Embedded Computing Design

It’s always fun the weeks after CES, when some of the cooler the products you’ve seen on site in Las Vegas show up for real-life testing. This year, I took a look at two products, both wireless devices that are aimed at protecting the home.

Bluetooth is everywhere, right? 

Until recently, I would have said “Almost everywhere,” since it hadn’t yet affected the industrial sector. However, according to Simon Ford, the Founder of Blecon, Bluetooth has now entered that final frontier. It’s done so for obvious reasons, like power, performance, and ubiquity, and a few other reasons. 

Hear what Simon has to say on this week’s Embedded Executives podcast.

Bluetooth claims to own the low-power wireless space with its Low Energy (LE) flavor. A newer, yet older entrant in the space wants to claim that throne. That would be Low Energy UWB, or LE-UWB. And now you understand the reference to newer-older. 

Does the academic world do a good job at getting its students ready to work in the real world? Is it even possible to do that now, given the pace AI is forcing industry to move at, and knowing that academia doesn’t typically move that quickly?

There are many different ways to look at the tangled web of AI. For example, tackling from the inference perspective is one way of looking at the puzzle, as not everyone is doing that. 

The Chips and Science Act has been with us for a while now, and obviously, technology doesn’t stand still.

When you tear down a smartwatch, you’re rarely surprised by what’s inside.

Kinetic energy can be harvested from very simple mechanical movements, like the push of a button or the turning of a knob. WePower Technologies has been able to do more with that small amount of power than I expected. 

Avnet recently surveyed part of its core audience, and the topic was AI’s Impact on Engineering. It doesn’t get much closer to home than that. 

We know that AI is everywhere. An area of particular concern for the DevTalk crew is how AI fits into today’s higher education programs. With our special guest Kevin Lu, the Associate Dean for Engineering and Science for Undergraduate Studies at Stevens Institute of Technology, we look at two specific areas—how do you ensure that students aren’t “cheating” by making use of AI, and second, how do you ensure that the careers you are getting them ready for are the right careers, in this changing world of AI? It’s a fascinating topic, and one that will evolve regularly.

We’ve all seen the wireless charging devices; you set your phone down on the charger, come back after a while, and your phone is charged. If the charger manufacturer followed the standard set forth by the Wireless Power Consortium (WPC), that scenario would play out. If they didn’t follow the standard, then you may come back to an uncharged device. 

The user interface, aka the HMI, is oftentimes the only interaction a user has with a platform. Hence, it represents your brand, and it needs to look great and work great.

It’s time for an update on Wi-Fi. On this week’s Embedded Executives podcast, we take a look at what’s the latest, what’s coming, what’s real, and what’s not so real, all as it pertains to Wi-Fi. 

There are lots of different ways that IoT devices can communicate. In some instances, that’s a good thing. But in other cases, it’s hindering the growth of IoT devices. And that’s a problem, at least according to Mike Rohrmoser, a Vice President at Digi. 

In this week’s Embedded Executives podcast, Mike explains how protocols are evolving and what needs to occur to ensure interoperability between all devices, including those that may have been in the field for decades.

There’s no moss gathering under the Connectivity Stands Alliance, as the group recently announced the latest rev of the ZigBee spec, version 4.0. This new version enhances the security efforts from the previous generation, and also takes a hard look at smart energy in the latest devices. 

One of the keys, as you’ll hear, is the backward compatibility that’s been maintained. Faisal Bhaiyat, the Co-Chair of ZigBee Working Group, Connectivity Standards Alliance, and also a Senior Software Architect with Silicon Labs, fills me in on the details on this week’s Embedded Executives podcast.

High-performance computing at the Edge involves systems that bring server-class processing closer to where data is generated. Instead of sending private information to the Cloud, devices at the network’s Edge, gateways, sensors, industrial controllers, cameras, and embedded AI platforms, run complex workloads locally. This is beneficial for applications like medical imaging, Edge servers, networking, and enterprise-level LLM (Large Language Model) deployment, and includes markets such as healthcare, industrial automation, smart cities, robotics, automotive, and advanced consumer devices. Its growth is driven by tighter latency requirements, rising data volumes, stronger privacy demands, and the need for more efficient, scalable distributed compute architectures.

You’re likely aware of many of the great things AI can do for you. And I’m guessing you’ve seen many of the nefarious things it can be used for. I was just brought up to speed on one of the latter items, and it’s something you should be aware of as well. 

In my discussion with Marcus Webster, the Founder and President of Webster and Webster Associates, I learned that people are using AI to help them get jobs, and in some cases, they are jobs that they should not be getting, for security reasons. People are submitting fake resumes and even conducting fake video-based job interviews. Honestly, it’s both fascinating and scary. 

Check out this week’s Embedded Executives podcast to learn more.

Most of the RISC-V offerings that I’ve seen have been pushing very high performance, with lots of cores and lots of chips. Upbeat Technology is taking a different tack by looking at very low power levels. 

In my discussion with Jerry Chen, Founder and CEO of Upbeat Technology, he explains the reasons for that approach, and, as you’ll hear, he tells it like it is and explains why the company partnered with SiFive. 

The applications that make sense for the Upbeat offering include always-on IoT, wearables, drones/UAVs, smart audio, predictive maintenance, and edge-AI sensors, basically anything battery-powered. Hear our discussion on this week’s Embedded Executives podcast.

I recently spent some time with Synaptics’ new CEO, Rahul Patel. It was at the company’s Tech Day event held in its San Jose headquarters. Rahul arrived at Synaptics after spending more than a decade at both Qualcomm and Broadcom, so he is no stranger to the semiconductor space. And that’s a good thing, because he joined at a time when the company was already in the midst of a transformation, attempting to become a major player in the Edge AI semiconductor space.

It’s not the first time this has occurred, but it is the latest—a previously commercial real-time operating system is now being offered as open source. In this case, it’s SMX from Micro Digital. 

If you’re wondering, like I was, where the company would choose to go this route, check out this week’s Embedded Executives podcast with Ralph More, the Founder and President of Micro Digital.