EE Times Current

This is your Briefing for the week ending August 2nd.

We want the Internet of things to be smart, but being smart requires processing power – which will be lacking in millions of IoT devices. It’s what we call in the business “a conundrum.” But – there may be an answer! You’ll hear what that is.

As we reported last week, the biggest companies in the world are beginning to compete with their own chip suppliers. The latest example is Alibaba, which just released a high-performance processor of its own design. Alibaba’s move is significant for technological, financial, and political reasons. We’ll look into that.

Also, you’d think that the people building autonomous vehicles are using sound design principles.

This week we’re mixing it up a bit. In this episode, we’re going to focus on a single topic. It’s how the world’s biggest companies are doing business in ways no company has before – and what that might mean for everybody – not just the technology industry.

This week…

Artificial intelligence is a vastly complex market. There’s a fierce competition among hardware vendors to be the best platform for AI applications. But first, you have to know what it means to be “the best.” This week, analyst Karl Freund from Moor Insights talks to us about the latest AI benchmarks.

Researchers are re-imagining what – fundamentally – a vehicle is. One company just put everything other than the chassis – literally everything – entirely inside the wheels. We’ll explore that and other proposals.

And it’s the 50th anniversary of the Apollo 11 space mission – the first time people set foot on the moon. This week we look back – and also look forward to going back to the moon.

Our stories this week:

You might recall pilot Chesley Sullenberger. He became a hero a few years back for crash landing a disabled passenger airliner into New York's Hudson River with no loss of life. He recently appeared in front of Congress to testify about the crashes of the Boeing 737. We discuss his testimony and what it means for Boeing and for other engineering companies.

We've got an on-site report from Semicon West, including a revised estimate of growth in the chip market in 2019.

And guest commentators John Petty and Kathleen Ma have just concluded a major report on the workstation market, which has seen some profound changes over the years.

This week…

Facial recognition is being deployed more frequently, but is the technology ready? And, are we ready for it?

President Trump said he is lifting official restrictions on doing business with Huawei, an important supplier to communications companies around the world. What does that mean for the global electronics industry moving forward?

And we talk with Silicon Valley entrepreneur Alex Lidow about Moore’s Law, gallium nitride, and easing at least one of the indignities of aging.

This week…

The French research institute LETI held a conference on artificial intelligence at the edge. What does putting AI on the edge of the network mean, and what’s the advantage? EE Times editors were in Grenoble, and filed a report.

A few weeks ago, PCI introduced a new ultra-fast networking specification that will make data centers perform even better, and that will make the internet faster and more capable. A few days ago, PCI unexpectedly doubled the speed again.

EE Times editors were at the annual Sensors Expo, which has become an important conference for the Internet of things.

Also, the prevailing wisdom is that self-driving vehicles will be safer than human drivers. But what if there’s a third option – one that’s just as safe as self-driving cars are supposed to be?

Our lineup this week includes:

A guided tour through London’s Tech Week, an annual extravaganza of new technologies. Unsurprisingly, this year there was an emphasis on artificial intelligence.

We’ll have a report on the race to build the fastest supercomputers.

And, you know those GPS apps you use for driving? Self-driving vehicles use maps too, but they need maps that are far more accurate.

First up, EETimes editor Sally Ward-Foxton attended several events during London’s Tech Week. The UK is bidding to become a major hub for AI technology, but the same idea has occurred to other countries as well.

And a quick translation of English to English for you. Glastonbury is a music festival not dissimilar to the New Orleans Jazz Festival, where savvy festival veterans know to show up in knee-high rubber boots because enormous mud puddles are not uncommon.

This week: RISC-V has profound implications for the smartphone market; we checked to see if it’s ready. Moore’s Law will end –  unless maybe chiplets? Engineers are getting drawn into the gig economy, and it’s not the ones you’d think. And after 40 years, TI’s Speak & Spell speaks again.

In this week's briefing we discuss Infineon's bombshell announcement: the $10 billion dollar acquisition that seemed to come out of nowhere – Infineon bought Cypress Semiconductor, and the Design Automation Conference – DAC. If you know what’s happening with design tools, that gives you a good handle on what’s happening with the semiconductor industry.

This week we’ve got a dispatch from Monte Carlo about the recent Grand Prix ELECTRIC vehicle race. Also, a separate report on what’s going on with chips for Autonomous Vehicles. And we’ve been talking about the trade war with China from the US point of view – this week, our correspondent in China discusses how China’s high-tech industry thinks about the conflict.