Embedded Executive Podcast

Fast-charging an end device like a smart phone in under 10 minutes using Gallium Nitride (GaN) power components is awesome. However, it’s not as great as it sounds, for a few reasons. First, if you don’t have the latest and greatest battery technology, you may be doing damage to your battery. In addition, most of our phones are limiting the speed at which the battery can be charged, negating the advantages of GaN. To fully understand this, I spoke to Stephen Oliver, Vice President at Navitas Semiconductor on this week’s Embedded Executives podcast.

DRAM is DRAM, right? There’s no difference from manufacturer to manufacturer. If that’s your take, you’ll likely find yourself in trouble when it comes to your design’s memory subsystem. As Frank Henville, a Technical Manager at Apacer, told me during this week’s Embedded Executives podcast, they are quite different. If you don’t believe me, I suggest you give it a listen.

Digital RF is something you don’t hear a lot about, but it is being deployed in some of our embedded systems, including those that live at the Edge of the IoT. But, is it really digital? The technology can be somewhat confusing, so to get to the heart of the matter, I spoke with Massoud Tohidian, the CTO and Managing Partner of Qualinx B.V., a company that specializes in this digital RF. Check out this week’s Embedded Executives 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 that and more.

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 week’s Embedded Executives podcast. His company can either train you to do your FPGA-based design, or they can do it for you.

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 out there and why it’s needed, I spoke to Sandeep Krishnegowda, the Vice President of Marketing and Applications for Memory at Infineon Technologies in this week’s Embedded Executives podcast.

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 tons of applications outside of automotive. To understand how it works, check out this week’s Embedded Executives podcast with Bob Yang, the Executive Director for Business Development for Taifang Technology.

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 Embedded Executives podcast.

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 Friedrichs, Infineon Technologies’ Vice President of Silicon Carbide on this week’s Embedded Executives podcast.

Most security prevention methods are aimed at detecting when a hack is occurring. Hence the term, detection-based security. By embedding 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 Embedded Executives podcast.