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silicon photonics ecosystem

Silicon Photonics: Who Should Be on Your Radar and Why

By Bolaji Ojo

What’s at stake
With silicon photonics promising to vastly accelerate data access and transmission, companies all along the supply chain are jumping in with both feet. Collaborations among rivals are critical at this early stage as companies work to steer the nascent market toward their take on the technology. It’s too early to tell which of these uneasy alliances will prevail, but a look at the partnerships may yield some clues.

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optical interconnects silicon photonics

Let There Be Light

By George Leopold

What’s at stake?
The need for speed and bandwidth is driving advances in silicon photonics. An ecosystem is coalescing around the light-based interconnects, with startups emerging to push the technology as established players like Intel scale transceivers and related photonic components. Leveraging current chip design and fabrication processes will be key to unleashing an anticipated Cambrian explosion of photonics-driven applications.

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semiconductor inventory

Semiconductor Inventory Cut Looming, or Just a Scare?

By Bolaji Ojo

What’s at stake?
With inflation rising globally, and amid concerns that central bankers’ countermeasures will hobble growth, the massive inventory buildup over the past year could prove problematic for the electronics industry. But the closer working relationships that OEMs, chipmakers and distributors cultivated during the supply-chain crisis could help ensure a soft landing as inventories are drawn down.

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pedestrian safety NCAP NHSTA

‘Road Safety for All’ Raises Stakes for Automakers

By Junko Yoshida

What’s at stake?
Simply cramming a mess of new, automated features into cars is hardly an automotive safety panacea. A more likely remedy is the U.S. traffic-safety agency’s proposed updates on a New Car Assessment Program. At issue is road safety for everyone, both inside and outside the vehicles, including pedestrians and other vulnerable road users.

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automotive electronics CPU MCU

NXP Drives Automotive Chip Race Without Big Brains

By Junko Yoshida

What’s at stake?
There is, indeed, a growing acceptance that big-brain chip suppliers – Nvidia, Qualcomm and Intel/Mobileye – have already won the architecture battle for highly automated vehicles. Does that mean traditional automotive chip companies have surrendered? To the contrary. They still seem to be scheming for new angles to keep themselves relevant or beat rivals. Where in this turmoil will NXP’s new real-time automotive processors fit?

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fabless semiconductor production and IDM

The Fabless Semiconductor Model is Flawed

By Bolaji Ojo

What’s at stake?
Fabless semiconductor companies have contributed to the industry’s growth but they’ also added to its complexity with their unwillingness, until now, to shoulder a larger part of the financial burdens associated with making their products. That is changing as a result of today’s acute shortages. The lessons learned now must not be discarded when the shortages ease.

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Edge AI computing

Truth About Edge AI in MCUs: Is It Worth It?

By Junko Yoshida

What’s at stake?
Despite all the rhetoric about the artificial intelligent of things (AIoT), implementing AI inference in MCUs is still a stretch. Edge AI is “economically constrained as much as… physically constrained,” according to a market analyst. At stake is the future of MCU suppliers and AIoT OEMs. How long are they willing to stay in the game and how much are they investing?

Read More »Truth About Edge AI in MCUs: Is It Worth It?
Arm ecosystem

Will Arm Risk RISC-V?

By Junko Yoshida

What’s at stake?
Andes Technology, a Taiwanese CPU core IP company, began phasing out its proprietary processing architecture in favor of RISC-V in 2015, as it prepared to go public. Is adding RISC-V an option for Arm before its planned fiscal-2022 IPO? While Arm’s too-big-to-fail ecosystem makes this notion unlikely, can Arm convince investors and shareholders that it can continue to grow without an open-source instruction set architecture (ISA)?

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