Shows
DevTalk with Rich and VinDevTalk with Rich and Vin: The Vital Connection Between Industry and AcademiaDoes the academic world do a good job at getting its students ready to work in the real world? Is it even possible to do that now, given the pace AI is forcing industry to move at, and knowing that academia doesn’t typically move that quickly? This is the tip of the iceberg from the discussion that Vin and I had on our latest DevTalk podcast with John Janowiak, the Executive Director of ECEDHA (the Electrical and Computer Engineering Department Heads Association). We look at who is doing a good job at addressing the issues and why...
2026-02-1730 minDevTalk with Rich and VinDevTalk with Rich and Vin: AI in UniversityWe know that AI is everywhere. An area of particular concern for the DevTalk crew is how AI fits into today’s higher education programs. With our special guest Kevin Lu, the Associate Dean for Engineering and Science for Undergraduate Studies at Stevens Institute of Technology, we look at two specific areas—how do you ensure that students aren’t “cheating” by making use of AI, and second, how do you ensure that the careers you are getting them ready for are the right careers, in this changing world of AI? It’s a fascinating topic, and one that will evolve...
2026-01-2026 minDevTalk with Rich and VinDevTalk with Rich and Vin: UI DesignThe user interface, aka the HMI, is oftentimes the only interaction a user has with a platform. Hence, it represents your brand, and it needs to look great and work great. On this episode of DevTalk with Rich and Vin, we discuss what it takes to properly design a great HMI, as well as how much effort needs to go into it. And we get an assist from Renesas, who are making HMIs one of the company’s core enabling technologies. To further simplify the process, Renesas will host a webinar on this topic on Febr...
2026-01-0916 minDevTalk with Rich and VinDevTalk with Rich and Vin: Hidetoshi Shibata, CEO, RenesasEvery once in a while, we hit a home run when it comes to bringing guests onto the DevTalk podcast, and today we did just that. We managed to wrangle in Hidetoshi Shibata, who has been in his current CEO role at Renesas for about six years. Toshi was very forthcoming with us, as we went through his fairly colorful past, and more importantly, the decisions he has had to make as the CEO of one of the most powerful companies in our space.
2025-10-0931 minDevTalk with Rich and VinDevTalk with Rich and Vin: Knowing Where your AI Project Should StartIf you believe all the hype, it seems that AI is being integrated into nearly every embedded computing platform. It may not be everyone, but the percentage is fairly high and growing. So, as a developer, do you know what your starting point should be for your project? What Vin and I discovered, thanks to Avijit Sinha, Senior VP of Strategy and Global Business Development at Wind River, is that a whole lot of questions need to be answered before you even get to the starting point. Hear it for yourself on this episode of th...
2025-06-1128 minDevTalk with Rich and VinDevTalk with Rich and Vin: RustYou likely have heard of the Rust programming language, known for its safety features. But, like me, you may not know its details, and frankly, why you should be considering it for your next design. For those reasons, Rich and Vin invited Jonathan Pallant, a Senior Engineer with Ferrous Systems, to join them on this episode of DevTalk with Rich and Vin.
2025-04-2432 minDevTalk with Rich and VinDevTalk with Rich and Vin: Reverse EngineeringJust about everybody in the engineering space has reverse-engineered a product at some point. It might have been for professional reasons, like seeing how a competitor is attacking a problem or simply seeing how they engineered a product. Or it could have been for personal reasons, because the product stopped working, or simply because they wanted to. Note: If you search for “Tear Down” on Embedded Computing Design, you can see the products we’ve reverse-engineered.Then there are those people, like the folks at emproof, who get paid to reverse-engineer products, particularly on the softwar...
2025-04-1022 minDevTalk with Rich and VinDevTalk with Rich and Vin: Embedded FPGAs with AchronixTheoretically, you can do whatever functions you require in hardware or software. The most efficient way to complete those functions is with the proper mix of hardware and software. The important question is how you determine what gets implemented in hardware versus what’s in software. What if you can do a quasi-hardware-software mix? That’s what is available through embedded FPGAs. To understand this technology far better than Vin or I can, we invited Steve Mensor, a Vice President at Achronix Semiconductor onto the DevTalk with Rich and Vin podcast to explain it in terms...
2025-02-2526 minDevTalk with Rich and VinDevTalk with Rich and Vin: Steve SanghiMost people in our embedded industry are familiar with Steve Sanghi, who has been the CEO of Microchip for more than thirty years. Steve took over the company in its not-so-successful early days and brought it to the great heights we know today, as a multi-billion dollar semiconductor powerhouse.Steve stepped down from the CEO role a few years ago and is now doing lots of philanthropic work and writing a few books. We were thrilled and honored to have Steve join us on the latest episode of DevTalk with Rich and Vin.
2024-11-2131 minDevTalk with Rich and VinDevTalk with Rich and Vin: Maher Matta, President, Infineon AmericasMaher Matta, the President of the Americas division of Infineon Technologies agreed to join Rich and Vin on this episode of the podcast. The audience will likely relate to the route taken by Maher, as he came up through the engineering ranks, starting as a bench engineer. As you might expect, there were some bumps and bruises along the way. If you subscribe to the theory that the proof is in the pudding, the evidence is clear—the reign under Maher is working. The company is thriving and is a leader in many of the spaces in which it com...
2024-10-3124 min
The Garage by SonatusRich Nass of Open Systems Media | S2 Ep16In this episode of The Garage we talk with Rich Nass, famed journalist who is Executive Vice President with Open Systems Media following his long career at storied electronics periodicals. Rich talks with John Heinlein, Ph.D., Chief Marketing Officer at Sonatus and shares his perspective from talking with leaders across the industry about vehicle innovation ranging from architecture, software, safety, regulations, AI and much more.
2024-10-3029 minDevTalk with Rich and VinDevTalk with Rich and Vin: Buckle Your Seatbelt, We’re Going to MarsThe space program has come quite far in the last decade when it comes to sending people to Mars and building a colony there. If you’re wondering what it would take to accomplish that, check out the book Colonizing Mars by Frank Norris. Or, take the easy way out and check out the latest DevTalk with Rich and Vin podcast, where we invited Frank on as a guest.
2024-10-1124 minDevTalk with Rich and VinDevTalk with Rich and Vin: Requirements-Management ToolsAs the complexity of our embedded systems has exploded, particularly in the automotive space, a requirements-management tool has moved into the “must-have” category. With the volume of people, the humongous code base, and the geographically disparate design teams, it’s nearly impossible to maintain and track every aspect of a design. With all that said, Rich and Vin talk about this need and the fact that many design teams choose to deploy ancient, rudimentary methods that too often lead to failure. The duo is joined by Neil Stroud, the General Manager for Automotive and Semiconductor at Jama Softwa...
2024-08-2123 minDevTalk with Rich and VinDevTalk with Rich and Vin: Test Early and OftenEngineers know how important it is to test their prototypes. What they don’t seem to get is that the testing process needs to start at the beginning of the design process, not at the end. And testing must continue all the way through the entire design process. The reasons for this are what Rich and Vin go through on this episode of DevTalk with Rich and Vin.
2024-08-0614 minDevTalk with Rich and VinDevTalk with Rich and Vin (and SiLabs CEO)In this episode of DevTalk with Rich (Nass) and Vin (D’Agostino), Matt Johnson, the CEO of Silicon Labs joins us. It’s a lively discussion, starting in rural Maine, and ending with “Should engineers be concerned that AI will take their jobs?” Listen in for some interesting responses.
2024-05-2432 minDevTalk with Rich and VinDevTalk with Rich and Vin (and Digi CEO)Welcome to a slightly different version of our DevTalk with Rich and Vin podcast. In addition to doing our traditional tech talks, which you’ve clearly told us that you enjoy, we will be producing discussions with CEOs. But we won’t be going through the usual company blah, blah, blah. We’re going to dig a little deeper and find out what really drives these individuals, who are obviously very determined, or they wouldn’t be in the positions they are in. And we told them that to be a guest, they couldn’t limit or filter our questions...
2024-04-2521 minDevTalk with Rich and VinDevTalk with Rich and Vin: ChipletsChiplets are quite in vogue these days. But are they the solution to all your problems? Probably not, but that doesn’t mean you shouldn’t understand what they are, how they work, and how you can implement them in your design. Check out this installment of DevTalk with Rich and Vin and you’ll at least have a baseline understanding of this technology.
2024-02-0811 minDevTalk with Rich and VinDevTalk with Rich and Vin: What Was Supposed to Happen in 2023 That Didn’tThis is the time of year for predictions: What do you think will happen in 2024? As you might expect, Rich and Vin take a different approach. They look at the things that were predicted for 2023, but didn’t actually pan out. Is AI the panacea that we expected? Maybe not. It’s likely that more partnerships must occur for this technology to match the hype. Tune in and let us know if you agree or disagree with our opinions.
2024-01-1912 minDevTalk with Rich and VinDevTalk with Rich and Vin: FPGAs for the Midrange Do ExistIn the golden era of electrical engineering, when yours truly was a budding designer, we worked with a processor, like an 8051 or an 8085, and we wrote some code to go with it. Programmable log? It existed, but those things were too darn expensive for what we called mainstream or mid-range applications. Fast forward to today, and you’d be hard pressed to come up with application that doesn’t make use of programmable logic.In this episode of DevTalk with Rich and Vin, we look at today’s landscape of FPGAs, particularly those that are, in theo...
2023-12-1418 minDevTalk with Rich and VinDevTalk with Rich and Vin: Do Engineers Understand the Basics of Engineering?When content gets posted to Embedded Computing Design that’s latest “The Basics of …” or “XYZ 101,” the content usually gets tons of page views. I always wondered why that was the case. Are our engineers not as knowledgeable as we think? Are they just checking to make sure their assumptions are correct? I decided this would be a good topic for Vin, who teaches classes in some of these basics. Check out this edition of DevTalk with Rich and Vin to see the response.
2023-12-0715 min
Stimulating StuffNeuromonitoring in the North American Spine Society (NASS)Rich takes you behind the scenes of the NASS Neuromonitoring Section—how it started, what it’s accomplished, and why its work is shaping the future of IONM. From major policy wins to the buzz around new coverage recommendations, this episode dives deep into the intersection of spine surgery and neurophysiology.
2023-10-2335 minDevTalk with Rich and VinDevTalk with Rich and Vin: Practical Applications For AIAre you wondering what would be considered a practical application for AI at the endpoint (the place where the data is captured)? Well, you’re in luck, because Rich is moderating a panel at Renesas’ AI Live virtual conference that specifically covers that topic. To get one more opinion on what is a practical application, Rich and Vin discuss exactly that, and as you’d expect, Vin dives in pretty deep. Check it out, and also check out the session at the virtual conference.
2023-10-1112 minDevTalk with Rich and VinDevTalk with Rich and Vin: Myth: AI Is an Application. Verdict: FalseSeemingly, if you've read any news report that touches on the technology sector, there’s some mention of artificial intelligence. But too often, we hear people talking about AI as an application, and that’s wrong, just like the IoT is not an application. Rather, it’s an enabler to other applications. AI helps enhance your XYZ application, making it better, faster, etc. But that’s all it is, a means to an end. If you don’t believe me, check out this episode of DevTalk with Rich and Vin podcast.
2023-09-0611 minDevTalk with Rich and VinDevTalk with Rich and Vin: Adding AI to the HVAC Specialist’s ToolbeltWhether you’re aware of it or not. AI is pervading many of our “traditional” applications, such as HVAC. Adding some smarts to this equipment allows the HVAC system to perform longer and more efficiently, resulting in a better user experience and a cost savings. To get a better handle on how this works and how it should be implemented, Rich and Vin spoke to Nalin Balan, a Business Development Manager for Reality AI, a Renesas company, on this episode of DevTalk with Rich and Vin.More detail will be available on a related webinar titled Use AI/ML...
2023-08-0113 minDevTalk with Rich and VinDevTalk with Rich and Vin: Is AI the Greatest Achievement of Our Lifetime?AI seems to be omni-present. It’s in the news, it’s in our classrooms, and it’s certainly in our engineering labs. But are we spending too much time discussing the technology that’s the current “new thing,” or is it really the greatest technology of our lifetime? In this episode of DevTalk with Rich and Vin, we ponder that question, and make a determination. Tune in to find out what we think. During the podcast, we reference the AI Day Virtual Conference. Check out the link for more info.
2023-07-1112 minDevTalk with Rich and VinDevTalk with Rich and Vin: How and Where to Begin Your AI DesignWhile Rich and Vin usually believe they all the answers to all the design-related questions, that may not always be the case. For example, when the question of where to begin your AI-based design came up, the “experts” felt in was prudent to bring in someone even more expert. In this case, that was Stuart Feffer, of Renesas. Note that Stuart will be conducting a webinar on this topic.
2023-06-0613 minDevTalk with Rich and VinDevTalk with Rich and Vin: Assessing the AI/ML EcosystemAI and machine learning are relatively new technologies in the embedded space. And the only way an application space can grow is by having a robust ecosystem. Some may argue that such an ecosystem already exists for AI, while others say that developers should wait a bit before diving in.To get a handle on where this important topic stands, Rich and Vin sat with Kaushal Vora, a Senior Director at Renesas. Kaushal works with suppliers in this space and is lending a hand in the creation of the AI ecosystem.Note that we are...
2023-05-0915 min
Embedded Executive PodcastEmbedded Executive: Chris Neil, SVP, Maxim VenturesI think it’s awesome when some of the bigger vendors in our space help fund start-ups. One example of that is Maxim Ventures, an arm of Maxim Integrated. The investment group is funding a bunch of startups in the medical space. You go into these things knowing that some of your investments are going to pay off and some aren’t. But if you pick a big-time winner, it can pay off in spades. Maxim Ventures has already seen some level of success, as Chris Neil, a Senior Vice President of Maxim Ventures, explains in this week’s Embedd...
2020-09-2312 minEmbedded Executive PodcastEmbedded Executive: Ron Martino, SVP/GM, Business Line Edge Processing, NXP SemiconductorsLiving at the Edge can be tricky. That’s the Edge of the IoT that I’m referring to. When you’re one of the leading providers of microprocessors, as NXP clearly is, you have lots of questions that must be addressed. Two big ones concern security and AI. In this week’s Embedded Executives podcast, I spoke to NXP’s Ron Martino, Senior Vice President and General Manager of Business Line Edge Processing, to see hear the company’s responses to those important questions.
2020-09-1618 minEmbedded Executive PodcastEmbedded Executive: Reuben Townsend, European FAE GigaDeviceRISC-V gets a lot of attention as an open-source ISA. Is that attention warranted? The answer, unfortunately, is that it depends. It depends on what problem you’re trying to solve, your familiarity with the tools, your design window, and your engineering talent. The aspect I wanted to confirm was whether the ecosystem is ready for prime time, because as you know, no matter how great your silicon is, if you can’t program it, you’re not going to get very far. One IC vendor that’s sticking his proverbial neck out in the RISC-V space is GigaDe...
2020-09-0908 minEmbedded Executive PodcastEmbedded Executive: Bob Scaccia, President & CEO, USA FirmwareSoftware is becoming the new firmware. If you believe that, as Bob Scaccia, President and CEO of USA Firmware does, we are at the beginning of a new era, and we had better be prepared for it. What the heck does all that mean? To understand it better, I asked Bob to be my guest on this week’s Embedded Executives podcast.
2020-09-0211 minEmbedded Executive PodcastEmbedded Executive: Steven Wu, VP R&D Center, DFIAI at the Edge is now in vogue. But it presents a fundamental problem in that higher compute performance is needed, yet there are many constraints at the Edge, including size, weight, power, and cost. Each of those constraints presents its own unique problem. To understand how to design at the Edge, I spoke to Steven Wu, Vice President of the Research and Development Center at DFI in this week’s Embedded Executives podcast.
2020-08-2608 minEmbedded Executive PodcastEmbedded Executive: Florian Bohn, Cofounder & CEO, GuRu WirelessI think the embedded industry and its associated technology is very cool. Call me a geek if you must. But every once in a while, I come across a technology that takes “cool” to a completely different level. That occurred this week when I interviewed Florian Bohn, the Co-Founder and CEO of GuRu Wireless. The company is close to commercializing wireless charging, where the charging is done at a distance of a few feet. Check out this week’s Embedded Executives podcast and let me know if you agree with the cool factor.
2020-08-1911 minEmbedded Executive PodcastEmbedded Executive: Vineet Ganju, VP, SynapticsSynaptics just made a hefty acquisition if you’re a player or follower of the IoT space. The company acquired the Wireless Connectivity division of Broadcom. To understand what that means and how it can affect the embedded space, I invited Vineet Ganju, a Vice President at Synaptics as my guest on this week’s Embedded Executives podcast. The biggest takeaway for me is that this space is about to get a little more interesting.
2020-08-1209 minEmbedded Executive PodcastEmbedded Executive: Greg Nicoloso, CEO, SECO USASECO USA does not produce ventilators. However, its customers do. As a result, SECO USA forged a partnership to produce, manufacture, and donate those ventilators to needy hospitals in the US. It’s great to see things like this, when so many people are in need during the COVID-19 pandemic. As Greg Nicoloso, the CEO of SECO USA explained, the company doesn’t want to be a medical-device supplier, but they do want to be a supplier to the companies that supply medical devices. Greg does a great job of explaining all of this on this week’s Embedded Execut...
2020-08-0506 minEmbedded Executive PodcastEmbedded Executive: Phil Beecher, President, Wi-SUN AllianceThe Wi-SUN Alliance has been around for nearly a decade. The group was formed to develop testing and certification standards for connecting to IoT networks. It has its own wireless spec, which may or may not be confusing, depending on who you are and who you’re talking to. To eliminate the confusion for me and our readers, I interviewed Phil Beecher, President of the Wi-SUN Alliance in this week’s Embedded Executives podcast. Thankfully, he set me straight.
2020-07-2909 minEmbedded Executive PodcastEmbedded Executive: Rory Dear, Managing Director, DSLThe goal of the Embedded Executives podcast is to educate our readers about the issues that are of concern to a design engineer/developer. One executive that’s seen just about every situation a developer might encounter is Rory Dear, the Managing Director of DSL. As such, I ran through a litany of issues with Rory, getting his opinion on everything from NRE to open source.
2020-07-2306 minEmbedded Executive PodcastEmbedded Executive: Piyush Sevalia, EVP, SiTime5G requires more radios. Playing devil’s advocate, does that mean there are many more points of failure? Seems obvious, doesn’t it? That’s what I asked Piyush Sevalia, an Executive Vice President at SiTime, who joined me for this week’s Embedded Executives podcast.
2020-07-1510 minEmbedded Executive PodcastEmbedded Executive: Logan Maxwell, Director, Wiser SystemsTracing of products is an important function. It can be used for everything from property loss to food and medicine whereabouts, and lots of stuff in between. Another interesting application for tracing, especially in our new normal, is knowing when people are practicing social distancing. Wiser Systems specializes in tracing, so I wondered whether its technology could be used to track people. That’s where the conversation started with Logan Maxwell, the company’s Director of Technical Sales in this week’s Embedded Executives podcast.
2020-07-0806 minEmbedded Executive PodcastEmbedded Executive: Jacques Issa, Senior VP, VirtiumThere is an explosion of data, thanks to COVID-19. I heard that recently, and it surprised me. I could not understand the relationship between the two, so I went to someone who has to deal with that huge increase, Virtium. My guest on this week’s Embedded Executives podcast is Jacques Issa, a Senior Vice President at the company. And once he explained it to me, it was somewhat of a “Duh!” moment.
2020-07-0107 minEmbedded Executive PodcastSpecial COVID-19 Edition of Embedded Executive: Naveed Sherwani, CEO, SiFiveDifferent vendors are doing different things to cope with the COVID-19 pandemic. Many of them are doing their part to help get us through this awful time. One of those is SiFive, a fabless semiconductor company specializing in the RISC-V instruction set architecture. Hear what they are doing to help society in this week’s Embedded Executives podcast.
2020-06-2409 minEmbedded Executive PodcastEmbedded Executive: Dave Kjendal, CTO and EVP of Engineering, SenetThe LoRa Alliance is a fairly dynamic organization, as projects appear to be progressing nicely. The organization began with just a handful of vendors and has now grown to more than 500. To that end, Dave Kjendal, CTO and Executive Vice President of Engineering at Senet, has just joined the Alliance’s Board of Directors. It seemed like a good time to speak to Dave to hear what his ideas and direction are for the Alliance. Dave is my guest on this week’s Embedded Executives podcast.
2020-06-1707 minEmbedded Executive PodcastEmbedded Executive: Kristin Russell, President, Global Services, Arrow ElectronicsIf you’ve been in the industry for a while, you likely know that we continually oscillate between more compute power at the edge and a more centralized computer. Is there a valid reason for that? That’s the question I asked of Kristin Russell, President of Global Services at Arrow Electronics in this week’s Embedded Executives podcast.
2020-06-1010 minEmbedded Executive PodcastSpecial COVID-19 Edition of Embedded Executives: Chris Rogers, CEO, SensiMLMany pundits say that the key to neutralizing the COVID-19 virus is testing, lots of testing. That’s easier said than done, unless you believe what the technology experts at SensiML are saying. They claim that with enough data in hand, they can tell you whether you have the infection simply by coughing into a microphone. And the test should produce results that are about 90% accurate. Wow! To be clear, this does not meet the requirements of a clinical tool, but it’s a fantastic start.When I heard about this, I knew I had to he...
2020-05-2810 minEmbedded Executive PodcastEmbedded Executives: Eduardo Quinones, Senior Researcher, Barcelona Supercomputing CenterThe AMPERE Project is a three-year initiative run out of the Barcelona Supercomputing Center. It’s being done by a combination of universities and industry. The goal is to ensure that embedded systems are being maximized, using the technology that’s typically employed by today’s supercomputers. To help our audience understand exactly what this is all about, and what they should know about it, I spoke to Eduardo Quinones, a senior researcher at the Barcelona Supercomputing Center, on this week’s Embedded Executives podcast. Eduardo is a key participant in the AMPERE Project.
2020-05-2712 minEmbedded Executive PodcastSpecial COVID-19 Edition of Embedded Executives: Sasha Wolloch, President, Raltron ElectronicsIn our Special Edition of the Embedded Executive podcasts, we are interviewing execs to see how their engineering teams are dealing with the COVID-19 pandemic. We are looking at companies in different parts of the world, and big companies and small companies. In this interview with Sasha Wolloch, President of Raltron Electronics, we get a peek at how it’s going in my home state of Florida.
2020-05-2111 minEmbedded Executive PodcastEmbedded Executives: Thomas Smelker, VP/GM, Mercury SystemsMoore’s Law has been around for a long time—around 50 years. It says that transistor count will double every 18 months. Many “experts” have predicted that it is coming to an end. Some of those predictions have already proven false. But what’s the real answer: when will it end? That’s the basis of this week’s Embedded Executives podcast, where I speak to Thomas Smelker, the Vice President and General Manager of Custom Microelectronics Solutions at Mercury Systems.
2020-05-2011 minEmbedded Executive PodcastSpecial COVID-19 Edition of Embedded Executives: Bryan Muzyka, Manager, ACTIt’s very clear that different parts of the country and the world are dealing with the COVID-19 pandemic in different ways. That’s mostly dictated by local governments and the severity of the pandemic in a given area. In this Special COVID-19 Edition of Embedded Executive, I spoke to someone who lives and works in eastern Pennsylvania, that being Bryan Muzyka, a Manager at Advanced Cooling Technologies (ACT). This is an area that is less affected than others, but nonetheless, the company is doing its part to keep its employees safe.
2020-05-1407 minEmbedded Executive PodcastEmbedded Executives: Reza Azarderakhsh, President, PQ SecureDevice security is a key concern for everyone from developers to end-product suppliers to end users. Sometimes it takes some extreme measure to ensure the security of your device. Those extremes include quantum-safe cryptographic solutions, which is what is provided by PQ Secure, a relatively new company. In this week’s Embedded Executives podcast, I spoke to Reza Azarderakhsh, President of PQ Secure and he explained to me how this technology works and why it’s necessary in our current environment.
2020-05-1307 minEmbedded Executive PodcastEmbedded Executives: Louis Parks, CEO, Veridify SecuritySecurity has stepped up in some areas. But that’s not good enough—it has to step up in all areas. That couldn’t be any more important than it is today as we try to get through this terrible period that’s dominated by COVID-19. In light of that, I asked Louis Parks, the CEO of Veridify Security what need to happen to really lock down our systems. Check out this week’s Embedded Executive podcast.
2020-05-0609 minEmbedded Executive PodcastSpecial COVID-19 Edition of Embedded Executives: Stefan Skarin, CEO, IAR SystemsDuring this pandemic, most people are focused on the U.S., or more likely, their own specific region of the country. But pandemic by definition means something that’s global. I decided to check in with a different part of the world. In this Special COVID-19 Edition of Embedded Executive, I spoke to Stefan Skarin, the CEO of IAR Systems, who lives and works in Sweden.
2020-05-0410 minEmbedded Executive PodcastEmbedded Executives: Syed Alam, Managing Director, AccentureMergers and acquisitions are a way of life in the embedded, semiconductor, and electronics industries. The current pandemic has altered that trajectory somewhat, but not as much as you might expect. Business is going on and, thankfully, there’s no end in sight. Such concepts were the topics of discussion in this week’s Embedded Executive podcast, where I interviewed Syed Alam, who is the Managing Director of Strategy and Consulting at Accenture.
2020-04-2910 minEmbedded Executive PodcastSpecial COVID-19 Edition of Embedded Executives: Thomas Fowler, VP, Central Engineering, Silicon LabsDifferent parts of the country and the world have been hit in different ways by the COVID-19 pandemic. In our Special Edition of the Embedded Executive podcasts, we are trying to understand how different groups are dealing with the issue, strictly from a work/engineering perspective. In this interview, I spoke with Thomas Fowler, Vice President of Central Engineering at Silicon Labs. Fowler is based in Austin, TX.
2020-04-2709 minEmbedded Executive PodcastEmbedded Executives: Gurjot Singh, CEO, Lynx SoftwareOpen source is pretty close to “the norm” today. Aside from the military and a few other applications, developers don’t think twice about pulling down some open-source code and inserting it into their design. Is that a good thing? That’s the question I asked of Gurjot Singh, CEO of Lynx Software in this week’s Embedded Executive podcast.
2020-04-2210 minEmbedded Executive PodcastSpecial COVID-19 Edition of Embedded Executives: Anthony Ambrose, President & CEO, Data I/OWe are still in the thick of the COVID-19 pandemic. Nobody knows that better than the folks in the Seattle area, one of the first hot spots in the U.S. Anthony Ambrose, President and CEO of Data I/O is based in Redmond, Wash., so he, along with the majority of his employees, have been dealing with issues like work-from-home for quite some time. While it’s far from ideal, the company has learned to operate in this manner. Check out this Special Edition Embedded Executives podcast to hear how they are doing that.
2020-04-1607 minEmbedded Executive PodcastEmbedded Executives: Patrick Wadden, Global VP, Automotive Business Development, VicorDecentralized power is a phenomenon that’s starting to hit the automotive sector. Is it better to have lower power levels in more places in the car, as opposed to one centralized place? Hmm, I’m not sure, as I think I can make a pretty argument for either solution. Rather than attempt a guess, I went right to an expert for this week’s Embedded Executives podcast. That expert is Patrick Wadden, Vicor's Global Vice President of Automotive Business Development. He explains which is the better approach and why.
2020-04-1510 minEmbedded Executive PodcastSpecial COVID-19 Edition of Embedded Executives: John Milios, CEO, SendyneIn our Special Edition of the Embedded Executive podcasts, we are interviewing execs to see how they are dealing with the COVID-19 pandemic, only from an engineering workforce perspective (we’ll leave the politics to others). This edition is with a CEO who is smack in the middle of the US’s worst hotspot, New York City. Sendyne CEO John Milios describes what it’s like handling his engineering team.
2020-04-1407 minEmbedded Executive PodcastSpecial COVID-19 Edition of Embedded Executives: Todd DeBonis, President & CEO, PixelworksThe COVID-19 pandemic obviously hits different people in different ways, depending on a host of factors, which have all been discussed at length (and then some and then some) by the mainstream media. Here at Embedded Computing Design, we’re trying to understand how it has affected the engineering community solely from a work perspective. To that end, we will be conducting interviews with our Embedded Executives to see how they and their design teams are coping with the “new normal.” Today, I spoke with Todd DeBonis, President and CEO of Pixelworks. Like just about everyone I plan to speak...
2020-04-0909 minEmbedded Executive PodcastEmbedded Executives: David Kleidermacher, VP of Engineering, Head of Android Security and Privacy, GoogleThe Internet of Secure Things Alliance (IoXT) is pushing a common (and obvious) goal for our industry. They want to keep all of our connected devices secure. How do they do that, who belongs to the Alliance, and what does the future hold? These are the questions I asked of David Kleidermacher in this week’s Embedded Executives podcast. David sits on the Alliance’s Board, and is also the Vice President of Engineering and Head of Android Security and Privacy at Google.
2020-04-0810 minEmbedded Executive PodcastEmbedded Executives: Rob Oshana, VP of SW R&D for Edge Processing, NXPWe are in the midst of a global pandemic thanks to COVID-19, aka Coronavirus. It’s turned people’s lives completely upside down. But engineers and developers, like many people, still have jobs to do. How that gets done in this time of social distancing is interesting at best. I discussed this issue with Rob Oshana, Vice President of Software R&D for Edge Processing, NXP in this week’s Special Edition of the Embedded Executives podcast.
2020-04-0106 minEmbedded Executive PodcastEmbedded Executives: Stephen Gold, CCO, HZOReliability is a subjective feature of a product. And we’ve come to accept certain levels for products that are frankly, below what they should be. One example is waterproofing. The technology is available today to protect our products, but for various reasons, we give in to sub-par products. In this week’s week’s Embedded Executives podcast, I discuss this topic with Stephen Gold, the Chief Commercial Officer for HZO.
2020-03-2509 minEmbedded Executive PodcastEmbedded Executives: Geoff Tate, CEO, Flex LogixInferencing is a hot topic. Let’s start with “what is inferencing?” Then, how do you benchmark inferencing? That’s the topic du jour in this week’s Embedded Executives podcast, with guest Geoff Tate is CEO and co-founder of Flex Logic. We also get into whether some vendors are trying to rig the system.
2020-03-1807 minEmbedded Executive PodcastEmbedded Executives: Steve Johnson, President & GM, DigilentTest tools can be expensive; in some case, very expensive. But if your needs don’t extend to the leading edge, you may find that there are some much lower cost tools available. That’s an area that Digilent specializes in. And according to Steve Johnson, Digilent’s President and General Manager in this week’s Embedded Executives podcast, you may be surprised that most of your needs will be covered.
2020-03-1107 minEmbedded Executive PodcastEmbedded Executives: Mike Nicholson, Embedded Software/Systems Architect, MultiTechSecurity has been top of mind for a long time, long enough that someone should be doing something about it. Most experts will tell you that the industry is doing something about it, and more than just something. In this week’s Embedded Executives podcast, I discussed this topic with Mike Nicholson, Embedded Software/Systems Architect, MultiTech. While chatting, Mike revealed that MultiTech is sponsoring a Hackathon, where they are encouraging the community to into the company’s latest IoT development gateway product, the Conduit 300. Anyone that’s able to hack in will win some big prizes.
2020-03-0408 minEmbedded Executive PodcastEmbedded Executives: Scott Hanson, Founder, CTO, Ambiq MicroEveryone wants their personal device to run longer on a charge. While many of the processor vendors have made incremental improvements, Ambiq Micro seems to have turned the equation on its head, running at performance levels that are more than adequate, but consume far less power. Coming on as a repeat guest of our Embedded Executives podcast to provide an update on the technology is Scott Hanson, Founder and CTO of Ambiq Micro.
2020-02-2609 minEmbedded Executive PodcastEmbedded Executives: Harald Remmert, Senior Director, Digi InternationalYup, 5G is still two or three quarters away. Have you heard that before? I know I have. But more importantly, when will it become mainstream in the industrial sector, where things tend to take far longer, for good reasons. This is the first of many questions I asked of Harald Remmert, the Senior Director of Research and Innovation at Digi International in this week’s Embedded Executives podcast.
2020-02-1908 minEmbedded Executive PodcastEmbedded Executives: Joseph Notaro, VP, WW Automotive Strategy, Business DevelopmentThe electrification of the automobile is an amazing phenomenon. Things that were in the super luxury cars a few years ago are now mainstream. To understand what’s next in the automobile, I had a conversation with Joseph Notaro the Vice President of Worldwide Automotive Strategy and Business Development for On Semiconductor in this week’s Embedded Executives podcast.
2020-02-1206 minEmbedded Executive PodcastMatt Sharma, Strategic Alliances, MultiTechMultiTech is celebrating its 50th anniversary this year. That’s quite an achievement in our space, where vendors so often get swallowed up by larger vendors or they simply go away. I had the opportunity to discuss this milestone with Matt Sharma, whose dad started the company 50 years ago. In this week’s Embedded Executives podcast, Matt and I discussed what it takes to keep a company vibrant for such a long time.
2020-02-0506 minEmbedded Executive PodcastEmbedded Executives: Jason Clarke, Founder, VP, Crank SoftwareLike the case with many software products, there are a host of free design tools available for things like GUI development. Crank Software is one vendor that sells such tools. So the obvious question for me was, why should I pay for tools if I can get them for free? This was the first of many questions I asked of Jason Clarke, the founder and vice president of Crank Software in this week’s Embedded Executives podcast.
2020-01-2908 minEmbedded Executive PodcastEmbedded Executives: Yuri Chamarelli, Lead Product Specialist, Phoenix ContactOpen control systems and open architectures aren’t the mainstream in the industrial sector, but maybe they should be. That’s the opinion of Yuri Chamarelli, a Lead Product Specialist at Phoenix Contact in this week’s Embedded Executives podcast. Hear the reasons why, and see if you agree.
2020-01-2207 minEmbedded Executive PodcastEmbedded Executives: Frédéric Thomas, VP of Technology, Kudelski IoTWe can talk about embedded security until we’re blue in the face. At some point, the developer has to step up and take charge of the situation. In this week’s Embedded Executives podcast, I interviewed Frédéric Thomas, the Vice President of Technology for Kudelski IoT. We started by looking at the holes in the security infrastructure, and went from there.
2020-01-1507 minEmbedded Executive PodcastEmbedded Executives: Byron BeMiller, Director, Semtech and Head of LoRa Alliance Smart Building Working GroupYou can make a case that LoRa is the perfect medium to outfit a smart building. It may not be able to handle every task, but it can do more than you might think. To that end, I spoke with Byron BeMiller, a Vertical Marketing Director for Smart Buildings at Semtech and also Head of the LoRa Alliance’s Smart Building Working Group in this week’s Embedded Executives podcast.
2019-12-1809 minEmbedded Executive PodcastEmbedded Executives: Thomas Lee, VP, InnoPhaseThe definition of “low power” can differ based on your application. Low power for an industrial system supplier can differ greatly from that of a medical device maker. Regardless, I think we can agree that power levels are coming down, but not at the rate that users and OEMs would like. To that end, the designers at InnoPhase have developed a power-reduction technique for wireless connection devices that’s pretty innovative. That’s where the discussion began in this week’s Embedded Executives podcast with Thomas Lee, a Vice President at InnoPhase.
2019-12-1211 minEmbedded Executive PodcastEmbedded Executive: Chris Longstaff, VP of Product Management, Mindtech GlobalNeural networks are complex. Mindtech makes tools that help create vision data sets for training these neural nets. In this week’s Embedded Executive podcast with Chris Longstaff, Vice President of Product Management at Mindtech, I discussed what an engineer would do with the data set once in-hand.
2019-12-0407 min
Embedded Executive PodcastEmbedded Executives: Dusty Kramer, CEO, EurotechOur embedded industry is bursting with standards. One of the more popular ones, especially when discussing industrial specifications, is Industry 4.0. But, we’ve been stuck on 4.0 for quite some time. With that said, what’s next? Is it Industry 4.1? 5.0? Or something else? That’s the question I posed of someone in the know, Dusty Kramer, the recently appointed CEO of Eurotech in this week’s Embedded Executives podcast.
2019-11-2010 minEmbedded Executive PodcastJoseph Sawicki, Executive Vice President, Mentor IC EDAThere are obvious phases of any design. You know them as well as I do, but the one that doesn’t seem to garner its share of attention is test. It could be because test is hard and not well understood. Or it could be because a percentage of engineers feel that test should be handled by the test engineers exclusively. To better understand what’s meant by this process and how it fits into the overall cycle, I spent some time with Joseph Sawicki, Executive Vice President of Mentor IC EDA, in this week’s Embedded Executive podcast.
2019-11-1408 minEmbedded Executive PodcastEmbedded Executive: Dr. Phil Lessner, Senior VP and CTO, KEMET The power that’s required to charge electric vehicles is quite high. And when you add wireless charging, the issues grow significantly. But what exactly are those electric vehicle charging issues, and how do we solve them? And why are people afraid to charge their batteries to 199 percent? That’s just the beginning of the discussion I had with Dr. Phil Lessner, Senior Vice President and Chief Technology Officer for KEMET in this week’s Embedded Executive interview.
2019-11-0607 minEmbedded Executive PodcastEmbedded Executive: Michael Duhamel, Vice President, SECO USAHigh-performance computing has a lot to do with complex calculations performed in parallel. However, in the embedded space, it has different, and potentially more challenging, definitions. To understand where high-performance computing fits in the industrial IoT sector, I spent this week's Embedded Executives podcast with Michael Duhamel, Vice President at SECO.
2019-10-3007 minEmbedded Executive PodcastEmbedded Executive: Andrew Longhurst, Managing Director, Wittenstein High Integrity SystemsThe semiconductor content in today’s (and tomorrow’s) automobiles continues to grow. That’s a good thing for lots of people. Unfortunately, that list includes the bad guys, as more end points appear in the vehicle, more entry points become vulnerable to hackers. The question I posed to this week’s Embedded Executive, Andrew Longhurst, Managing Director, Wittenstein High Integrity Systems, is simply, “what do we do about that?” Tune in to find out.
2019-10-2206 minEmbedded Executive PodcastEmbedded Executive: David Dwelley, VP, CTO, Maxim IntegratedMany people claim that analog is a dying technology. While I’m not in that camp, I want to get to the bottom of the discussion. Hence, I posed the topic to David Dwelley, a Vice President and Chief Technology Officer at Maxim Integrated. David has a birds-eye view on state-of-the-art analog design. Tune in to hear his response.
2019-10-1606 minEmbedded Executive PodcastEmbedded Executive: Dave Hughes, CEO, HCC EmbeddedOpen source is no longer a fad or something for Makers. As Dave Hughes, the Founder and CEO of HCC Embedded says, “it is now a force in our industry.” If you’re not on the bus, it’s time to get on. To hear everything else Dave had to say about open-source software, check out this week’s Embedded Executive podcast.
2019-10-0908 minEmbedded Executive PodcastEmbedded Executive: Tom Yates, VP, NubixAnalytics is the key to having a successful IoT platform, particularly in the industrial space. However, analytics doesn’t seem to have the focus in the development community that it should. Why is that so? That’s what I asked Tom Yates, Vice President of Products at Nubix, who deals with this topic on a daily basis. Tune in for more.
2019-10-0207 minEmbedded Executive PodcastEmbedded Executive: Larry Blackledge, GM, QorvoWe seem to be on a never-ending ride to reduce power. It seems like whatever the IC vendors can provide, the OEMs want more (or in this case, less). Is that fair? Maybe. Will the cycle continue down a similar path? Probably, but to know for sure, I interviewed Larry Blackledge, General Manager of Qorvo's Programmable Power Management business to see how low we can go. Tune in for more.
2019-09-2507 minEmbedded Executive PodcastEmbedded Executive: Sylvia Lu, u-blox5G is coming. 5G is here. 5G is the greatest thing since sliced bread. There is so much information and misinformation regarding 5G that I thought it made sense to bring on an expert who could debunk some of the myths around 5G. In this week’s Embedded Executive interview, I spoke with Sylvia Lu, who is the Senior 5G Technical Lead for 5G at u-blox, as well as a member of the UK5G Advisory Board. Tune in for more.
2019-09-1908 minEmbedded Executive PodcastFive Minutes With…Yunsup Lee, CTO, SiFiveYunsup Lee was part of the RISC-V movement from the ground floor. He was one of the original authors of the spec right from Day 1. Currently, Lee is the CTO of SiFive, one of the leaders in terms of RISC-V IP. But this Five Minutes With…discussion revolves around the Chips Alliance, where Lee is a Board Member. The Alliance has a goal of developing open-source hardware, which dovetails perfectly with the motivation behind RISC-V. Tune in for more.
2019-09-0406 minEmbedded Executive PodcastFive Minutes With…Cliff Ortmeyer, NewarkIoT is evolving. We’ve added components like AI and machine learning, more complex Edge nodes, and so on. Hence, I thought the time was right to speak to someone in the cat bird’s seat about what designers can expect in the IoT space over the next few years. That “someone” was Cliff Ortmeyer, Head of Technical Marketing, Newark, who was my guest on this week’s Five Minutes With…discussion.
2019-08-2809 minEmbedded Executive PodcastFive Minutes With…Lawrence Romine, VP, AltiumEngineers have been designing PCBs for a long time. As components get smaller and more integrated, and a frequencies increase, the complexities increase exponentially. The tools are generally keeping pace, but that doesn’t make them any easier to use. In this week’s Five Minutes With…podcast, I spoke to Lawrence Romine, a vice president of Altium, one of the leaders in PCB design. We also chatted briefly about the company’s annual conference, Altium Live, that teaches designers the ins and outs of PCB design.
2019-08-0708 minEmbedded Executive PodcastFive Minutes With…Joe Speed, Field CTO, ADLINK and Mohamed Elwazer, CEO, linedanceAIWhen you can use your “powers” for the good of society, that’s a great thing. I came across a story that described a bus for handicapped people that took advantage of AI technology. It’s really cool; so cool in fact, that it requires two guests on my weekly Five Minutes With…podcast, the first time we’ve ever done that. Check out my discussion with Joe Speed, Field CTO of ADLINK’s IoT Solutions & Technology Group and Mohamed Elwazer, Technical Founder & CEO of linedanceAI.
2019-07-3108 minEmbedded Executive PodcastFive Minutes With…Arpit Joshipura, GM, Linux FoundationThere’s a lot going on at the Linux Foundation, including the announcement that we discussed last week that had to do with new features and ecosystem partners joining the open-source software and tools fray with LF Edge. So it seemed appropriate to take a deeper dive into the Foundation, which is what I did with Arpit Joshipura, the General Manager for Networking, Edge & IoT at the Linux Foundation in this week’s Five Minutes With…discussion.
2019-07-2407 minEmbedded Executive PodcastFive Minutes With…Jason Shepherd, Member, LF Edge Governing BoardLF Edge is an umbrella organization operating within the Linux Foundation. The group recently made an important announcement around open-source software and tools. The announcement has to do with a new release that adds a lot of new features and new ecosystem partners joining the fray. The bottom line is that the technology is now ready for prime time. To get more detail, check out this week’s Five Minutes With…discussion with Jason Shepherd, a member of the LF Edge Governing Board and also the IoT and Edge Computing CTO for Dell Technologies.
2019-07-1706 minEmbedded Executive PodcastFive Minutes With…Ed Chao, CEO, PolteIf you use cellular for your positioning and 5G is finally coming, you’re likely in a good position. To determine whether that’s actually the case, I spoke to Ed Chao, the CEO of Polte in this week’s Five Minutes With…discussion. Ed explained how and why that is the case, using lots of easy-to-digest examples.
2019-07-1006 minEmbedded Executive PodcastFive Minutes With…Kailash Narayanan, VP/GM, Keysight5G is going to revolutionize the world. Well, maybe it’ll revolutionize how we handle communications. However, it needs to be rolled out. Is that ever going to happen? Probably, but when? That’s where I started in this week’s Five Minutes With…discussion with Kailash Narayanan, a Vice President and General Manager of the Wireless Devices Segment at Keysight Technologies.
2019-06-2807 minEmbedded Executive PodcastFive Minutes With…Alan Grau, VP of IoT, SectigoEmbedded developers need to protect their systems after they are deployed. That’s not always easy to do, as you sometimes don’t know exactly where deployment is taking place. So, what to do? That’s the question I asked of Alan Grau, the Vice President of IoT and Embedded Solutions for Sectigo in this week’s Five Minutes With…discussion.
2019-06-1905 minEmbedded Executive PodcastFive Minutes With…Kai Wang, Director, NexCOBOTIndustrial robots have been used for automotive assembly for quite some time. Now, they are expanding their use into just about any industrial application you can think of, and they’ll be including the use of AI in those robots. Where does the AI come in and how does it work? Those are the first questions I asked Kai Wang, a Director on NexCOBOT’s Robot and Automation team in this week’s Five Minutes With…discussion.
2019-06-1206 minEmbedded Executive PodcastFive Minutes With…Ricardo Margalho, CEO, Stratio AutomotiveMachine learning isn’t yet mainstream, but it’s getting there. One example of that is how it’s affecting the automotive space. To understand how that works, I invited Ricardo Margalho, the Co-founder and CEO of Stratio Automotive, to join me in this week’s Five Minutes With…discussion. How they handle that technology is quite interesting and it’s easy to see how it can evolve and expand. Tune in for more.
2019-06-0507 minEmbedded Executive PodcastFive Minutes With…Kate Stewart, Senior Director, Linux FoundationZephyr is an open-source operating system that’s designed for applications where Linux is simply too big, from a space or power perspective. Is Zephyr right for your application? How would you even know? And if it is, where do you start?These are just some of the questions I threw at Kate Stewart, a Senior Director of Strategic Programs for the Linux Foundation, the governing body of Zephyr in this week’s Five Minutes With…discussion.
2019-05-2908 minEmbedded Executive PodcastFive Minutes With… Zvonimir Bandic, Chairman, Chips AllianceZvonimir Bandic wears lots of hats. He is the Senior Director of Hardware Platforms for Western Digital; he’s a Member of the Board of Directors for the RISC-V Foundation, and he’s the Chairman of the Chips Alliance. It’s that latter capacity that we discussed in this week’s Five Minutes With…discussion. The organization focuses on things like open source hardware, software tools, RTL development, and related topics. They will be holding their inaugural workshop in just a few weeks, so it was timely to understand the purpose of the Alliance. And now I do, as will you.
2019-05-2207 minEmbedded Executive PodcastFive Minutes With…Yang Zhao, CEO, ACEINNAWe now have the capability to implement super-specific GPS, far more accurate than what we’re accustomed to today. But do we really need to know exactly where we are, within centimeters, or is the current technology good enough? And assuming you picked the former, how do you actually do that? Those are just some of the questions I asked of Yang Zhao, the CEO of ACEINNA, in this week’s Five Minutes With…discussion.
2019-05-1505 minEmbedded Executive PodcastFive Minutes With…Calista Redmond, CEO, RISC-VRISC-V is the new instruction-set architecture that people can use to design microprocessors. Calista Redmond is the newly appointed CEO of the RISC-V Foundation, the group that manages the spec and is putting on seminars and conferences around the world. In this week’s Five Minutes With…discussion, I asked Calista about her plans for the organization, which potentially plays a large role in our industry moving forward.
2019-05-0710 min
Embedded Executive PodcastFive Minutes With…Mike Milinkovich, Exec. Dir., Eclipse FoundationThere seems to be a foundation/association for just about everything in our space these days. Are such institutions necessary? Do they wear out their usefulness? I asked that question of Mike Milinkovich, the Executive Director of the Eclipse Foundation. Of course, he defended his group, but his reasoning was quite interesting. Check out this week’s Five Minutes With…discussion.
2019-05-0107 min