduce power in a system, particularly one that’s headed for a smart IoT application. I challenged whether such a claim was really accurate, and that’s the basis for this week’s Five Minutes with…discussion with Narbeh Derhacobian, who is the President and CEO of Adesto. http://www.adestotech.com/For more information, visit embeddedcomputing.com

Send us a textThis week, the Embedded Insiders, Brandon Lewis and Rich Nass, look at where the Arduino architecture is headed. If you’re an aficionado of Arduino, and we know that many of you are, this is information you’re going to want to hear.For more information, visit embeddedcomputing.com

Send us a textEverybody who builds an IoT platform says they’re concerned with security. But are they really? While there is lots of lip service paid to security, whether developers are going it its appropriate due can still be questioned. However, when you finally get to the point where you don’t question whether security is required (it is), the question becomes whether it’s a hardware problem or a software problem. Anthony Ambrose, President and CEO of Data I/O, had an interesting take on this topic in this week’s Five Minutes with…discussion. http://www.dataio.com/For more information, visit embeddedcomputing.com

Send us a textThe Industrial Internet Consortium, aka the IIC, works with many different organizations to ensure that, amongst other issues, there’s smooth sailing between organizations when making an IoT connection. That holds true wither it’s other industry consortiums, governments, or even specific vendors. It’s the job of the Liaison Working Group to ensure that smooth process. I had the pleasure of speaking with Wael Diab, who is the chair of the Liaison Working Group for the IIC, and he gave me a better understanding of how his group functions in this week’s Five Minutes with…discussion. http://www.iiconsortium.org/For more information, visit embeddedcomputing.com

Send us a textThe Embedded Insiders take a look at the news of the week. This week, we looked at some of the terminology used in the IoT, namely the Mist verses the Edge versus the Fog. What are all these different layers? And, do we really need them? Also, we discuss whether the MIPS architecture has run its course, thanks (or no thanks) to some recent business activity.For more information, visit embeddedcomputing.com

Send us a textI was only marginally aware of the work being done by the HSA Foundation, which stands for Heterogeneous System Architecture. So, my first question in this week’s Five Minutes with… to John Glossner, who is the current President of the Foundation was, what do you guys do? After understanding the high level of compute power that the Foundation deals with, we moved into one of my current favorite topics, AI. That seemed like a natural segue, and it proved to be true. Tune in to hear John’s take on this technology, and what the Foundation is doing about it. http://www.hsafoundation.com/For more information, visit embeddedcomputing.com

Send us a textThis week, the Embedded Insiders briefly consider ABB's acquisition of GE Industrial Solutions, and wonder if GE is going too digital. Then, the two discuss "open source". The term is widely, and loosely, used these days, making it hard to differentiate between what's really open and what's being guided by the invisible hand of the private sector. Citing examples, the Insiders once again agree to disagree.For more information, visit embeddedcomputing.com

Send us a textA few weeks ago, the Embedded Insiders tackled the topic of artificial intelligence and machine learning. After further review, one of the Insiders called foul, saying that there’s nothing new here. “It’s just the same technology with a new catchy name.” Insider B clams Insider A doesn’t know what he’s talking about; that AI and Machine Learning really are new technologies and are sure to make an impact going forward. Listen to the latest Embedded Insiders podcast and make a decision for yourself.For more information, visit embeddedcomputing.com

Send us a textAs the old axiom goes, “if you have to ask the price, then you can’t afford it.” I’m here to say that nothing could be further from the truth when it comes to securing your network. In fact, depending on the data that you’re protecting, it’s possible that there’s no cost that’s too high. That’s the message I tried to present (well, it was a lot more aggressive than “present”) in this week’s Embedded Insiders podcast. Technology Editor Brandon Lewis and I thought it was important enough to bring in an expert, who happens to be Microsoft’s Dennis Mattoon, who also chairs the Device Identity Composition Engine (DICE) Architectures working group for the Trusted Computing Group (TCG). Dennis walked through what’s happening in this space and what designers should be aware of, as Brandon and I pummeled him with questions.For more information, visit embeddedcomputing.com

Send us a textThe Embedded Insiders stumble upon an interesting question this week: Why haven't hybrid and electric vehicles been more successful? The capability to support these technologies has been available almost since cars themselves, yet today they represent less than 1 percent of the world vehicle population. Can embedded power and analog components help? Tune in as the Insiders explore. Topics include: - Automotive - Electric Vehicles - Battery Management - Power ComponentsFor more information, visit embeddedcomputing.com