EETimes On Air

The Weekly Briefing podcast: The capacitive touchscreen was a major leap in HMI, but NextInput is offering further steps: force sensing and gesture. A talk with NextInput CEO Ali Foughi. Also, when we invoke the IoT, we tend to focus on the “things” even though the prerequisite is the “Internet” half of the equation. A discussion on how wireless LANs are enabling some of the biggest IoT applications to date.

The Weekly Briefing podcast: Xilinx's Gen 3 RFSoC is aimed at inherently finicky RF applications like 5G and radar; Pentek founder Roger Hosking talks with us about getting the most performance out of this family of FPGAs. Also, Qualcomm revealed its latest Snapdragon, certain to be heading for hundreds of millions of 5G handsets in China and around the world; a discussion with analyst Jim McGregor about the auspiciously designated 888 (triple fortune in China).

The automotive industry was once so wrapped up in fully autonomous driving that it still hasn’t quite figured out what should be doing today now that full autonomy has been pushed back. The near-term focus has shifted to assisted driving (or ADAS), but one industry expert thinks ADAS won’t work nearly as well as it could unless it is paired with driver monitoring systems. This week, a conversation with the opinionated and persuasive Colin Barnden.

The Weekly Briefing podcast: The wearables category is one of the hottest new markets in electronics; we talk with Jérôme Mouly, an analyst with Yole Développement about how the market is going to get hotter. Also, a report from the Double Summits in Shenzhen. The CEO Summit brings some of the top industry leaders from around the world, while the Distribution Summit provides insights into the unglamorous but absolutely critical business of maintaining global supply chains.

The Weekly Briefing podcast: The U.S. election dragged on far longer than usual, in part to count mail-in ballots, and in part because of the controversy regarding mail-in voting. This week we talk with the company that safeguards mail-in ballots with AI-based signature verification technology, and also with a policy expert about the ramifications of using that technology.

The Weekly Briefing podcast: It is almost impossible to create a modern product in a reasonable amount of time without models of hardware, or models of software, or – increasingly – models of both before anything is actually built or coded. How that works in practice is one of the marvels of modern engineering. A discussion with Altair SVP Pete Darnell. Also, Leti in France just began collaborating with Intel on advanced chip packaging. A discussion with EE Times newest contributor, Don Scansen.

The Weekly Briefing podcast: AMD is buying Xilinx for $35B. Does the deal make sense? A chat with Tirias Research analyst Kevin Krewell. Also, a discussion with execs from IBM and Synopsys on their ambitious plans to create an entire ecosystem for artificial intelligence research. With IBM Research VP Mukesh Khare and Synopsys VP Arun Venkatachar.

The Weekly Briefing podcast: It is the 100th anniversary of the introduction of the word “robot.” This week, a free-wheeling conversation with science fiction author Mark Niemann-Ross about robots, fictional and real. Also, EE Times has just published a book that we’re rather proud of. Called “Sensors in Automotive.” We talk about that.

The Weekly Briefing podcast: Uri Adoni has been a CEO of MSN Israel, a partner in one of the more prominent venture capital funds in Israel, and is the author of the new book “The Unstoppable Startup; Mastering Israel’s Secret Rules of Chutzpah.” We talk about why startups succeed – or fail, why some countries are better at supporting startups than others, and (of course) what “chutzpah” actually means.

The Weekly Briefing podcast: An interview with Keith Jackson, who in 2002 was named CEO of On Semiconductor, basically the shell of what had been Motorola’s Semiconductor Component Group, and grew it into a Fortune 500 company. He just announced his retirement. Also, we talk with Intel Mobileye executive Jack Weast about a new formalized approach to safer autonomous driving. And, what to expect at the IoT Security Virtual Conference & Expo.

The Weekly Briefing podcast: Congress is trying to figure out how to shore up the U.S. semiconductor industry. We talk with renowned economic historian Chris Miller about the best way to do that. Also, a discussion with IBM Research VP Jeff Wesler about five enormous global challenges that stand a good chance of being solved in the next 5 years.

The Weekly Briefing podcast: We interview Georgia Tech professor Ayanna Howard. Howard is an expert in AI, in robotics, and in how people relate to technology. Also, there’s been a lot of innovative new semiconductor memories, which have not seen a lot of sales – at least not yet. EE Times contributor Gary Hilson covers the memory market; we talk to him about emerging memories. Also, EE Times Editor Nitin Dahad on what to expect from the Boards and Solutions Conference coming up in October.

The Weekly Briefing podcast: There are scores of companies making AI chips, but Mythic stands out with its approach to AI inference that relies on analog computing techniques – an interview with Mythic co-founder and CEO Mike Henry. Also, Nvidia finally announced it will be buying Arm, a few weeks after the first reports that such a deal might be pending. We weren’t sure if it was a good deal then, and we’re not sure it’s a good deal now – a conversation with Tirias Research analyst Kevin Krewell.

The Weekly Briefing podcast: Within 10 years, there will be 50 connected devices per person on earth, most estimates agree. In this episode, we speak with Tyson Tuttle, CEO of Silicon Labs, about the Internet of things and the prep work the electronics industry is doing to get the IoT ready for a significant expansion. Also, the automotive market is making some incredible advances with machine vision systems. We talk with Rob Stead, the guy who has been helping to teach the automotive industry how to see.

Cameras are already nearly everywhere recording images, but machine vision takes it all to a new level — vision implies machines actually seeing (or “seeing,” if you prefer). We talk with machine vision expert Jeff Bier about how embedded vision systems are on the verge of becoming ubiquitous. Also, distribution is about as a prosaic a business as exists. We talk with Jens Gamperl about how his company, Sourceability, is shaking up a business where innovation is uncommon.

The Weekly Briefing podcast: What makes engineers tick? We’ve been doing these surveys, called the Mind of the Engineer, every two years going on nearly three decades now. Jim Warrick of Beacon Technology Partners did the most recent survey for us, and it is chock-full of useful data. We talk with Jim about what’s behind the numbers. Also, the electronics industry loves to establish benchmarks — and then trash them for being insufficient for one reason or another. Junko talks with Ian Riches, who just wrote a report on using TOPS (trillions of operations per second) as a measure for AI processors and accelerators.

The Weekly Briefing podcast: When did our electronics become so hard to use? Junko & I lament the sorry state of nominally “smart” phones, “smart” homes, and other “smart” gadgets. Also, the Hot Chips conference was this week — we discuss the designs that surprised and astounded with Tirias Research analyst Kevin Krewell.

The Weekly Briefing podcast: The AAA just evaluated some of the newest driver-assist features in new cars and it was very, very unimpressed. A discussion on why driver assist is so surprisingly bad, with Junko Yoshida, who wrote the story for us. Also, virtual reality – the technology and the art. The VR film The Great C was entered into competition at the Cannes XR festival and emerged as the winner of the Positron Visionary Award. We have a conversation with two of the creators of the Great C, Luke Van Osch and Steve Miller.

The Weekly Briefing podcast: The semiconductor industry is negotiating two seismic events. First, Arm Holdings, one of the most important suppliers of semiconductor IP in the world, is reportedly up for sale, and the likeliest buyer is Nvidia – with Kevin Krewell (Tirias Research). Second, in the midst of a pandemic, a trade war, and supply-chain disruption, US politicians are working on legislation to encourage more domestic semiconductor technology development – with Dan Hutcheson (VLSI Research), James Lewis (Center for Strategic and International Studies), and Jeff Rittener (Intel).

The Weekly Briefing podcast: Reviving semiconductor manufacturing in the U.S. This week, we interview Adam Khan, founder and CEO of Akhan Semiconductor; he is joined by Akhan board member vice admiral Charles “Willy” Moore. We talk about manufacturing capabilities, the increasing interest in semiconductors other than silicon, and the requirements of the U.S. military for advanced electronics. Also, we discuss Intel’s intimation it might stop developing new process technologies and what that might mean for semiconductor manufacturing in the U.S. – and also speculate how Intel might prosper operating a full-time, leading-edge foundry.