Embedded Insiders

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In this edition of the Embedded Insiders, Brandon and Rich discuss the semantics of AI and intelligent technology and what qualifies as a smart system these days.

Have marketing engines turned these into over used terms? Are they even being used correctly? 

Later, the Insiders take a deeper dive into the practicalities of Edge AI with Bill Pearson, the Vice President of the Internet of Things group at Intel. Together, they investigate market challenges to realize the ROI on initial AI deployments and the hardware/software gaps preventing developers from launching commercial grade solutions faster.

Finally, Alex Harrowell, a Senior Analyst at Enterprise AI speak with Perry in this week’s Tech Market Madness to discuss a new report from Omdia Research titled, “Artificial Intelligence for Edge Devices Report.”

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In part 2 of the Embedded Insiders’ analysis of recent industry acquisitions, Stacey Higginbotham, a tech industry expert and editor of the eponymous Stacey on IoT blog, joins Brandon and Rich to further the discussion about the ARM/NVIDIA deal. Wait. What did NVIDIA buy? Or better yet, what didn’t they buy? Why didn’t they acquire the entire Arm portfolio? And where is the rest of it now?

After, Jim McGregor of Tirias Research returns to analyze AMD’s acquisition of programmable logic supplier Xilinx. He provides some analogs to Intel’s purchase of Altera. Later, Rich puts him on the spot: In two years, will the Xilinx/AMD deal be a good one?

Listen to find out.

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It’s all about money! In this edition of the Embedded Insiders, Brandon and Rich break down some major acquisitions, like Arm’s purchase of NVIDIA, as well as AMD potentially buying Xilinx, prompted in part by all the “free money” that’s available in the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic.

Later, Jim McGregor, Principal Analyst at Tirias Research, joins the Insiders with his thoughts. He explains his belief that these moves are the result of companies trying to grow their total addressable market (TAM) by capturing share in adjacent markets, but cautions that acquiring these assets could have negative long-term effects on the industry. In part one of a two-part interview, these questions are asked in the context of the NVIDIA/Arm deal.

Finally, Calista Redmond, the CEO of RISC-V, shares her vision of the computing industry after the world’s largest IP vendor has been, at least for now, taken off the market. What does this mean for the industry in general, and RISC-V in particular.

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In the early 2000s GM stopped their electric car project. They weren’t cool. In comes Tesla who made the electric car a popular concept. But is the “cool factor” the biggest factor in electric car sales these days? Are electric cars actually better for the environment, and do the majority of buyers really care? Brandon and Rich debate the subject and more in this edition of the embedded insiders.

Later, the Insiders are joined by Frede Blaabjerg, an esteemed professor of power electronics and drives at Aalborg University in Denmark. The three discuss the current state of the power industry and what the future looks like. Power will play a big role in the electric vehicle industry, but just how big?

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SiFive, a pioneer of commercializing the RISC-V instruction set and resulting IP, has announced a number of custom design wins. And a lot of them leverage Arm technology. In fact, SiFive's recent 20G1 release revealed that the company has developed SiFive Insight, debug and trace IP that features native compatibility with? You guessed it. Arm’s CoreSight IP that serves the same purpose.

So, is the RISC-V standard bearer ditching its heritage to become a design mercenary? Or is this a longer-term play to help get RISC-V technology into SoCs in any way possible so it can grow from there? Or are we over thinking it? Drew Barbier, Director of Product Marketing at SiFive, joins Brandon and Rich in this edition of the Embedded Insiders to explain.

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In this week’s edition of the Embedded Insiders, Brandon and Rich discuss all of the new programming languages that have entered the embedded universe. This is in large part due to the convergence that IoT has created between IT and embedded developers. Are we getting to the point where we won’t use C language anymore? Or is it here to stay for good? 

Later, Nial Cooling, the CEO of Feabhas Limited, continues the conversation about embedded programming languages by weighing the advantages of languages like C against newer iterations of C++ and upstart alternatives like Rust. Where do all of these fit in the software engineering toolbox, and what are the implications of this low-level embedded programming on overall system cost?

Later, Technology Editor Perry Cohen interviews Chris Rommel, Executive Vice President of VDC Research, in a new segment, Tech Market Madness: Analyst Insights for Engineers.

Chris reveals just how many engineers are currently using C, C++, Python, Java, and other languages based on data from his company’s annual Voice of the IoT Engineer report. According to the study, more than 50 percent of developers have used C in past projects, while only 44.6 percent are using it currently and just 38.3 percent plan to leverage it in future designs. Meanwhile, the use of Python and Rust continues to rise.

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In this edition of the embedded insiders, Brandon and Rich ponder whether RISC-V is taking too long to become a mainstream technology, or if it will even ever be one. Despite being open-source and all of the initial hype, will RISC-V become all that it has so-far been made it out to be?

Later, the Insiders are joined by Mark Himelstein, the newly-appointed CTO of RISC-V International. The three discuss the architectural future of RISC-V and how he plans to drive the technology deeper into the hearts and minds of engineers.

Later, Jean Labrosse is back with more, “Things that annoy a veteran software engineer” where he explains why he hates when APIs return meaningless error codes, such as zero for success and one or minus one for failure.

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In this edition of the Embedded Insiders, Brandon and Rich ponder when “enough is enough” in terms of IoT device security. Because implementing robust security is so time consuming and expensive, why haven’t we just created development workflows that make it more costly to NOT use security? 

Later, the Insiders are joined by Jeremy Boone, Technical Director of The NCC Group, security analysis firm. Together, the trio consider how flaws at all levels of the IoT solution stack can be exploited, as well as engineering best practices that can minimize these vulnerabilities. This boils down to CYA with CIA.

Finally, Jean Labrosse is back with more “Things That Annoy a Veteran Software Engineer” where he explains why it drives him nuts when a programmer over-uses asserts.

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In this edition of the embedded insiders, Brandon and Rich discuss how digital twins that reflect physical IoT systems can not only record the status of real-world devices, but simulate how the device could react under certain conditions in the future. And, how these twins can also potentially be used to help inform future designs.

Later, the insiders are joined by Brady Benware, VP and general manager of the Tessent portfolio at Mentor, a Siemens business. The company recently acquired UltraSoC, who focuses on on-chip analytics, among other things, perhaps allowing Siemens to address the concept of digital twins all the way down to the chip level. After, Jean Labrosse is back with “things that annoy a veteran software engineer” where he explains why the inconsistent use of acronyms and abbreviations bothers him.

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AI is all the rage these days, and poised to disrupt nearly every industry. In fact it already is, but more because organizations are struggling to integrate new AI personnel, processes, tools, and workflows alongside their existing infrastructure. It’s so bad in fact that a recent IDC survey reported that the majority of companies are failing in their AI initiatives.

In this episode of the Embedded Insiders, Brandon and Rich interview Michael Grant, Vice President of Services at Anaconda, an open-source-centric data science company who manages the Anaconda distribution of the Python and R programming languages. Michael explains some of the obstacles organizations looking to enter the AI space need to watch out for before they get started, from licensing issues to security vulnerabilities to technical strategies. He then discusses how his company’s recent collaboration with the IBM Watson team can help such organizations integrate, organize, and manage their AI solutions stacks, from model development to endpoint inferencing, using a package-centric architecture.

Later, Jean Labrosse is back with more “Things That Annoy a Veteran Software Engineer,” as he rants about the use of lengthy macros in the C language.

Tune in for more.

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