EE Journal Feature Articles

The Internet of Things is Coming

Wed, 22 May 2013 14:23:00 MDT

Wherever you turn there are stories about the Internet of Things (IoT). The numbers are enormous, with many trillions of end-point “Things” being casually tossed into the discussions. While the Internet was created for people to use to access information and, then, only later, did it become a channel for people to communicate with each other, so, in ten years’ time the idea that the Internet is primarily for people is going to appear as so old-fashioned: the bulk of the internet connections will have been taken over by machines. (Although, it can be argued, the bulk of the traffic will still be for humans.)....

Learning Ability

Tue, 21 May 2013 17:01:00 MDT

When we choose engineering as a career, we are making a decision to become lifelong students. The crazy pace of technological change means that we must be constantly learning and re-learning our art. The day we stand still and stop checking our assumptions against the latest developments is the day we begin to become irrelevant as engineering professionals. During the past two decades, however, an amazing shift has occurred. Because of the information revolution, learning itself has changed. In addition to learning new stuff about engineering and technology, we actually have to re-learn how to learn. If learning about a new technology is like developing a new software application, re-forming our learning process is like developing a new operating system. Fundamental assumptions about how we obtain, evaluate, and retain information have to be thrown out and re-formed. ....

Navigating Indoors

Mon, 20 May 2013 10:33:00 MDT

It’s simply getting from here to there. How hard can that be? In fact, if it’s indoors, then things aren’t that far away, so that should be even easier, right? Wrong. Indoor navigation is a bugaboo that’s got all kinds of folks scrambling to figure out how to get you to where you need to be. As we’ve seen before, navigation outside uses a mix of technologies, but satellite systems figure prominently in the solution. Other technologies simply fill the gaps when the satellite signal is weak or blanks out for short periods of time. During such blackouts, IMUs and map-matching can do a reasonable job of keeping you going, and when the signal comes back again, we can zero out any accumulated errors and we’re back on track. ....

ASIC is a Four Letter Word, Napalm Bats, and The GertBoard

Fri, 17 May 2013 12:14:00 MDT

Fish Fry is treading on scary ground this week. Guard your children, hold your RTL close and your soldering gun even closer. We're talking ASIC design costs. I know many of you are cowering in fear at the slight mention of custom chip NRE costs, but my guest is Reid Wender (Triad Semiconductor) and we're chatting about how you can relinquish your mixed-signal ASIC design cost fears once and for all. Think of it as an NRE exorcism, sorta. Also this week, we're checking out a special long lost World War II battle battalion and giving away a GertBoard courtesy of newark element14.....

Consider the Source

Wed, 15 May 2013 13:47:00 MDT

Back when I was a little kid in elementary school, one of the youngsters in my class was a pathological liar. He’d tell the tallest tales about the famous people he’d just met, the exotic countries he’d jetted to over the weekend, and, in one case, about his lock-picking exploits and subsequent run-in with the law. It was all very exciting, and, gullible youngsters that we were, we believed all of it. One of our more mature classmates, however, saw through all the smoke. She’d frown and say, “Consider the source,” whenever we asked about the latest exotic tale. Some things never change. Today, almost all of our news comes through third-party sources, whether it’s TV news, blogs, newspapers, water-cooler chatter, radio, Twitter, podcasts, or any other medium. Very little of what we know do we learn firsthand. That’s normal; that’s how societies work. ....

Finding Your Power Animal

Tue, 14 May 2013 10:13:00 MDT

OK, FPGA designers, are you sitting down? We need to visualize. Relax. Close your eyes. Breathe in, breathe out, go to your calm and happy place. Everything is going to be OK. You are floating on a warm pond. Your FPGA design is working on the dev board. You feel the sun on your face. You are strong and confident... Now, we will begin. You are going to design the power supply for your high-end FPGA. It is going to go smooooooothly. There will be no mess of passive components interacting in weird and unexpected ways. You won’t have to call in the guys from the next building who wear the tie dye and sandals to work. Your design will not misbehave in strange and inexplicable ways that are later discovered to be the result of slightly-out-of-spec power. ....