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Low Power Design Blog Energy-savings algorithms reviewed

The May edition of Communications of the ACM has a review article on algorithms for estimating the value of various energy-saving techniques in microprocessor-based systems.


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Added by Low Power Design Blog on July 30, 2010 at 7:35am — No Comments

Low Power Design Blog Power and the cost of design

At the Design Automation and Test in Europe conference held earlier this year in Dresden, Professor Mark Horowitz of Stanford University talked about his take on system design in an era when “lots of markets are drying up because the cost of innovation is so high”.


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Added by Low Power Design Blog on July 28, 2010 at 7:00am — No Comments

Robin Kennedy The Disruptive Effect of Open Source - panel debate at FWS-2010

NMI are running The Future World Symposium on 15th/16th September at Lord’s Cricket Ground in London. Apart from a great line-up of international senior speakers from companies like Intel, Microsoft, O2, Freescale, Aptina, ST-Ericsson and Wind River and including UK stars such as Imagination Technologies, CSR and ARM, we’re also running a number of panel sessions, including one on “The Disruptive Effect of Open Source”. This panel, on 16th September, will be chaired by Glyn Moody who is a journa… Continue

Added by Robin Kennedy on July 23, 2010 at 3:46pm — No Comments

Low Power Design Blog Wireless savings in the air

Earlier this month, the Solar Impulse aircraft took to the air for more than 24 hours, powered only by energy from the Sun. With a wingspan close to that of a Boeing 747, everything about Solar Impulse is focused on keeping the weight down. As a result, it can cruis

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Added by Low Power Design Blog on July 23, 2010 at 8:00am — No Comments

Low Power Design Blog Spinoff benefits from DDR3

In taking a look at benchmarks run on Tom’s Hardware, Steve Leibson on the Denali Memory Blog reckons DDR3 could be more important for embedded applications than for PCs.

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Added by Low Power Design Blog on July 20, 2010 at 9:17am — No Comments

Low Power Design Blog Power is the heart of the matter

Low-power design often involves apparently counter-intuitive decisions. In an experimental wearable heart monitor developed at the European research institute IMEC, it made sense to do more local signal processing on the battery-powered sensor module itself than to offload that to a host computer.

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Added by Low Power Design Blog on July 16, 2010 at 10:00am — No Comments

John Moor Funding is increasingly tight for IC start ups.

If you're in start up mode youself this is merely stating the obvious. In recent times there have been announcements of start ups getting funding (eoSemi and Mirics to name a couple) but deal flow is slowing. The basic problem is that it takes a long time and a (relatively) lot of money before investors can see a return. Add to this the amount of money already tied up with investors and attractive returns available in other sectors and its easy to understand why.

Is it the beginning of… Continue

Added by John Moor on July 15, 2010 at 9:07am — No Comments

John Moor Well done Dr. Derek...

Last week the University of Glasgow bestowed the award of an honorary doctorate to my colleague Derek Boyd for his services to the semiconductor industry. A BIG congratulations to him on that - its well deserved as he works very hard for the cause - right across the board. I don't think it'll change him as he's a very humble man... if anything it will add further fuel to his passion... for the industry (of course)!
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Added by John Moor on July 7, 2010 at 11:56am — No Comments

John Moor Graham Poll

This is topical... I have just found out that Graham "3 yellow cards and you're off" Poll will be joining NMI at the Annual Awards and Dinner on November 4th in London - more details to follow. Continue

Added by John Moor on June 23, 2010 at 8:24pm — No Comments

John Moor Is the era of the VC backed IC start up over?

With the costs associated with starting an IC company increasing and the length of time it takes to see a return on that investment many VC's have moved to later stage investments or vacated the area altogether. However start ups are vital to innovation in a great many electronics sectors hence the financing of this community is important. Necessity is the mother of invention - are we about to see a new model for start ups that does not rely so heavily on VC backing or do we need to see some hig… Continue

Added by John Moor on June 18, 2010 at 1:00am — No Comments

Robin Kennedy Looking ahead 10 years by looking back

What’s the world going to be like in the next 10 years? Maybe the best way to decide is to

look at how the world has changed in the last 10 years. And for that you need a
snapshot of the year 2000….


Clearing out the garage recently, I came across a paper from 8th June 2000. It
was a memorable time – the headline

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Added by Robin Kennedy on June 17, 2010 at 3:38pm — No Comments

John Moor Can you see 10 years into the future?

... Well, that's what we've been asking experts at The Future World Symposium to do. And we've chosen four key areas for electronics content of course:
  • Mobile, Wireless & Communications
  • Personal Computing
  • Digital Media & Home
  • Transport
The request also goes with "good luck with that" best wishes of course because we know from looking back at the last 10 years that it is not easy to predict
… Continue

Added by John Moor on June 4, 2010 at 9:52am — No Comments

John Moor And the answer is...

The Department for Business Innovation and Skills (DTI in old money) recently published the Hauser Review on Technology and Innovation Centres in the UK. Unlike many Government reports it can be digested in one sitting accompanied by your favourite beverage. Being a student of innovation systems these past 6 or 7 years, and having presented, written reports and expressed the needs of the UK's semiconductor industry, I read the report with great interest.… Continue

Added by John Moor on March 31, 2010 at 3:00pm — No Comments

John Moor Competitiveness: Smart People - Smart Ideas - The right environment

This is an extract from an article that caught my eye in The Irish Times. I noticed the article as the message (along with several other) were uttered by Craig Barrett, the ex chairman of Intel and given my role of industry champion (paraphrased of course) at NMI I wanted to see what else he had to say.

Average just won't do and shoe-horning thousands of undergrads through any sort
… Continue

Added by John Moor on February 9, 2010 at 10:13am — 1 Comment

Richard Blackburn An Event Without Power Point

How viable is it to run a technical event without Power Point presentations ? This is my big challenge. Each year I run the UK Embedded Masterclass. It started as a small forum to for the exchange of information regarding new Embedded Systems technologies. Now, in its 10th year, we have over 30 of the leading Embedded Systems vendors involved, 6 1/2 day technical workshops, a schedule of presentations and expect 200-300 embedded engineers to attend.… Continue

Added by Richard Blackburn on February 2, 2010 at 1:00pm — No Comments

Tricia Bodsworth 2009 Findlay UK Census

Findlay Media & New Electronics have just finished the 2009 UK Universe census. There are now 4646 sites in the UK where electronics design takes place, plus another 2039 peripheral sites where purchasing of electronics components takes place. 51,588 electronics design engineer’s work in the UK as follows: - Electronics OEM - 1886 sites with 12,897 electronics design engineers Intensive End Users - 2744 sites with 16,568 electronics design engineers Non-Manufacturing - 2055 sites with 22,12… Continue

Added by Tricia Bodsworth on January 29, 2010 at 2:33pm — No Comments

John Moor iPad: New dawn or hype?

Unless you've been asleep for the past week you may have noticed that Apple have introduced their new iPad to an amusing mix of acclaim and derision. Speaking personally I am excited by the opportunity that the new format iPad provides to developers and consumers a-like. Having acquired both an iPod Touch and an iPhone in Q4 2009 I have to say that I have been impressed with both products and how useful they are. I have been equally impressed that both my wife and son regularly wrestle the iPod… Continue

Added by John Moor on January 29, 2010 at 12:10pm — No Comments

John Moor 2009 - What a year its been

Its fair to say that 2009 has been an interesting year... it is fair to say its been an interesting year that at the very least! Everybody - and I do mean everybody - had concerns at the start of the year as economies hit uncharted waters and semiconductor markets looked to be plunging into another down cycle. This time, however, the prevailing conditions were not the usual that we had seen throughout our 50 year industry history. For the first time ever (so I am led to believe) average s… Continue

Added by John Moor on December 22, 2009 at 10:26am — No Comments

Robin Kennedy What were you doing on 1st January 1985?

That was when the mobile phone network in the UK started (with Cellnet and Vodafone). Twenty five years later, Cambridge Wireless are running a “Celluar 25” event. Looks to be a great event and line-up of speakers - more details are linked from http://www.nminet.org/events/cellular-25. I first used a ‘mobile’ phone in 1988 – as a post-finals student earning extra money at a celebrity tennis weekend near Bath (Ilie Năstase was the star attra… Continue

Added by Robin Kennedy on November 30, 2009 at 3:17pm — No Comments

Dr Trevor Gainey How do we encourage more budding engineers into the industry?

Those of you who attended the NMI Annual General Meeting last week will have heard three inspiring talks from the invited speakers. Indro Mukerjee of CMAC Technology raised the important issue of how we encourage more engineers into the industry and I believe that the NMI are working to raise this issue with government given the declining numbers of undergraduates entering relevant courses in UK Universities. Indro talked about taking the solution back further down the "food chain" into school… Continue

Added by Dr Trevor Gainey on November 13, 2009 at 10:30am — No Comments

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