December 15, 2014, IEDM, San Francisco—Masahide Goto from NHK Science and Technology Research Laboratories described work on a pixel-parallel detector and A-D converter on bonded SOI wafers. The test device changes the underlying architecture to handle the need for increased data processing and higher resolution. The detector is focused on the high dynamic range, high…
September 15, 2014, Custom Integrated Circuits Conference, San Jose, CA—A team from Stanford EE and CS departments is working out the kinks in Carbon Nanotube (CNT) designs. Their efforts have resulted in the demonstration of a high-energy efficiency computer. The projected values for CNTs are due to their superior electro-static parameters versus Si, and high…
September 15, 2014, Custom Integrated Circuits Conference, San Jose, CA—Tsuenobu Kimoto talked about the prospects for SiC ICs. The material is interesting for its inherent characteristics and is suitable for ICs operating at high temperatures and radiation-hard environments. The evolution from discrete power devices to ICs will require efforts to overcome the technology challenges. Silicon…
August 5, 2014, Emerging Display Technology Conference, San Jose, CA—A trio of pundits and technologists talked about the drivers and markets for 4k TV sets. Paul Gagnon from NPD Displaysearch joined Graham Loveridge from Pixelworks and Mick Grover from Sharp in a set of presentations. Gagnon noted that the market is growing for all types…
May 8, 2014, Neurogaming Conference, San Francisco—Chris Berka from Advanced Brain Monitoring talked about the changing requirements for sensors and their integration into fully functional diagnostic and brain interfaces. The need for platform-independent hardware and software is growing as more detailed analyses and studies emerge. Now, human subject studies need to go to multi-phase tests…
May 7, 2014, Internet of Things Developer Conference, Santa Clara, CA—Peter McGuinness from Imagination Technologies talked about scaling processors in heterogeneous platforms to the app and performance requirements. This approach to systems development allows for more flexibility and more optimal power, performance, and cost structures. Developing devices for the IoT must address the high likelihood…
April 24, 2014, Data Storage Innovation Conference, Santa Clara, CA—Marty Stogsdill from Discover described the steps that the financial services company has taken to backup their databases over high-speed networks. He explained the changes and efforts to improve overall system performance. Discover is a multiple business unit company providing financial services to a wide range…
November 13, 2013, AMD Developer Summit, San Jose, CA—Gary Demos from Image Essence described the fundamentals and other requirements for real-time 4k high dynamic range video decoding. The computational requirements of decoding video at high frame rates and high dynamic range have to fill a 25.5 Gb/s pipeline. One of the key issues for this…
July 11, 2013, Motion Tracking Developers’ Conference, San Francisco—Jean-Christophe Eloy from Yole Development presented the trends in MEMS and their applications. The mobile space and many consumer devices are now including MEMS. The mobile space, while requiring a full set of sensors, is looking for greater differentiation in their products. This push is driving the…
June 19, 2013, Entertainment Technology in the Internet Age, SPMTE and SCIEN conference, Stanford, CA—A group of experts considered the issues of achieving quality on the Internet. Joyce Farrell chaired the group, which consisted of Scott Daly from Dolby, John Apostolopoulos from Cisco, and Sunil Bharitkar from Dolby. Apostolopoulos noted the advances in Web media…