Viewpoints

We are all human beings and every now and again, life throws a curveball, writes Ash Madni. Being an engineer doesn’t absolve us from life’s challenges. Sometimes, we can take these in our stride and in others we are reduced to a sombre mood….silence as if our world is collapsing around us. I didn’t mention the “d” word, but we ...

Ash Madni, WIMMIC’s Technical Director, tells how his lifelong adventure in electronics began with the discovery of the world of Bipolar transistors, namely the BC108… It all started when I was 13 years old at school. A class mate was an Electronics hobbyist and during break, he talked animatedly about what he was going to build over the weekend. My ...

Building intelligent devices that can seamlessly switch between many technologies – each being optimised for specific conditions – is the soundest approach for SatIoT, writes Fabien Jordan, CEO of Astrocast. With the arrival of cost-effective Satellite IoT (SatIoT), Systems Integrators (SIs) are rushing to meet the huge pent-up demand for global solutions that allow asset tracking across the 85% of ...

Ash Madni, WIMMIC’s Technical Director, asks “How do Integrated Circuit designers cope with increasing demands while maintaining a good work-life balance?” If you feel like me in the above picture, don’t worry, we are not alone. In today’s commercial world of tight deadlines, technology nodes shrinking while silicon costs go up and the need to achieve right first time silicon, ...

With global demand for EVs growing at pace, the race is on for battery innovators to avert a supply crisis due to shortages of various elements found in the earth’s crust, such as nickel, cobalt and lithium, writes Ben Palmer, a partner and patent attorney at Withers & Rogers. Diminished availability of these much-needed raw materials, combined with growing concern ...

David Hollander, of the Bluetooth SIG, considers how Bluetooth LE Audio enables those suffering from hearing loss to take advantage of the same benefits enjoyed by users of standard wireless headphones and earbuds. Over 5% of the world’s population are affected by hearing loss – by 2050, nearly 2.5 billion people are projected to have some degree of hearing loss. Closer ...

Power over Ethernet (PoE) is rapidly gaining market share, in some rather unexpected places, writes Philip Lechner of Avnet Abacus. In fact, for a technology with relatively humble origins, PoE is shaping up very well indeed. A recent report from ResearchAndMarkets.com predicts that the global market for Power Over Ethernet (PoE) Solutions will reach $1.1 Billion by 2025, hitting a 10.8% ...

Sonos alleged that Google’s smart speaker devices infringed its US patents, and the ITC has agreed. But who will be the winner from this patent dispute, asks Michael Jaeger, a partner and patent attorney at Withers & Rogers? Following the conclusion of a long-standing legal battle, Sonos has emerged victorious to block the import into the US of Google’s smart speaker ...

In an IoT network, even if a server and its assets are secured, there may be millions of sensors connected to it, and each of these is an open window into its core. Until the security industry puts more focus on hardware security at the edge, vulnerabilities will abound, argues Dr. Shahram Mossayebi of Crypto Quantique. In the old world, ...

In a high-profile US court action, Tesla is suing its Silicon Valley rival, Rivian, for the alleged theft of “highly-proprietary trade secrets”, writes Diego Black a partner and patent attorney in Withers & Rogers. According to court papers submitted by Tesla since the case was filed last year, it is alleged that over 70 employees have been poached by Rivian; ...