Among the hundreds of articles we published last year, some rose even higher to the top in the context of reader views. We’ve included those here — just in case you missed them the first time around…
Considering for improving 3D NAND performance, reliability, and yield
Even as 3D NAND races toward maturity and becomes a mainstream technology, chipmakers know there is still more to achieve to meet worldwide consumer and business data demands at lower costs, given the extreme complexities involved.
As with previous technologies, focusing on process efficiencies, materials innovations, and contamination control will optimize manufacturing processes, resulting in better performance, increased yield, and reduced costs.
An EEWorldonline Interview with Dan Hill, Newark element14
Mergers and acquisitions are changing the face of the electronics industry nearly as much as the innovative technology that emerges from it. And the role of the distributor, too, has also transformed from a seller of parts to a provider of a range of technology, content, and support. As a customer, the effects of those changes and transformations are not always readily apparent.
Case in point is Avnet’s acquisition of Premier Farnell. A year and a half ago, Avnet completed the acquisition of Premier Farnell, including the half-million member element14 community. We sat down with Dan Hill, president of Newark element14, to talk about what that acquisition has meant to Avnet and Premier Farnell customers, and, specifically, how they are using their online community to reach current customers, new customers, and the varying demographics that shape the overall engineering community.
Can SSDs replace all storage and memory?
The short answer is no. Here’s why.
Solid-State Drives (SSDs) have no mechanical or moving parts, which makes them ideal for mobile devices. SSDs are associated with flash memory and as a replacement for hard disk drive storage for computers. At the lowest level, SSDs are based on transistors (similar to DRAM), but SSD is non-volatile memory, which means that data persists when power is removed. AT present, NAND-based flash memory is the technology in most widespread use for SSD-based storage drives.
Avoiding electrical hazards in the lab and repair shop
There are three principle hazards in working with electrical equipment. Any of these can be lethal and cause injury or property loss. They are electrical shock, arc flash, and electrical fires.
Electrical shock strikes without warning. It is immediate and instantaneous, but its effects may persist for years. Sometimes an individual exposed to electrical shock seems to recover right away, choosing to return to work, only to expire hours or days later due to hidden heart and vascular damage.
SPICE: how to choose an analysis
SPICE is a very useful tool when used correctly and is used far beyond its original purpose — “Simulation Program with Integrated Circuit Emphasis.” It is now used for simulation of many non-integrated circuits. However, whichever type of circuit you use it for, you need to be aware of its limitations.
The challenge is that anyone energy-related design decision is likely to have knock-on effects elsewhere. And then there are less obvious things that can play havoc with battery life.
What’s behind Master Electronics’ Tariff Free Zone?
Privately-owned, Santa Monica-based distributor Master Electronics is franchised for over 250 suppliers. In an announcement last week and a letter to their suppliers, Master announced that the company is now “…a tariff free zone” and “…will absorb the full tariff in order to preserve your current purchasing experience and supply chain with no disruption or additional costs.”In an exclusive interview with Master Electronics’ President Riad Nizam, EEWorld asked the executive to elaborate on what went behind this decision and how he sees it playing out for Master Electronics, their suppliers, and their customers.
Real-time vs. a standard operating system & How to choose an RTOS
Most MCUs do not have operating systems. In the “olden days,” most embedded systems had MCUs that ran a program repeatedly and did not have much if any, human interference. However, the line between MCUs and processors is blurring. MCUs have General Purpose Input/Output (GPIO) which are often attached to one or several sensors as input and devices that get activated based on what you’ve programmed the MCU to do.Yet the price of computing has gone down dramatically while performance has gone up, so many embedded devices have high-performance processors with many, many peripherals and tasks to perform. The more tasks and computing that are involved, the more you need an operating system (OS) to make it all easier to organize and run as a coordinated system.
Teardown: Anki Cozmo, distant relative of Vector
Cozmo is a palm-sized robot from San Francisco-based Anki, the same company that makes an intelligent racing robot system called Overdrive that we’ve torn down previously. Cozmo is actually an earlier version of an Anki robot called Vector. Vector has more capabilities in the area of artificial intelligence, thanks to its use of a processor that’s normally used to power smartphones. In contrast, Cosmo has a more basic main processor. So a lot of the computations that Cozmo makes actually happen in the cloud, thanks to a cellphone app that communicates with Cozmo and with Anki servers.
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