Silicon carbide is a notoriously hard and complex material. Wafer production for fabricating SiC power semiconductors leverages intensive engineering of manufacturing processes, specifications, and equipment to achieve commercial quality and cost-effectiveness. Necessity and invention Wide-bandgap semiconductors are changing the game in power electronics, enabling system-level efficiency to move beyond the practical limits of silicon devices […]
FAQ
How to determine noise figure: part 4
Two incompatible definitions of noise factor can lead to confusion, which you can alleviate by understanding where the differences lie.
What are the elements of secure boot processes?
The secure boot protects devices from unauthorized modification by verifying the authenticity of the boot code. Its importance is growing as society digitalizes and the number of devices on the Internet of Things (IoT) soars. A secure boot prevents an adversary from compromising device operation. This article reviews the basic elements of secure boot processes, […]
What’s the difference between UAS, UAV, RPA and autonomous drones?
Unmanned aerial systems (UAS) refers to the entire system (ground equipment like controllers plus the aerial platform), and unmanned aerial vehicles (UAV) refers only to the aerial platform. Remotely piloted aircraft (RPA) can be used interchangeably with UAVs and is commonly used in Europe. Autonomous drones use sensors and AI/ML to operate independently to complete […]
How to determine noise figure: part 3
Noise factor and noise figure as defined in an IEEE standard can be derived from a two-port device’s equivalent noise temperature. In part 1 and part 2 of this series we discussed several ways to indicate the noise performance of a device under test (DUT). We first introduced the concept of noise factor based on […]
Why AI chips need PCIe 7.0 IP interconnects
Today’s SoC designers need to design PCIe 7.0 into new AI chip designs. First-pass silicon success is critical to meet the increasing performance and bandwidth demands of data-intensive applications. Data center technologies need to evolve to enable AI’s increasing workload and demands, especially as the number of parameters doubles every four to six months —…
How are AI and ML used for advanced threat detection?
The increasing number of threat vectors and the growing size of the attack surface in today’s communication and computer networks demand more powerful and faster threat detection. Legacy tools are no longer adequate. To ensure cybersecurity, high-speed threat detection based on artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning (ML) is increasingly being deployed. This article reviews […]
What are the environmental needs for electronics on a moon base?
Electronics on a moon base must be designed to withstand high radiation levels, extreme temperature changes, and fine abrasive lunar dust. That often means using different materials and system architectures to ensure reliability. Radiation levels on the moon are much higher than those experienced in near-earth orbit, where the Earth’s magnetic field partially protects systems. […]
Edison’s revenge? High-power DC gets another chance
DC-based power transmission lost out to AC, but DC is making a comeback. Many things we now use as basic knowledge were not fully understood in the early days of electricity and power in the late 1800s/early 1900s. Still, one thing was grasped: ohmic losses (often called IR or resistive losses) in power-transmission lines were […]
How to determine noise figure: part 2
The relationship between noise and temperature prompted a precursor of the IEEE to promulgate an alternative definition of noise figure in 1959. In part 1 of this series, we described the work of the Danish-American radio engineer Harald Friis, who described noise factor F of a device or system as the ratio of the input-power […]
