Tantra's Mantra with Prakash Sangam

For the first time, an AMD executive joins our podcast. In this episode, I sit down with Salil Raje, SVP and GM of Adaptive and Embedded Computing Group at AMD. As a pioneer in the FPGA market, Salil provides unique insights into the industry's current landscape and AMD's strategic direction. We delve into the status of Xilinx's integration into AMD after two years of acquisition, the challenges a...

Galaxy Unpacked, held in July 2024, unveiled a robust lineup of devices, including two groundbreaking foldable smartphones, a trio of advanced wearables, and innovative earbuds. In this episode, I talk to Blake Gaiser, Samsung's Director of Smartphone Product Management, about the journey and evolution of the Galaxy Z Fold6 and Z Flip6, how Watch 7, Ultra, and Galaxy Ring are coming at a stage whe...

This is the fourth episode in our series, focused on analyzing the introduction of CoPilot+ PCs. In this, I discuss with Pooja Sathe, Director and category leader of Worldwide Commercial AI PCs at market leader Lenovo, about their "Windows on Arm" journey with Qualcomm from the early beginnings until Snapdragon X Elite and X Plus SoCs, the design principles behind CoPilot+ PCs, customer feedback,...

The ever-expanding edge computing landscape is a tangled web of diverse hardware, software,   and ecosystems. In this episode, I talk to Muneyb Minhazuddin, VP and GM of Network and Edge at Intel, about the challenges of Edge and how Intel's Tiber Edge AI platform helps its customers manage it.  We delve into the need for Tiber, how it can simplify the complexities of Edge AI, go-to-market strateg...

In this episode, Leonard Lee of Next Curve joins me in discussing and analyzing the key takeaways from Computex and Apple's Worldwide Developer's Conference. Computex Buzz: CoPilot+ PCs Take Center Stage: We explore how CoPilot+ PCs overshadowed everything at Computex, show and tell of Qualcomm, the announcement of Lunarlake by Intel, Ryzen Gen3 of AMD, both powering X86-based CoPilot+ PCs, opport...

This is the third in the series of Tantra's mantra episodes analyzing the CoPilot+ PCs from the market, SoC, and OEM perspectives.  In this episode, I talk to Hassan Anjum, Head of Product Management for Samsung New Computing Business, which covers the Galaxy Book series of premium laptops.  We discuss the needs of premium PC customers, why Windows on Arm is different this time, app compatibility,...

TELUS will be the first operator to use Open RAN for not only new 5G deployment but also to replace the legacy 4G network. Although the Government mandate necessitated the replacement, it was still a bold decision. TELUS will also be a multi-vendor true Open RAN deployment, with radios, cloud platform, RAN software, servers, and processors, all coming from different vendors. It expects almost 50%...

On this landmark day for "Windows on ARM," where over 20 AIPC models from seven OEMs powered by Snapdragon X Elite and X Plus were announced, I sit down with Nitin Kumar, Qualcomm's VP of Product Management for compute chipsets. In this extensive discussion, we explore Qualcomm's business strategy, the needs of PC OEMs, and the positioning of the X Series platforms. We also examine the competitive...

The PC industry is on the cusp of a revolution, with major Windows OEMs poised to launch a wave of premium Arm-based AIPCs (laptops) powered by Qualcomm's Snapdragon XElite and XPlus processors. In this episode, Leonard Lee from Next Curve and I delve deep into what makes "Windows on Arm" a game-changer this time around. We explore performance improvements, the evolving app ecosystem, the focus on...

"2023 was the year of experimentation and 2024 is the year of implementation, for Gen AI" was the clear message from the Adobe 2024 Summit. In this episode Bob O'Donnell of TEChnalysis and I delve into key takeaways from the summit and analyze how Adobe's firefly is improving the efficiency of "Digital Content Supply Chain" helping enterprises traverse their Digital Transformation journey.  We als...

After the successful launch of eMBB, everybody is eagerly looking at the next phase of 5G. Industry observers are wondering where the subsequent growth will come from, how the mobile network operators will recoup the enormous investments they have made in deploying 5G, when the exciting applications and use cases we have discussed for years will come to fruition, and what the key enablers will be....

Intel Foundry Services (IFS) marked a significant milestone on Feb 21, 2024, with its highly anticipated debut event, where the company unveiled its comprehensive strategy and roadmap. The occasion was also highlighted by the enthusiastic backing from its key customers and partners.   In this episode, Bob O'Donnell, President and Chief Analyst at TECHnalysis Research, and I analyze   IFS's present...

Apple's Vision Pro has the potential to change the XR landscape entirely because of its high-end feature set, pricing point, and ecosystem. Its impact on the consumer market is very profound. But not yet clear on the Enterprise market.  In this episode, I talk to Vishal Shah, GM of XR and Metaverse business for Lenovo, about the needs of the enterprise market, the impact of Vision Pro, and how Len...

In this episode, fellow analyst Leonard Lee from Next Curve and I discuss our impressions and the key takeaways from the recently held Industry Analyst Day 2023 of Marvell Technology. Marvell executives pitched how they are well positioned to exploit the massive surge in interest in Gen AI through their custom silicon and interconnect offerings. They also talked about the roadmap for leadership in...

Recent market developments, like license litigations and the need for high-performance, low-power processors, have heightened the focus on RISC-V, the open standard Instruction Set Architecture (ISA).In this wide-ranging discussion with the RISC-V International CEO, Calista Redwood, I discuss where the ISA currently stands, how the ecosystem is expanding, what the challenges are, and when the mark...

While everyone is looking for the proliferation of 5G IoT, LoRAWAN has been revolutionizing the low-power, long-range IoT industry for a long time. In this episode, I discuss with Donna Moore, the CEO and chairwoman of LoRa Alliance, the current state of LoRa WAN, its unique characteristics, the most suitable use cases, how it complements 5G IoT, and how the Alliance is helping the ecosystem. 

Apple's announcement of the Vision Pro XR headset fundamentally changed the dynamics of the XR industry. My good friend and fellow analyst Leonard Lee from Next Curve and I discuss Apple's positioning of the device, its impact on the XR industry, especially existing players, and strategies they can utilize to compete with Apple.

As the vRAN / Open RAN deployments are slowly ramping up, there are a lot of questions on the best compute architecture to use, especially for L-1 processing. The objective is to utilize the most power-efficient, cost-effective, and scalable option. The popular choice seems to be using optimized silicon instead of a generic CPU. In this episode, I talk to Joel Brand of Marvell Technology about why...

This episode was recorded at Verizon's 5G Innovation Lab in San Francisco, during its inauguration event. I spoke to Brian Mecum, VP of Device Technology and Sports Innovation at Verizon, regarding the lab, partners, applications/services developed there that have become commercial, next phase of 5G for Verizon and more.   

The recent bursting of the Metaverse hype bubble has allowed the AR/VR/XR/MR discussions to be real applications, services and use cases rather than hyperbole.  In this episode, I had the pleasure of speaking with Thomas Dexmier, Country Head for Australia and New Zealand at HTC VIVE. We discussed the current status of the XR market, the challenges and opportunities that it presents, as well as th...

In this episode, I talk to Brad Robbins, CEO of Lite Point, a leading test and measurement (T&M) vendor that offers mass market Wi-Fi and 5G solutions. Brad and I discuss the role of T&M in the technology/product life cycle, Lite Point's business strategy, differentiation, its Wi-Fi 7 and 6G journey, challenges in the year ahead, and more. 

Questions about 5G's RoI and monetization opportunities beyond smartphone and Fixed Wireless Access (FWA) market are lingering. At the same time, 5G Advanced is brewing up, and discussions on 6G are starting. In this episode, I talk to Stephen Rose, GM of IBM for Global Telco, Media, Entertainment & Distribution verticals, on what cellular operators should do and what opportunities lie ahead.

Open RAN Layer-1 workload that performs and manages most of the radio functions is one of to critical blocks. It is highly complicated and requires real-time processing. The complexity only increases with advanced features such as massive MIMO, carrier aggregation, URLLC, etc. The debate in the industry is whether general compute or optimized accelerators are the most cost and power-efficient solu...

After much back and forth, the US government passed the CHIPS and Science Act of 2022. The act provides $280 billion in funding to the US semiconductor industry. A significant part of the funding (> $50 billion) goes to fab companies for establishing new fabs in the USA, bringing much-needed resiliency to the semiconductor supply chain. The remaining funding is earmarked for various foundationa...

The tech industry is reeling under one of the worst supply shortages, This is affecting almost every industry, but some such as Automotve, are affected much more severely than others. In this episode I discuss with Qualcomm's Falan Yinug and Accenture's Timothy Chu, how the global pandemic, geopolitical issues, Ukrane war, and inflation have created a perfect storm. And the reasons behind this dis...