Embedded Executive Podcast

Don’t stop me if you’ve heard this before, because it needs to be repeated, again, and again. The embedded industry needs to take security more seriously. Hacks are continuing to occur and will continue until there is a “security by design” mentality in place in our space. It’s hard to believe we are still having this discussion, but we are. I also expressed my frustration on this week’s Embedded Executives podcast with Josh Heller, the Manager of Product Security at Digi International. Josh confirmed my fears, but had some great suggestions to help solve the problem.

Edge AI is one of the popular topics amongst the embedded community. It’s the place where decisions are made, data is analyzed, etc. It’s also a place where lots of confusion arises because of its complexity, especially from a development perspective. To get to the heart of where the challenges lie in this phase of design, I spoke with Jim Beneke, a Vice President for Tria Americas, an Avnet company, on this week’s Embedded Executives podcast. Jim has a pretty deep history in the embedded space and served as a great resource on this topic.

Common knowledge says that if you want to create an ASIC, you’d better have at least $1M in your bank account. The folks at Efabless say that my common knowledge is inaccurate by a long shot. They claim to be able to get folks started for far less than $100k.I needed to understand how this is possible, so I invited Michael Wishart, the CEO and co-founder of Efabless, to explain how it works on this week’s Embedded Executives podcast, with Kumar Gala and Maureen Helm, both Distinguished Engineers with Analog Devices.

From a developer’s perspective, Edge AI is anything but simple. Any tools, software, etc., that can simplify the process of integrating this technology into a system is very welcome. That’s where ClearBlade comes in, with its framework that developers “design to,” using hardware, software, and even terminology that the design community is accustomed to. That process may seem vague and complex, but it needn’t be, as stated by Aaron Allsbrook, the Co-Founder and CTO of ClearBlade, in this week’s Embedded Executives podcast.

Industrial platforms come with a specific set of design criteria. And the term “industrial” can be quite ambiguous, running the gamut from power tools to manufacturing equipment. Obviously, there are different requirements within this range. When you’re choosing an MCU for this space, you had better understand what your specific requirements are. Making the wrong choice will likely have an impact on the efficiency of your end product, which could result in higher power consumption, less heat, and so on. To understand where a designer should start the MCU selection process, I spoke to Steve Tateosian, the Senior Vice President of Consumer, IoT, and Industrial MCUs at Infineon, on this week’s Embedded Executives podcast.

At the LoRa Alliance, there’s a new sheriff in town. Alper Yegin is the group’s new CEO. LoRa, which stands for long range, allows transmissions to occur at very low power, sometimes lasting many years without changing batteries. Yegin believes the LoRa spec is quite solid, but there’s always room for it to evolve. He feels that one of his primary tasks is increasing awareness and education around the standard. This can (and will) happen by increasing partnerships with complementary organizations, having more activity at industry events, and holding local meetups. In this week’s Embedded Executives podcast, we also discuss how the spec competes in a crowded space and what the future holds.

Open tools are becoming the norm in the embedded software development space. And that’s definitely the case for Analog Devices’ CodeFusion Studio tool. The IDE lets developers start with an SoC, and design their systems from there. The software development platform is based on Microsoft's Visual Studio Code (VS Code). On this week’s Embedded Executives podcast, with Kumar Gala and Maureen Helm, both Distinguished Engineers with Analog Devices’ Software & Digital Platforms Group, we defined what “open” means in this space, then jumped into how and where a developer would get started.

It’s been a very successful year for the Z-Wave Alliance. If you have any doubts about that statement, check out this week’s Embedded Executives podcast, where I spoke to Avi Rosenthal, the Chairman of the Alliance. Avi rattled off a long list of achievements for the organization, including a new spec, an unplug fest, and many new products. These endeavors all transcend nicely into wins for the community. That means developers have more/better options when it comes to wireless devices.

Tyson Tuttle left the helm of Silicon Labs a few years ago, took a little time to recharge the batteries, and now he’s back in the thick of things with a new company called Circuit. Given its name, you might think it’s a company designing ICs, but that’s not true. The company is building what some might call a productivity tool, but Tyson describes it as something way bigger and far more involved than that. He claims it’s a way to turn information into insights to simplify life, enhance work, and strengthen communities. Hear all about it on this week’s Embedded Executives podcast.

The industry revolves around two types of AI, namely research AI versus production AI. I wasn’t sure what these terms meant and their differences, so I asked an expert to join me on this week’s Embedded Executives podcast. John Weil is the Vice president and General Manager of Synaptics’ IoT Business Unit. After setting me straight, John talks about the last 20% of a design that the customer needs to figure out for themselves, amongst other things.