| Electric Flight--The Ultimate Energy Efficiency Challenge | |
 If you think electric cars are impressive, how about an electric 747? On a smaller scale, that flight of fancy just became a reality. Last month in Santa Rosa, CA, an electric-powered 4-seat light plane won the NASA/Google Green Flight Challenge by flying over 200 miles non-stop at over 100 MPH while achieving 403.5 passenger miles per gallon (mpg) using the equivalent of less than one gallon of gasoline. Compare that to the Chevy Volt-the current state of the art in electric (land-based) vehicles-which gets the equivalent of 112 mpg in all-electric mode while driving slowly over flat roads. And even with the benefit of wheels and a 435 lb. battery, the Volt can only keep that up for 35 miles, at which point it reverts to its gas engine, which gets 37 mpg. More
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| What if 2.5D got really cheap? How would that affect low-power design? | |
Last week, silicon-interposer foundry Deca Technologies unstealthed. I found out from an article in the San Jose Mercury News and just published a blog about the announcement in my other blog, the EDA360 Insider. Deca is a subsidiary of Cypress Semiconductor and the outspoken President and CEO of Cypress, TJ Rodgers, was good for a quote, as always: "We want to use the dense, reliable silicon interconnect inherent in Moore's Law to integrate the dissimilar chips used in today's systems, but we face an economic barrier because the interconnect on silicon chips is 1,000 times more expensive than the interconnect on PC boards..." More |
| Size and Shape |  A recent conversation about smartphones yielded a comment about how the size and shape of the handheld devices are fluctuating between a little larger and a little smaller. The thought was that the size variation was due to the conflicting requirements to deliver as small a device as possible to make carrying it around easier while making it as large as possible so to maximize the display and touch interface area on the device. The conversation reminded me of the Zoolander cell phone which is a great illustration of what can happen (way too small) when you ignore the fact that the size and shape of each device is based on who will use it and in what capacity. More |
| Energy Harvesting: Consumption Salvation Or Simply A Distraction? |  As an admitted devout environmentalist (a confession which has probably already caused me to lose a notable percentage of this post's readership...oh well...), I've long harbored a strong interest in technologies that enable efficient harnessing of low- and no-pollution energy sources. Some of them are already well known: Solar power, for example (although the solar cell manufacturing process is pollution-prone); Wind power (as long as you don't factor in the raptor kill statistics, not to mention the tendency for wind farms to disrupt radar readings...sorry, but I actually find wind turbines fascinating to watch, so I don't have any sympathy for the NIMBY complainers); Water (specifically tide) power; and Geothermal power... More |
| November Wireless Update: Do Silicon Start-Ups Have A Future? |  My friend David Manners quoted Lawrence Johns of Amadeus Capital Partners, "At the moment most of the VCs in the world will not invest in silicon companies," said Johns, "the silicon industry has all the clever people but less-clever people write things like Skype, Twitter, Autonomy and LinkedIn and create billions of dollars of value." Johns concluded: "Hardware is going soft. My investment intentions are going soft." My personal observation is that Silicon Valley and San Francisco are all hot for Google, Facebook and similar software startups, but not silicon startups. In the U.S., there appear to be more opportunities for silicon startups in San Diego and there are increasing silicon jobs in Austin, Texas...compared to today's Silicon Valley. More |
| Training Courses | |
 Fundamentals of Solar: Off-Grid
This course covers the fundamentals of off-grid, stand-alone photovoltaic (PV) systems, with the aim of providing engineers with a good overview of the technologies, topologies and electronics that make up such systems. The course content includes: · Introduction to Photovoltaic Systems · Grid-Connected vs. Off-Grid Solar Systems · Solar Energy Storage · Charge Controllers · Power Conditioning · Energy Harvesting · Integration Issue.
Fundamentals of Solar: Grid Connected
Photovoltaic (PV) solar technology is at the heart of the multi-billion dollar clean/green/renewable energy industry, powering everything from road signs to entire cities. This course covers the fundamentals of grid-connected PV systems, with the aim of providing engineers with a good overview of the technologies, topologies and electronics that make up such systems.
Fundamentals of Microcontrollers
EE Times Fundamentals course provides an introduction to microcontrollers (MCUs) including usage and selection of the devices. The course also includes a video explaining showing how to get started with an mbed evaluation kit. |
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