Embedded Executive Podcast

In our Special Edition of the Embedded Executive podcasts, we are interviewing execs to see how they are dealing with the COVID-19 pandemic, only from an engineering workforce perspective (we’ll leave the politics to others). This edition is with a CEO who is smack in the middle of the US’s worst hotspot, New York City. Sendyne CEO John Milios describes what it’s like handling his engineering team.

The COVID-19 pandemic obviously hits different people in different ways, depending on a host of factors, which have all been discussed at length (and then some and then some) by the mainstream media. Here at Embedded Computing Design, we’re trying to understand how it has affected the engineering community solely from a work perspective. To that end, we will be conducting interviews with our Embedded Executives to see how they and their design teams are coping with the “new normal.” Today, I spoke with Todd DeBonis, President and CEO of Pixelworks. Like just about everyone I plan to speak to, his issues are both unique and similar.

The Internet of Secure Things Alliance (IoXT) is pushing a common (and obvious) goal for our industry. They want to keep all of our connected devices secure. How do they do that, who belongs to the Alliance, and what does the future hold? These are the questions I asked of David Kleidermacher in this week’s Embedded Executives podcast. David sits on the Alliance’s Board, and is also the Vice President of Engineering and Head of Android Security and Privacy at Google.

We are in the midst of a global pandemic thanks to COVID-19, aka Coronavirus. It’s turned people’s lives completely upside down. But engineers and developers, like many people, still have jobs to do. How that gets done in this time of social distancing is interesting at best. I discussed this issue with Rob Oshana, Vice President of Software R&D for Edge Processing, NXP in this week’s Special Edition of the Embedded Executives podcast.

Reliability is a subjective feature of a product. And we’ve come to accept certain levels for products that are frankly, below what they should be. One example is waterproofing. The technology is available today to protect our products, but for various reasons, we give in to sub-par products. In this week’s week’s Embedded Executives podcast, I discuss this topic with Stephen Gold, the Chief Commercial Officer for HZO.

Inferencing is a hot topic. Let’s start with “what is inferencing?” Then, how do you benchmark inferencing? That’s the topic du jour in this week’s Embedded Executives podcast, with guest Geoff Tate is CEO and co-founder of Flex Logic. We also get into whether some vendors are trying to rig the system.

Test tools can be expensive; in some case, very expensive. But if your needs don’t extend to the leading edge, you may find that there are some much lower cost tools available. That’s an area that Digilent specializes in. And according to Steve Johnson, Digilent’s President and General Manager in this week’s Embedded Executives podcast, you may be surprised that most of your needs will be covered.

Security has been top of mind for a long time, long enough that someone should be doing something about it. Most experts will tell you that the industry is doing something about it, and more than just something. In this week’s Embedded Executives podcast, I discussed this topic with Mike Nicholson, Embedded Software/Systems Architect, MultiTech. While chatting, Mike revealed that MultiTech is sponsoring a Hackathon, where they are encouraging the community to into the company’s latest IoT development gateway product, the Conduit 300. Anyone that’s able to hack in will win some big prizes.

Everyone wants their personal device to run longer on a charge. While many of the processor vendors have made incremental improvements, Ambiq Micro seems to have turned the equation on its head, running at performance levels that are more than adequate, but consume far less power. Coming on as a repeat guest of our Embedded Executives podcast to provide an update on the technology is Scott Hanson, Founder and CTO of Ambiq Micro.

Yup, 5G is still two or three quarters away. Have you heard that before? I know I have. But more importantly, when will it become mainstream in the industrial sector, where things tend to take far longer, for good reasons. This is the first of many questions I asked of Harald Remmert, the Senior Director of Research and Innovation at Digi International in this week’s Embedded Executives podcast.