Embedded Executive Podcast

Semtech recently acquired Sierra Wireless . That’s a pretty big acquisition. To understand why it is was done and what it means to an embedded developer, I spoke to Pravin Desale, the Senior Vice President of IoT Engineering at Semtech on this week’s Embedded Executives podcast . There are obviously synergies between the companies, but was an acquisition really the best move? You’ll hear about tha...

The FPGA vendors would have you believe that designing with their components is a piece of cake. Connect a few dots here and there, and presto, your chip is ready to go. But we all know that’s not really the case. To understand what’s really involved, and whether this something a novice should be taking on without any real formal training, I spoke to Philipp Baechtold, the CEO of Enclustra on this...

Every application obviously needs some form of memory, and since every application is somewhat different, you’d expect most applications to have a dedicated memory type. That thinking would not be wrong. To that end, Infineon has worked with some other industry giants to develop a new memory type for the electrification of automobiles. To understand how this new memory differs from what’s already...

If you’re looking to sense vibrations, check out Taifang Technology and its elastic-wave technology. They are sensing vibrations that are so small you can’t really receive them any other way. For example, if the sensor is embedded into a automobile, it can detect immediately, within 10 ms, when contact is made with the car. It can also report if someone is trying to break into a car. But there are...

Most security prevention methods aim at detecting when a hack is occurring. Hence, term detection-based security. By embedded your cyber-security inside your memory subsystem, you make it prevention-based, essentially stopping the attack before it occurs. To be honest, I did not understand what that meant, so I spoke to Tom Ricoy, an officer at Cigent , to explain how it works on this week’s Embed...

With the voltage levels for GaN power semiconductors moving up and the levels for SiC moving down, we have an overlap, where either type of device would be suitable for the job. So which should you choose? In addition, if you’re designing an end product, how comfortable are you, knowing that many of these power devices don’t have second sources? These are some of the questions I asked of Peter Fri...

Here we go again; 8-bit MCUs are not dead yet. I said a few years ago that I’d give this argument up, and simply wait for the official announcement, but apparently, I shouldn’t hold my breath. Who better to know if 8-bit MCUs are shipping in big (really big) volumes, but Microchip . Hence, I had a conversation with Steve Kennelly, Microchip’s Associate Director of its Medical Products Group. He wa...

Enovix is a battery company that designs, manufactures, and sells batteries with a three-dimensional cell architecture that increases energy density and maintains high cycle life. The targets for these cells could be any type of mobile device. Ashok Lahiri, Enovix’s Advisor and Co-Founder, gave me great information on why the technology works so well and where it can be used most appropriately. Ch...

Far-field voice is something that’s hard to decipher, mostly because it’s far. I know that’s overly simplistic, but it’s true. For a much better explanation of this and a detailed description on how it works, I spoke to Scott McNeese, the Director of Voice and Audio for ArkX Labs , on this week’s Embedded Executives podcast . The company specializes in voice technology for consumer devices.

Infineon has partnered with a bunch of folks to simplify the lives of system developers, specifically those who want to integrate Bluetooth. Those partners include module vendors and software providers. To understand what this means, I spoke to Sivaram Trikutam, the Vice President of Infineon’s Wi-Fi product line on this week’s Embedded Executives podcast .

The LoRa Alliance is an open, nonprofit association that represents the LoRaWAN standard. LoRa is growing quickly and expanding into a host of both new geographies and new applications. To see where its headed and why it’s been so successful, I spoke to the Alliance’s Chairwoman, Donna Moore, on this week’s Embedded Executives podcast . As a sidenote, the LoRa Alliance will be holding its first li...

Five years ago, the experts said that autonomous-drive vehicles were five years out. Now, five years later, they still appear to be five years out? Why is that? To try to get to the bottom of the issue, I spoke to someone who knows far more about the technology than me, Stan Schneider, the CEO of RTI on this week’s Embedded Executives podcast .

Silicon Carbide (SiC) is a hot technology. The topic/technology seems to be coming up more and more. I was curious as to why that was the case, so I spoke to someone who is an expert on the subject for this week’s Embedded Executives podcast . That expert is Simon Keeton, the EVP and GM of onsemi’s Power Solutions Group.

Intel recently launched a new addition to its Sapphire Rapids scalable processor family. The addition delivers a performance boost, but as you might expect, it’s a whole lot more involved than that. To understand what the announcement means to the embedded developer, I chatted with Vik Malyala,  Managing Director and President of the EMEA Division at Supermicro . In this week’s Embedded Executives...

If you’ve been in the embedded space for any length of time, you’re likely familiar with the ThreadX real-time operating system, which was a product of Express Logic. That company was acquired by Microsoft, and it’s President, Bill Lamie, went along with the team to Microsoft…until now. Bill is back out on this own, with a new company ( PX5 ) and a new OS, called the PX5 RTOS. How this OS differs...

Security, security, security. You’d think by now that the process for security would be so automated and automatic we wouldn’t be having these same discussions as to why designers are reluctant to design it in, or what applications really require it. Alas, here we are. To try, yet again, to understand why we still have the same discussions over and over, I spoke to Paul Chawla, the CEO of Eurotech...

5G brings a lot of promise to the embedded space, in addition to many other spaces. This week’s Embedded Executives podcast guest knows far more about 5G than most people. Paul Stager, EdgeQ’s Director of Engineering, and I talked about when it’s coming, how it’ll be deployed, and what designers need to know to avoid the potential minefield that 5G has become.

Bob Scaccia, the President and CEO of USA Firmware , knows more about firmware than anyone I’ve ever come across. And speaking of firmware, it is an art that does not get nearly the attention  it should, and for a long list of reasons. In this podcast, i'll go through those reasons and a lot more firmware-related issues. Tune in. For those of you who agree with Bob Scaccia's perspective,...

The chip shortage is getting better. It’s getting worse. No, it’s getting better. These are the responses I continue to hear. To hopefully arrive at the truth, I went to someone in "the know", and that's Peggy Carrieres, Avnet’s Global Vice President of Sales Enablement and Supplier Development. As a distributor, Avnet knows as well as anyone what’s available and what’s not. Hear wh...

As an embedded developer, does a “common platform” reduce your ability to innovate? That’s a connect and a theory I discussed with Ron Martino, NXP’s Executive Vice President of Global Sales. NXP is offering such a strategy to its community, so I was curious to hear more about it, which I did on this week’s Embedded Executives podcast .

Macronix is a memory vendor who claims to offer “memory-centric computing.” When I heard about this concept, I wondered if it was something real, or just marketing spin. To find out, I went to the source,  Macronix and invited Anthony Le, Vice President at Macronix America, to be my guest on this week’s Embedded Executives podcast .

Virtual hardware modeling is not a new concept, but it’s now getting a new spin, particularly when you’re working with Arm-based IP cores. To understand what this means and how it can benefit an embedded developer, I spoke to Bill Neifert, the Senior Vice President of Partnerships at Corellium on this week’s Embedded Executives podcast . While the Corellium partnership is with Arm, it extends out...

Codasip just joined the OpenHW Group  and assuming you’re familiar with that organization, you might wonder why they did that. But I didn’t want to assume, so we started this podcast by asking why people should even care about the OpenHW. My guest for this week’s Embedded Executives podcast was Rupert Baines, the CMO of Codasip.

Here’s an Embedded Executive podcast you didn’t expect from me. This week’s guest is John O'Hurley, who you may know as J. Peterman from what was one of the popular television comedies ever, Seinfeld. John actually has a place in our embedded sphere, along with his business partner Becky Wanta with the company Q5id . Their company is a player in the identify theft arena, helping consumers kee...