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Monthly Archives: October 2018

Neural network IP aimed at SoCs processing complex speech

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Cadence has introduced DSP intellectual aimed at neural network-based complex speech recognition on the local PCB, without the need for cloud-based services to do the heavy lifting. Resources are sufficient for far-field voice recognition, where the user is metres away from the microphone. Voice-controlled digital home assistants and automotive infotainment are intended applications. Why process speech on the local PCB? ...

God’s Justice

Is this God’s Justice? All those hard working, fast driving, disciplined Germans are killing themselves from pollution while the Greeks, lying around stinking of drink, live in bucolic, unpolluted good health.

Bosch improves accelerometer-gyro chips for phones

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Bosch Sensortec has launched a family of mems inertial measuremnt units (IMUs), aimed at phones, with Android compliance, an I3CSM interface, and support for sensor synchronisation. Called the BMI260 family, the devices combine Bosch Sensortec’s accelerometer with Bosch’s automotive gyroscope, and are claimed to be robust against temperature fluctuations and PCB stress. “Our next-generation IMUs builds upon the BMI160,” said Bosch Sensortec ...

Renesas sees weakening industrial demand

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Renesas saw Q3 sales decrease 8.7% y-o-y to $1.54 billion and expects Q4 sales to be down 12.3% y-o-y at $1.6 billion. Q3 profit was $212 million. Weakening demand, mainly for industrial ICs, was the culprit. For Q4 Renesas anticipates a gross margin of 40%, down 7.9 points yo-y and  operating margin of 7.3%, down 8.9 points y-o-y. The decrease ...

Xilinx ACAP reported to have won half Microsoft’s Azure co-processor business

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Xilinx has had a big success with its new data centre co-processor ACAP, reports Bloomberg, having won half Microsoft’s co-processor requirement for its cloud services business Azure at the expense of Intel. ACAP is the brainchild of Xilinx CEO Victor Peng (pictured) and, says Peng, “accelerates  a broad range of workloads with dynamically adaptable silicon which is 10-100 times faster ...

Intel reported to be looking for external foundry

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Intel is said to be looking for foundry to fab  some Atom processors and chip-sets, reports Digitimes. “We are in a constraint scenario into the fourth quarter, both at low-end PC and IoT,” says Intel CEO Bob Swan, “we have taken some of our 10-nanometer equipment and tools and began to blow that back to meet the increased demand for ...

Samsung slashes chip capex by 27%

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Samsung has cut chip capex by 27% from $37 billion to $28 billion citing slowing demand.  Q3 operating profit was a record $15 billion, but Samsung expects a 4% drop in proft in Q4. “Looking further ahead to 2019, earnings are forecast to be weak for the first quarter due to seasonality, but then strengthen as business conditions, particularly in ...

ST strips down low-power MCUs for budget-conscious

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STMicroelectronics is offering a pair of stripped-down microcontrollers for budget-conscious consumer, industrial, and medical applications. STM32L412 and STM32L422 have 64 or 128kbyte flash and a 80MHz Arm Cortex-M4 core, plus the firm’s FlexPowerControl. EEMBC benchmarking includes, said STM, 273 CoreMark, 167 ULPMark-PP (Peripheral Profile) and 447 ULPMark-CP (Core Profile). Analogue peripherals including two ADCs to perform simultaneous acquisition, and a comparator ...