High-performance computing has a lot to do with complex calculations performed in parallel. However, in the embedded space, it has different, and potentially more challenging, definitions. To  understand where high-performance computing fits in the industrial IoT sector, I spent this week's Embedded Executives podcast with Michael Duhamel, Vice President at SECO.

The semiconductor content in today’s (and tomorrow’s) automobiles continues to grow. That’s a good thing for lots of people. Unfortunately, that list includes the bad guys, as more end points appear in the vehicle, more entry points become vulnerable to hackers. The question I posed to this week’s Embedded Executive, Andrew Longhurst, Managing Director, Wittenstein High Integrity Systems, is simply, “what do we do about that?” Tune in to find out.  

Many people claim that analog is a dying technology. While I’m not in that camp, I want to get to the bottom of the discussion. Hence, I posed the topic to David Dwelley, a Vice President and Chief Technology Officer at Maxim Integrated. David has a birds-eye view on state-of-the-art analog design. Tune in to hear his response. 

Open source is no longer a fad or something for Makers. As Dave Hughes, the Founder and CEO of HCC Embedded says, “it is now a force in our industry.” If you’re not on the bus, it’s time to get on. To hear everything else Dave had to say about open-source software, check out this week’s Embedded Executive podcast.

Analytics is the key to having a successful IoT platform, particularly in the industrial space. However, analytics doesn’t seem to have the focus in the development community that it should. Why is that so? That’s what I asked Tom Yates, Vice President of Products at Nubix, who deals with this topic on a daily basis. Tune in for more. 

We seem to be on a never-ending ride to reduce power. It seems like whatever the IC vendors can provide, the OEMs want more (or in this case, less). Is that fair? Maybe. Will the cycle continue down a similar path? Probably, but to know for sure, I interviewed Larry Blackledge, General Manager of Qorvo's Programmable Power Management business to see how low we can go. Tune in for more.

5G is coming. 5G is here. 5G is the greatest thing since sliced bread. There is so much information and misinformation regarding 5G that I thought it made sense to bring on an expert who could debunk some of the myths around 5G. In this week’s Embedded Executive interview, I spoke with Sylvia Lu, who is the Senior 5G Technical Lead for 5G at u-blox, as well as a member of the UK5G Advisory Board. Tune in for more. 

Yunsup Lee was part of the RISC-V movement from the ground floor. He was one of the original authors of the spec right from Day 1. Currently, Lee is the CTO of SiFive, one of the leaders in terms of RISC-V IP. But this Five Minutes With…discussion revolves around the Chips Alliance, where Lee is a Board Member. The Alliance has a goal of developing open-source hardware, which dovetails perfectly with the motivation behind RISC-V. Tune in for more. 

IoT is evolving. We’ve added components like AI and machine learning, more complex Edge nodes, and so on. Hence, I thought the time was right to speak to someone in the cat bird’s seat about what designers can expect in the IoT space over the next few years. That “someone” was Cliff Ortmeyer, Head of Technical Marketing, Newark, who was my guest on this week’s Five Minutes With…discussion.

Engineers have been designing PCBs for a long time. As components get smaller and more integrated, and a frequencies increase, the complexities increase exponentially. The tools are generally keeping pace, but that doesn’t make them any easier to use. In this week’s Five Minutes With…podcast, I spoke to Lawrence Romine, a vice president of Altium, one of the leaders in PCB design. We also chatted briefly about the company’s annual conference, Altium Live, that teaches designers the ins and outs of PCB design.