Smart homes need wireless connectivity, and Z-wave has emerged as the ultimate solution for home automation. The Z-wave protocol is a wireless, radio frequency protocol designed primarily for smart home networks. All the existing wireless communication protocols had one or the other problem. Bluetooth and Zigbee often shortfall of range while Wi-Fi poses its own […]
FAQ
RISC-V for ultra-low power processing and AI on the edge
RISC-V is an exciting and rapidly-emerging technology. RISC-V is software; it is an open standard instruction set architecture (ISA) based on established reduced instruction set computer (RISC) principles. So far, this FAQ series has looked at how “RISC-V is growing and offers stability, scalability, and security,” the “Growing availability of tools reducing the risk of […]
RISC-V for artificial intelligence machine learning and embedded systems
Several RISC-V development efforts are targeting applications such as artificial intelligence (AI), machine learning (ML), deep learning (DL), and other high-performance embedded applications. The previous two FAQs in this series considered the capabilities of RISC-V and the near-term risks associated with the technology, and the growing availability of tools that are helping to reduce the […]
Teardown: The new Roku Ultra
Roku bills its new Ultra device as its fastest and most powerful player ever. Its features include 50% more range for its wireless capabilities, support for Dolby Vision (an HDR standard), Dolby Atmos (a surround-sound format), and Bluetooth, a fast channel launch, a lost remote finder capability, voice-remote controls and personal shortcut buttons, and the […]
Growing availability of tools reducing risk of using RISC-V
As discussed at the end of the first FAQ in this series, “RISC-V is growing and offers stability, scalability, and security,” there is a lack of testing standards and tools for RISC-V compared with mature ISAs such as Intel and Arm. This is an area that is experiencing accelerating developments and progress. The growing availability […]
RISC-V is growing and offers stability, scalability and security
RISC-V is growing rapidly. Semico Research has projected that 62.4 billion RISC-V CPU cores will be sold in 2025. While that’s only about 6% of the overall CPU core market, RISC-V is an emerging technology that most designers should follow and become increasingly familiar with. RISC-V is becoming more commercially attractive as a result of […]
Microcontroller power source considerations for Arduino
Powering an Arduino has a little magic to it. It wasn’t obvious to me when I first started working with them, but Arduinos have on-board regulation. Taking advantage of this allows for longer power supply wiring runs by using a higher voltage power supply than the nominal 5V or 3.3V needed by the microcontroller (MCU) […]
The Iridium global satcom system, Part 5: Advances and competition
This worldwide satellite-based communications system went from dream to reality in a decade but quickly failed in the market; its revival took persistence and luck, plus a new customer base. Of course, there were also significant technological advances required in many areas, including designing and building longer-life electronics despite the unavoidable effects of space radiation […]
8-bits and counting: 8-bit MCUs are still going strong
Microcontroller units (MCUs) never stop evolving; a more functional, featured MCU follows every model. Embedded systems have grown with continually growing MCU technology, yet there are many traditional MCUs that are still selling in high volumes. Atmel 8051 is one of those legendary MCUs which have developed a considerable demand in the market. The Atmel […]
The Iridium global satcom system, Part 4: Lessons learned
This worldwide satellite-based communications system went from dream to reality in a decade but quickly failed in the market; its revival took persistence and luck, plus a new customer base. Today, Iridium is a viable mobile, satellite-based, which handles voice and data. As with standard cellular systems, its users have little or no idea of […]
