What’s at stake:
As the Commerce Department prepares to distribute CHIPS Act funding, the National Institute of Standards and Technology has been moving in parallel to promote chip innovation via a Google-backed open hardware initiative. The goal is making license-free chip design and production as ubiquitous as open-source software.
What’s at stake:
Nvidia’s move to acquire Arm in 2020 made SiFive’s full-fledged foray into the automotive market all but inevitable, as the RISC-V IP vendor wagered that automotive chip companies would seek its help to counter the combined forces of Nvidia automotive systems-on-chip and Arm core-based solutions. While the Arm deal never happened, SiFive prepared a portfolio of three low-power, high-performance automotive RISC-V processors. SiFive thinks it solutions, when used in combination, can compete with Nvidia’s automotive SoCs.
What’s at stake:
Intel needs as many new foundry customers as it can get. In parallel with its commercial efforts, the U.S. chipmaker has helped lead Pentagon semiconductor technology and chip-packaging efforts. Those connections appear to be paying off.
By Rebecca Day
What’s at stake:
While augmented-reality smart glasses have found adopters in industry, thus far consumers have largely failed to see the appeal. Kura Technologies asserts that its Gallium glasses overcome the performance, comfort and privacy hurdles that earlier entries failed to clear, and it is confident that the expanding metaverse will enable applications that will convince the public of smart glasses’ utility. Whether consumers will find smart glasses as indispensable as they now view their phones by the end of the decade, as Kura’s CEO predicts, remains to be seen. But they will get an early glimpse of the Gallium glasses in limited public demonstrations over the next couple of years.
By Bolaji Ojo
What’s at stake:
The electronics industry abruptly rejected Just-in-Time inventory management during the recent shortages but the model is already staging a comeback, proving its efficacy compared with the more problematic Just-in-Case approach.
What’s at stake:
New U.S. fabs will generate tens of thousands of jobs. The outsourcing of chip manufacturing and the decline in engineering graduates mean many can’t be filled by qualified candidates. Proponents of the virtual factory scheme claim they can attract newcomers to the profession by training them on extended-reality tools.
By Peter Clarke
Processor intellectual property licenser Arm Ltd. has sued longtime licensee Qualcomm and recent Qualcomm acquisition Nuvia Inc., another Arm licensee, alleging a breach of licensing terms and resultant infringement of Arm’s trademarks.
Read More »Arm’s Suit Against Qualcomm Highlights Strained IP Ecosystem
By Rebecca Day
I assume one day I’ll own smart glasses, though I can’t for the life of me understand why I’d want to today. That’s often how it works with me and tech. Unlike HDTV — which I craved after I first saw eyepopping jockey silk colors in an ABC-TV demo reel — new product categories often take time for me to adjust to. I’m not a tech-for-tech’s sake kind of gal. I need to see a compelling reason buy into the next big thing – and for the price to come down.
Read More »Google Glass May be Half-Full
Engineers, AV enthusiasts, public officials and even ordinary drivers should heed Phil Koopman’s insights, pausing to consider what must be done before unleashing AVs on our streets.
By Junko Yoshida
What’s at stake?
The novelty of AR and/or VR goggles tempts corporations to embrace the technology to bolster worker productivity. What many companies overlook is that short-term productivity gains achieved through technology may come at the cost of workers’ long-term ability to innovate.
Surely, technology can improve worker efficiency in manufacturing – it always has. This truism helps explain why so many corporations are eyeing the new tools of augmented reality and virtual reality (AR and VR) as the next big thing to streamline and improve their production lines. But equally significant is the impact of a given technology on human behavior.
Read More »Revealing AR’s Unintended Consequences on the Factory Floor
