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…
By Peter McGuinness, Imagination Technologies The concept of ray tracing has been bandied about for more than a generation – since 1968, it has been viewed as a promising technology, especially for visual arts disciplines, and in particular, the entertainment industry. Why? Because the ray tracing algorithm as developed into its recursive form can closely…
April 2, 2014, EE Live Conference, San Jose, CA—Andrew “Bunnie” Huang talked about the changes in the industry and the growing openness of consumer systems. Embedded systems are benefiting from the increasing commoditization of the underlying hardware. In the earlier days of consumer electronics, in the 1930’s, products came with schematics, tuning specifications, and other…
March 26, 2014, GPU Technology Conference, San Jose, CA—James Fox from DawnRunner described the changes in visual effects workflows, and the consequences and impacts of changing technologies. New technologies are enabling small, independent visual effects companies to challenge existing philosophies. Existing solutions to creating effects are very hard to scale. The complex tools and equipment…
March 25, 2014, GPU Technology Conference, San Jose, CA—Matteo Garibotti from the University of Genoa talked about the devices and technologies that will inhabit our media viewing space in the future. Increasingly, 3-D is moving into cinema, games, and at a slower pace, to TV. These trends are driving changes in displays and other visual…
February 10, 2014, ISSCC, San Francisco—This session focused on RF building blocks that can minimize or eliminate external component in radio systems in wireless systems. The first half of the session looked at the transmission side, mainly for cell phones, and the remainder offered receivers. One interesting paper from David Murphy at Broadcom is a…
February 10, 2014, ISSCC, San Francisco—Ming-Kai Tsai from MediaTek presented his vision of the next generation cloud and how it will call for new technology to overcome the many challenges. Cloud 1.0 has seen the construction of major infrastructures, and now we will soon see how this system of systems will evolve. Taiwan has changed…
February 10, 2014, ISSCC, San Francisco—Mark Horowitz from Stanford talked about the need to change our views of computing and energy use. Even though Moore and Dennard promised lower costs and higher performance with every generation, we are hitting some fundamental limits. Computers, or microprocessors are showing up everywhere, even in disposable greeting cards. But…
November 12, 2013, AMD Developer Summit, San Jose, CA—Laurent Betbeder from Sony outlined the considerations for the latest console. The game audio system addresses the need for clean audio within the games. The consoles are moving towards more PC hardware to take advantage of the greater need for performance and lower costs. The major difference…