In safety critical industries, systems vendors are demanding security. In others, it’s still a risk-benefit equation. Ask any two executives in the semiconductor industry about security threats and there is a good chance you will get two totally different answers. The disturbing part is they both may be right. In
Has the semiconductor industry finally reached the level of maturity that requires reduction in R&D spending to continue growing earnings as revenue growth slows? Maybe it does. In almost all years of semiconductor industry’s history, research and development spending of the public semiconductor companies has increased. Only three years in
The acquisition fervor will likely continue, as long as liquidity is freely available. Mentor Graphics’ CEO Walden Rhines gives his take. The major semiconductor industry consolidations of the last year or two were, in general, were NOT driven by a desire for greater economies of scale, as I explained in
British voters’ decision to exit the European Union (termed Brexit) took the world by surprise, wiping nearly $2 trillion from the global markets on the day the referendum results were announced. The British pound fell to a 30-year low against the US Dollar on the day. Though most global markets
China’s massive system runs real applications and is ‘not just a stunt machine,’ says top U.S. supercomputing researcher China on Monday revealed its latest supercomputer, a monolithic system with 10.65 million compute cores built entirely with Chinese microprocessors. This follows a U.S. government decision last year to deny China access
Semiconductor economies of scale begin filtering into the medical market. The overlap between semiconductor technology and medicine is growing, creating the same kinds of economies of scale that have fueled the semiconductor industry for the past five decades. While technology has long held a place in the medical world, the
A toy-like cardboard contraption that sells for less than $20 online has helped save the life of a baby who was so sick that doctors told her parents to take her home to die. Google Cardboard looks like a set of big square goggles. Stick your iPhone inside and with
A researcher from Georgia Tech is working on giving dogs the ability to talk to humans, and it could have huge potential for service dogs. Melody Moore Jackson, creator and director of Georgia Tech’s BrainLab, is creating computerized vests for dogs so they can “speak.” This could have huge potential for service dogs
Taking advantage of the 27 petaflop Titan Supercomputer at Oak Ridge National Laboratory, researchers from Imperial College London’s Department of Aeronautics are attempting to reduce aircraft noise by visualizing how air is forced through engines when planes are in flight. Noise pollution from aircraft is a global policy and health
For all of its promising ideas and potential, Google Glass can, at best, be summed up as a noble failure. In trying to appeal to as broad of an audience as possible, the resulting device offered little in the way of real world utility. But there were lessons to be