EETimes On Air

On the Weekly Briefing podcast: Prosthetic vision, a common concept in science-fiction, has long been out of reach in reality – but perhaps for not much longer. Researchers are about to start experiments to see if they can restore vision to the blind using prosthetics based on advanced sensor technology. Our guest is Philip Troyk, head of the Pritzker Institute of Biomedical Science and Engineering at Illinois Tech and the CEO of semiconductor supplier Sigenics.

This week’s podcast: AI is different from traditional computing, and it is stressing supporting technology in entirely new ways. That goes not only for processors (as one might expect), but also for memory chips. This week, a conversation with Steven Woo of Rambus, on the special challenges of AI.  

This week’s podcast: Some amazing things have been accomplished with AI, but if AI is to become widely adopted, it must be safe and reliable, and there is no framework for demonstrating AI is either. Helen Toner, Director of Strategy at Georgetown University’s Center for Security and Emerging Technology, talks about what safe, reliable AI should look like.

This week’s podcast: We’ll be talking about the IoT, why AI and ML are critical at the edge, not just for applications, but for security. Our guest this week is Chris Catterton; he’s the head of solution engineering at a startup that two weeks ago was called OneTech but as of this week has been renamed Micro.AI.

This week’s podcast: Facebook is heading for the metaverse, and Nvidia toward the omniverse. These “places” are going to combine the real and the digital in many different ways, but they’ll all depend on display technology. We talk with Jon Peddie and Kathleen Maher from Jon Peddie Research about what a metaverse might be, and what metaverses mean for the electronics industry and, more importantly, for the us as we interface with the world.

This week’s podcast: After designing the world’s first working microprocessor and then pioneering in artificial intelligence, Federico Faggin has one last great frontier left to explore: human consciousness. A free-wheeling conversation with an industry legend on machine learning, quantum physics, experience, and more.

This week’s podcast: Our guest this week is Hassane El-Khoury, who nine months ago was named president and CEO of Onsemi (formerly ON Semiconductor). We talk about the transformation of the company, and what it’ll take to succeed in the semiconductor market when every IC company is going after the same growth markets.

This week’s podcast: Tyson Tuttle spent the majority of his career at Silicon Labs, at the C-level for the last 12 years, and now he’s moving on from the company. A discussion with Tuttle about the risk of betting it all on the Internet of things, on where the IoT might be going, about managing a modern company, and more.

This week’s podcast: You thought the Internet of things was big? Welcome to the Internet of everything. Our guest this week is Qualcomm Technologies VP of engineering John Smee. Qualcomm is one of the companies defining the standards and building the technology of the Internet of everything. We asked Smee for a Big Picture view of what it is and what it could be, and he delivered: the internet, connected cars, smart cities, VR, 5G, edge systems, and so very much more.

This week’s podcast: Our guest is Intel SVP Sanjay Natarajan. There are only three companies in the world that can make the most advanced ICs possible —TSMC, Samsung, and Intel — and lately, people have been wondering about Intel. Intel just announced a roadmap that will take it to 2025 and (the company says) regain its position as the leading IC manufacturer. We talk with Natarajan about Intel “getting its mojo back.”

This week’s podcast: The advantages of making power ICs in materials like gallium nitride instead of silicon are rapidly snowballing. We talk with guest Doug Bailey, marketing VP and applications engineering with Power Integrations, about what the evolution from Si to GaN means for engineers and how they design products, and also about some very tangible consequences for consumers.

This week’s podcast: As the semiconductor sector evolves, we tend to scrutinize the evolutionary steps – the new technologies, the mergers and acquisitions. That elides the big question: what is the industry evolving toward? A discussion with Tirias Research analyst Jim McGregor on where this bus is heading.

This week’s podcast: A few years back, engineers created the SAM car, a vehicle that enabled quadriplegic former Indy racer Sam Schmidt to drive again. Now they’ve followed with the SAM suit, an exoskeleton that let Schmidt dance with his daughter at her wedding. Sam, the SAM car, and the SAM suit, with Arrow Electronics chief marketing officer Victor Gustaf Gao.

This week’s podcast: EE Times just published the 2021 edition of the Silicon 100, our latest list of startups that merit everyone’s attention. In this episode we talk Peter Clarke, the impresario behind the Silicon 100, about the latest round of startups and what the list says about where the electronics industry is heading.

This week’s podcast: An interview with former NSC member Brigadier General (ret.) Robert Spalding, now the CEO of a company that just emerged from stealth mode with a technology that will not only battle-harden modern 5G networks, it’ll help pave the way to the post-smartphone world. The world is courting disaster by making more and more of everyday life reliant on 5G systems that are vulnerable to cyberespionage.

On this week’s podcast: John Glenn was the third person to do everything he’s most famous for as an astronaut, so why does he have such an outsized place in world history? In this episode we talk with Jeff Shesol, who puts Glenn’s orbiting of the Earth in perspective in his new book Mercury Rising. Shesol reveals for the first time ever that Glenn’s flight was far more perilous than anyone had ever let on before.

On this week’s podcast: Colonial Pipeline got hacked, which forced the company to shut down the gasoline supply to much of the East Coast for about a week. People are finally beginning to understand how widely vulnerable we all are to cyberattacks. But how vulnerable are we? And what can we do about it? A conversation with cybersecurity expert Damon Small of NCC Group.

On this week’s podcast: Kristina M. Johnson is an engineer who has had a hand in several innovations in optoelectronics, started companies, run engineering schools, and served in as an Undersecretary in the Energy Department. We talk with her about encouraging young engineers, her experiences in engineering, and about receiving the inaugural IEEE Dresselhaus Medal.

On this week’s podcast: The adoption of renewable energy sources complicates the process of managing power grids. To compensate, the industry is trying to develop massive storage batteries, but what if we were to tap the batteries in electric vehicles instead? We talk with Infineon’s Ritesh Tyagi about vehicle to grid technology, or V2G.

This week’s podcast: Space exploration was once the exclusive province of nation-states. Now space is being commercialized. But what does that mean, exactly? Where are we heading, and how will we get there? In this episode, the new space race — what it means for aerospace, communications, nanomedicine, and for humanity in general. Our guest is futurist Ian Khan.