Designing wearables with integrated AI /ML just got one step easier with Nordic Semiconductor’s acquisition of Neuton.AI . While the two companies had already been working together, you can expect a lot more integration between Nordic’s MCUs and the very low-power AI IP that Neuton.AI has become famous for. On this week’s Embedded Executives podcast . I spoke to Øyvind Strom, the EVP of Nordic’s Short-Range Business Unit. He explains why a developer should sit up and take notice, and what the de...
Jun 25, 2025•9 min
The line between a maker and a maker pro is quite fuzzy. In my opinion, the maker wants to build one of something, and likely won’t want to build more than one. The maker pro starts out building one, but knows somewhere down the line that the project could turn into a far larger volume. If you fall into that latter group, does that change some of your design decisions, even where you begin? Do you start with a Pi, or do you use something that’s more “professional?” This is the conversation I had...
Jun 18, 2025•16 min
ISO 8800 is a standard aimed at functional safety in automotive applications, pertaining to artificial intelligence. It provides the guidelines for integrating AI systems into any safety-related functions of road vehicles. In full disclosure, I wasn’t aware of this standard, and I was frankly surprised I wasn’t. To remedy the situation, I invited Jill Britton, the Director of Compliance at Perforce , onto this week’s Embedded Executives podcast . Jill explained what the standard is all about and...
Jun 11, 2025•11 min
Here’s a walk down memory lane. The Eclipse Foundation dates back more than 20 years. Mike Milinkovich, the Foundation’s Executive Director, has held this role since its inception. The role of the foundation and the embedded industry in general has evolved more than anyone could have conceived. Stay tuned to hear about some of the issues the Foundation has been involved with and what’s been required to keep the community on par with other areas of the technology landscape. And that includes the ...
Jun 04, 2025•19 min
We talk about AI a lot here at Embedded Computing Design, and that’s a huge understatement. What we don’t talk about often is the power required to keep the data centers going, specifically the data centers that form the backbone of all this AI activity. When you talk to experts in this space, they’ll tell you that the amount of power needed, specifically the power density, is staggering. One of those experts, Tim Phillips, President, CEO, and Founder of Empower Semiconductor , joined me on this...
May 28, 2025•13 min
Nordic Semiconductor is certainly one of the leaders in the embedded space regarding microcontroller technology. Frankly, I feel like the company is one of the best-kept secrets. When I had the opportunity to speak with their (sort of) new CEO, I jumped at it. Hear my discussion with Vegard Wollan, Nordic’s President and CEO, where he explains some of the moves he has made in his tenure, and what can be expected going forward, on this week’s Embedded Executives podcast ....
May 21, 2025•16 min
Some “experts” in the embedded space will swear that systems based on open-source software or hardware can never be secure. At the same time, others will say that such a notion is pure nonsense. To get a better feel for the argument and understand what is accurate and what is not, I spoke to Jan Pleskac, the Co-Founder and CTO of Tropic Square , on this week’s Embedded Executives podcast . The company is a fabless semiconductor vendor that specializes in secure elements. Jan and I went through t...
May 14, 2025•9 min
In a typical SoC, you handle all your processing functionality within the processor core. Makes sense, right? What if you can handle your processing within the SoC’s memory subsystem? If I understand the concept correctly, the time and power to handle those processing functions would be reduced considerably, which is needed in an AI application. So why hasn’t someone done this? Someone has, and that would be PIMIC . To learn what this means and how it works, I spoke to Subi Krishnamurthy, the Fo...
May 07, 2025•9 min
Functional safety is no longer a “nice to have” or “should have” in many applications, having moved to “must have” in spaces like automotive, industrial automation, medical devices, and aviation. Passing the functional safety testing process can be rigorous, especially if you’re going through it for the first time. But even the best experts take at least six months to get software certified. To understand exactly what functional safety is, what the testing process is like, and how and when a dev...
Apr 30, 2025•12 min
In programming jargon, the term “real time” is not used in its literal sense, which can be confusing. The literal definition means that when something happens in real time, it happens instantaneously. But in practice, something that occurs very quickly is mistitled as being real-time. Why does the misconception continue to occur, and what problems does it cause? This is the beginning of the discussion I had with Steve Graves, the Founder and CEO of McObject , on this week’s Embedded Executives p...
Apr 23, 2025•13 min
If system developers had unlimited power for their designs, they’d likely find a way to take advantage of it. And the same goes for performance. However, neither of those features is available in infinite quantities. And in just about every case, one becomes a tradeoff for the other. So, how do you manage that tradeoff, and when you do, what other factors come into play? To better handle this topic, I spoke to Praveen Vaidyanathan, the Vice President and General Manager of Micron Technology’s Da...
Apr 16, 2025•11 min
Low-power is the ultimate priority in some WiFi networks, especially when you’re designing a battery powered device. Cameras used in remote locations are prime targets for this discussion. In some cases, access to that camera is difficult, so the user needed want to charge or replace a battery on a regular basis. To understand what the current state of the art is, both in terms of power levels and the WiFi standard itself, which is moving to version 7, I spoke to Sivaram Trikutam, the Vice Presi...
Apr 09, 2025•9 min
Chip design has always been a complex process, and there is no end in sight. What has improved are the tools available to an IC designer. The chips are getting more specialized; hence, the tools must drill down further into the process than ever before. This sounds like a lot of black magic, but it becomes less cloudy when someone who understands the process walks you through it. To get more clarity for myself, I invited Scot Morrison, the Vice President of Shift Left Software Product Management...
Apr 02, 2025•18 min
Just when you thought you’d done everything you could do with Bluetooth, along comes something new and unique. At a recent technical conference, I was witness to a very cool demo that was all based on Bluetooth. Rather than attempt to describe it myself, I asked Simon Ford, the Founder of Blecon , the company providing the demo, to explain what it is, how it works, and why it’s so difficult to achieve. Hear it on this week’s Embedded Executives podcast ....
Mar 26, 2025•13 min
We often say that designing secure systems means thinking about security early on in the design process. That means really early on, well before any pen is put to paper, so to speak. To understand what that means, I spoke to Denis Noel, the Director of Strategy in the Secure Connected Edge business unit at NXP on this week’s Embedded Executives podcast . Denis walked through each of the various steps a developer should be taking....
Mar 19, 2025•15 min
Don’t stop me if you’ve heard this before, because it needs to be repeated, again, and again. The embedded industry needs to take security more seriously. Hacks are continuing to occur and will continue until there is a “security by design” mentality in place in our space. It’s hard to believe we are still having this discussion, but we are. I also expressed my frustration on this week’s Embedded Executives podcast with Josh Heller, the Manager of Product Security at Digi International . Josh co...
Mar 12, 2025•19 min
Edge AI is one of the popular topics amongst the embedded community. It’s the place where decisions are made, data is analyzed, etc. It’s also a place where lots of confusion arises because of its complexity, especially from a development perspective. To get to the heart of where the challenges lie in this phase of design, I spoke with Jim Beneke, a Vice President for Tria Americas , an Avnet company, on this week’s Embedded Executives podcast . Jim has a pretty deep history in the embedded spac...
Mar 05, 2025•10 min
Common knowledge says that if you want to create an ASIC, you’d better have at least $1M in your bank account. The folks at Efabless say that my common knowledge is inaccurate by a long shot. They claim to be able to get folks started for far less than $100k. I needed to understand how this is possible, so I invited Michael Wishart, the CEO and co-founder of Efabless, to explain how it works on this week’s Embedded Executives podcast , with Kumar Gala and Maureen Helm, both Distinguished Enginee...
Feb 26, 2025•13 min
From a developer’s perspective, Edge AI is anything but simple. Any tools, software, etc., that can simplify the process of integrating this technology into a system is very welcome. That’s where ClearBlade comes in, with its framework that developers “design to,” using hardware, software, and even terminology that the design community is accustomed to. That process may seem vague and complex, but it needn’t be, as stated by Aaron Allsbrook, the Co-Founder and CTO of ClearBlade , in this week’s ...
Feb 19, 2025•14 min
Industrial platforms come with a specific set of design criteria. And the term “industrial” can be quite ambiguous, running the gamut from power tools to manufacturing equipment. Obviously, there are different requirements within this range. When you’re choosing an MCU for this space, you had better understand what your specific requirements are. Making the wrong choice will likely have an impact on the efficiency of your end product, which could result in higher power consumption, less heat, an...
Feb 12, 2025•15 min
At the LoRa Alliance , there’s a new sheriff in town. Alper Yegin is the group’s new CEO. LoRa, which stands for long range, allows transmissions to occur at very low power, sometimes lasting many years without changing batteries. Yegin believes the LoRa spec is quite solid, but there’s always room for it to evolve. He feels that one of his primary tasks is increasing awareness and education around the standard. This can (and will) happen by increasing partnerships with complementary organizatio...
Feb 05, 2025•12 min
Open tools are becoming the norm in the embedded software development space. And that’s definitely the case for Analog Devices’ CodeFusion Studio tool. The IDE lets developers start with an SoC, and design their systems from there. The software development platform is based on Microsoft's Visual Studio Code (VS Code). On this week’s Embedded Executives podcast , with Kumar Gala and Maureen Helm, both Distinguished Engineers with Analog Devices’ Software & Digital Platforms Group, we defined ...
Jan 29, 2025•13 min
It’s been a very successful year for the Z-Wave Alliance . If you have any doubts about that statement, check out this week’s Embedded Executives podcast , where I spoke to Avi Rosenthal, the Chairman of the Alliance. Avi rattled off a long list of achievements for the organization, including a new spec, an unplug fest, and many new products. These endeavors all transcend nicely into wins for the community. That means developers have more/better options when it comes to wireless devices....
Jan 22, 2025•12 min
Tyson Tuttle left the helm of Silicon Labs a few years ago, took a little time to recharge the batteries, and now he’s back in the thick of things with a new company called Circuit. Given its name, you might think it’s a company designing ICs, but that’s not true. The company is building what some might call a productivity tool, but Tyson describes it as something way bigger and far more involved than that. He claims it’s a way to turn information into insights to simplify life, enhance work, an...
Jan 15, 2025•22 min
The industry revolves around two types of AI, namely research AI versus production AI. I wasn’t sure what these terms meant and their differences, so I asked an expert to join me on this week’s Embedded Executives podcast . John Weil is the Vice president and General Manager of Synaptics’ IoT Business Unit . After setting me straight, John talks about the last 20% of a design that the customer needs to figure out for themselves, amongst other things....
Jan 08, 2025•14 min
What is the real definition of a software-defined vehicle (SDV)? It depends, mostly on who you are asking that question of. I asked John Heinlein, the Chief Marketing Officer at Sonatus and he had a great response on this week’s Embedded Executives podcast . We discussed the differences between various tiers of vehicles, how they are upgraded, and what we should be looking out for as we move forward. Note that John has his podcast and was gracious enough to have me on as a guest recently. Hear t...
Jan 02, 2025•15 min
Is documentation an issue for your embedded project? Wouldn’t it be great if you didn’t have to create that documentation yourself, yet have it be as good (or better) than you could do yourself? That’s what the tool from Driver does. In full disclosure, I didn’t understand how the company’s technology worked, so I had a great discussion with Driver’s CEO and Co-Founder, Adam Tilton on this this week’s Embedded Executives podcast ....
Dec 26, 2024•15 min
The amount of NAND memory that exists today is staggering. There are many different kinds of NAND, and the needed type is based on the intended application. Sometimes you need high-speed memory, sometimes very dense memory, and sometimes you need the memory to go into an environment that’s less than favorable. But the memory itself is just one piece of the system puzzle. You also need a controller to go with that memory. You might think like I did, that the controller is fairly simple to design ...
Dec 18, 2024•12 min
With all the focus on AI and machine learning these days, we sometimes take other facets of design for granted, some of which are vital, like the wireless component. Synaptics’ Veros architecture fits the bill for state-of-the-art wireless communications with high throughput, low power consumption, and top-notch security. If you’re designing an AI-based platform using the company’s latest AI platform, Veros has built-in hooks to attach the two subsystems seamlessly. To understand what that means...
Dec 11, 2024•5 min
We are being bombarded with data; it’s coming at us from so many avenues, particularly as we move into the world of AI and the analytics that it brings. The key to a proper edge-to-cloud strategy is being able to make sense of that plethora of data. That statement sounds obvious and simple, but it’s quite the opposite. If you don’t have the proper strategy in place, your design could be doomed before it even gets started. To understand where to begin, and what path to take with the data strategy...
Dec 04, 2024•11 min
