Embedded Computing Design

The SAP Arena was absolutely madcap and packed in the leadup to the opening keynote from Jensen Huang, founder and CEO of NVIDIA, at NVIDIA GTC 2024.

In a recent announcement, Emerson has revealed its new PACSystems IPC 2010 Compact Industrial PC (IPC), which is designed to be a rugged industrial computer suited to machine and discrete part manufacturing automation applications.

Recently, the People Liberation Army Academy of Military Sciences in China published a patent for a new RISC-V chip, designed for high-performance applications.

Today, Silicon Valley-based start-up Ethernovia announced that it is offering a sampling of automotive PHY transceivers designed to scale from 10 Gbps to 1 Gbps over 15 meters of automotive cabling, reportedly at the industry’s lowest power. The company said this advancement will be critical for software-defined vehicles (SDV) to deliver the highest level of safety in the next generation of intelligent driving systems.

In a recent announcement, PICMG, the consortium for open hardware specifications, released InterEdge, a modular architecture for process control systems (PCS). The IEC 61499 and IEC 61131-compatible InterEdge specification reportedly offers an interoperable, multi-vendor alternative to proprietary Industrial PCs (IPCs), Programmable Logic Controllers (PLCs), and Distributed Control Systems (DCSs).

In a recent release, Silicon Labs announced it will be creating the underlying Matter technology for a new series of native Matter-over-Thread smart locks. The company says these are the first commercially available examples of this technology in Smart Locks.

Matter is fast becoming the only Smart Home standard that… matters. Now, Silicon Labs and Arduino have partnered up to help developers go from new board to commissioned device faster than ever, speeding time to market.

In a recent release, Cadence Design Systems has announced its Millennium Enterprise Multiphysics Platform, which the company says is the industry’s first hardware/software (HW/SW) accelerated digital twin solution for multiphysics system design and analysis.

Silanna Semiconductor, a company specialized to improve power management, power density, and efficiency performance, is poised to announce its full portfolio of AC/DC and DC/DC products at the upcoming Applied Power Electronics Conference (APEC).

In these changing and evolving times in embedded computing, with the growth of AI and other tech, not to mention the supply chain struggles in semiconductors over the last few years, good strategic advice can be worth its weight in gold.

It seems like every company is looking to layer AI into their solutions, from the Edge to the Cloud. The technical requirements for even lightweight AI, not to mention Generative or Predictive AI, and particularly at the edge, are no simple matter.

Embedded for Automotive is the sleeping giant industry right now. The fact that so much of CES was about automotive technology and supporting applications would be indication enough, but we’ve also seen huge partnership announcements, new investments from the biggest RISC-V players, and tech innovations from major embedded companies like STMicroelectronics and Microchip.

Honeywell has joined a $300 million equity fundraise for Quantinuum, an integrated quantum computing company, at a pre-money valuation of $5 billion. The technology giant was joined by JPMorgan Chase, Mitsui & Co., and Amgen, though Honeywell remains the company's majority shareholder. This investment brings Quantinuum to about $625 million in investments, according to the release.

There were lots of jokes in Las Vegas last week about how CES is the world’s biggest auto show these days, (more on that in future stories), but it would be just as true to say the Consumer Electronics Show is the premier home of the leading commercial AI use cases anywhere.

We saw Generative AI and Machine Learning engines right next to statistical analysis on big data sets, personal assistants, advanced chatbots, and numerous interesting Edge AI Implementations.

Let’s take a look at a very few of the ones we saw in every hall and nearly every booth.

The i.MX 8M Plus Development Kit from VEST is designed to be a real all-rounder for AI, ML, and multi-media projects especially. The built-in versatility makes it suitable for all sorts of applications in need of a powerful embedded computer. These include:

It’s my last day roaming the halls at this CES celebrating the 100^th Anniversary of the CTIA, and despite the encroaching exhaustion (don’t worry, it’s my fault) and probable stress fractures in my feet (a hyperbole, but not-inaccurate assessment), it’s been a really great week.

CES is telling a pretty distinct story for the embedded computing world: it’s time to stop siloing and start thinking in terms of platforms.

It’s that time of year in Las Vegas yet again: CES. The streets are clogged, and the hotels are full, but we travelers aren’t bothered because the Convention Center is rocking and rolling with new tech and we’ve got to see as much as we can.

It was announced last August that semiconductor industry players Robert Bosch, Infineon, Nordic Semiconductor, NXP Semiconductors, and Qualcomm Technologies were planning to launch a joint venture into RISC-V, and now it has a name and a CEO.

It’s no secret to anyone who’s been paying attention, but AI assistance is bringing new methods and innovations to nearly every industry, for good or ill.