EETimes On Air

Europe is betting on hydrogen fuel. What’s the agenda —and how do hydrogen cars work anyway? Also, holograms were a huge fad in the ‘70s; now the technology appears to be on the verge of a commercial comeback. Also, AMD emerged as the big winner as supercomputers move into the Exaflops Era.

In an insanely complicated maneuver, Northrup Grumman repaired a satellite in orbit; Maxim Integrated come up with a unique way to protect IoT devices; and System Plus goes way, way beyond simple teardowns.

Sample a smorgasbord of stories from Germany, the U.S., Spain, and parts beyond. Subjects include a unique AI that can be trained on an edge device (no, really!), a ferroelectric memory, designing semiconductor wafers for 5G, and more.

Proponents of autonomous vehicles are selling a dream they’re hoping you won’t notice is unachievable until it’s too late. In this episode: why that is, and the better alternative. Also, a good chunk of the semiconductor industry seems to be pivoting toward audio. A roundtable on voice recognition, and who’s really listening when we talk to our ovens.

This week: A deep discussion on the semantics and semiotics of virtual reality and augmented reality (with a whole lot about VR/AR technology too). Also, XMOS just released a “crossover processor” for voice applications. We talk to XMOS’ CEO to find out what that means.

A new coronavirus emerged in China less than three weeks ago, and already it is disrupting business and affecting the global supply chain; we assess the damage so far, and get a live report from China. Also, the semiconductor industry creates a significant amount of toxic waste; we discuss a new process to reduce semiconductor waste dramatically.

This week...the Trump Administration has been pressuring economic allies to ban the installation of Huawei 5G network equipment. The United Kingdom just said that it will not accede to that demand. But the story is actually a little more complicated than that. Also, there are efforts all over the world aimed at building a thriving high-tech economy. It’s not as easy as it sounds, however. France is deliberately trying to emulate the organic processes that resulted in Silicon Valley.

This week we’ve got an interview with AMD CTO Mark Papermaster, one of the architects of the bold new AMD…also – a conversation with Ron Black, the CEO of Imagination Technologies, which seems to have its fingers in nearly every emerging technological trend out there. And, our editorial director, Bolaji Ojo checks in with the key question for the electronics industry in 2020 – where should everyone spend their money?

A company called Prophesee has developed a completely new way to capture video with what it calls an event-based sensor. At the recent CES show, we caught up with Prophesee’s CEO, Luca Verre. Today you’ll hear our interview with him. Also, the Consumer Electronics Show. It's vast. CES 2020 was last week. EE Times editors saw more products and technologies, and sat in on more sessions, than we had time to write about. We got together to discuss some of the most fascinating things we saw at the show, including the Prophesee event-based sensor, autonomous boats, data privacy chips, quantum computers, smart toilets, automated cocktail shakers, farm equipment, AI-powered toothbrushes… and more!

Day Three of our special series of podcasts reporting live from the Consumer Electronics Show in the Mojave Desert. In the past couple of years, the automotive industry has dominated CES, and this year it’s happening again. In today’s episode: Qualcomm made some headline news, announcing it is burrowing deeper into the automotive market. Also, a live interview with executives from Infineon and Texas Instruments about adding autonomous functions to cars equipped with driver assist capabilities. Plus, an analysis of a novel approach for autonomous vehicles from Intel’s MobilEye unit; and finally, and finally, Toyota surprised show-goers with a plan for smart cities.

Part 2 of our continued coverage of CES Unveiled. In this episode, we interview NXP CTO Lars Reger and talk with an executive of Atmosic, which has created a nifty new Bluetooth device that harvests energy from its environment to power – well – all sorts of things. Also, a live interview with the developers of a squishable portable speaker and a quick recap from the press events held by AMD, which wowed the crowd, and by Intel, which… didn’t.

This is a special edition of our podcast, with reporting live from the Consumer Electronics Show in fabulous Las Vegas!

This week, we talk with author George Leopold, who’s just given us his list of the five best documentaries about space. And, this year we’re doing something different for our annual year in review. EE Times editors are sharing our favorite interviews from 2019.

The next generation of 5G smartphones, gaming on smartphones, and a proposal to enable everyone to keep their official documents – driver’s license, passport – on their phones. We’ll investigate some Qualcomm’s new products and services, and some of the trends it’s enabling. Also, since Qualcomm’s products are intrinsic to so many worldwide trends, the company is also intrinsic to worldwide trade. We’ll have a conversation about Qualcomm, the electronics industry, and Qualcomm’s largely unknown role in the global market.

You might think that if an auto maker is developing the technology for autonomous driving, then creating the technology for assisted driving – a seemingly less ambitious goal – would practically be a gimme. Think again. Also, you’ve heard about Moore’s Law coming to an end. That’s because the industry is in fact getting very close to reaching the physical performance limits of silicon. But there is ample opportunity to keep improving electronics, and one way that will be possible is by using semiconductors other than silicon. And the role that universities play in new technology development is pretty well established. Or at least it was, until AI came along.

A bunch of chip guys from Apple are planning to challenge Intel in the data center — do they stand a chance? Also, Sony claims it’s been doing just about as much R&D in AI as Google and Facebook, and it recently formalized an approach to spreading that expertise throughout the company. And, China has just set aside another $28 billion to further develop its semiconductor industry. Is that enough to help China catch up — and, what if it does?

EE Times attends the Global CEO Summit in Shenzhen, China and talk with top executives about major trends in electronics today: 5G wireless, advanced chip design and manufacturing, and artificial intelligence. We’ll hear from executives from companies based in the US, Europe, and China, including one of the world’s oldest and most prestigious industrial and electronics companies — Siemens, and one of the worlds youngest and most intensely scrutinized AI startups — Graphcore.

This week...a report from the Linley Conference, traditionally a gold mine of intelligence about where the processor market is going. Also, after one of the flakiest no-shows in high-tech history, secretive startup Groq finally speaks. And, we have a conversation with MEMS specialist and futurist Peter Hartwell, chief technical officer of TDK InvenSense.

This week, we discuss the film “The Current War,” and the race between Thomas Edison and George Westinghouse to light up the world in the 1890s. Also, video has been captured the same way for more than 125 years. But modern electronics is making it possible to capture and display video in an entirely new way. We’ll talk about the French company that is doing it.

Tesla Motors, automotive features, vehicular gimmicks, and the weird eagerness among some people to be lab rats for Silicon Valley companies. Also,India has quietly developed world-class expertise in semiconductor design. We talk with Sanjay Gupta, the person leading NXP’s semiconductor operations in India about India’s aspirations for developing a domestic semiconductor industry. And … researchers have employed machine learning techniques to train an artificial intelligence to figure out for itself how to draw human faces. Of course, it’s artwork, but is it Art?