Opinion

Jeff Bier’s Impulse Response―Are DSP Engineers Becoming Extinct?

Lately, it seems that DSP engineers are becoming scarce.  Is this phenomenon limited to my local neighborhood?  I don’t know.  But whether it’s a local or a global phenomenon, I find it worrisome.  DSP engineers have been critical to innovation in the electronics industry, and will continue to be critical for many years.  If there aren’t many DSP engineers around, innovation will suffer. To understand why, let’s start with the question: “What is a DSP engineer?”  But before we tackle that Read more...

Jeff Bier’s Impulse Response―Unleashing Mobile Multimedia Applications, Part 2

Last month I made the case that multimedia applications are central to the value of smart phones and tablets. I also pointed out that it is difficult for app developers to utilize the multimedia processing power of these devices, which mainly resides in specialized coprocessors. These coprocessors are difficult for application developers to use for two reasons.  First, while the vast majority of application processors use ARM CPUs, there’s a great deal of diversity in coprocessors—but app Read more...

Jeff Bier’s Impulse Response―Unleashing Mobile Multimedia Applications

Smartphones and tablets are becoming ubiquitous.  According to DIGITIMES Research, global smartphone shipments reached 464 million in 2011.  And 63 million tablets were shipped in 2011, according to IDC.  That's over half a billion devices sold in one year, and few analysts doubt that these numbers will grow in 2012. Not only are these devices increasingly popular, but–at least based on my informal observations–people are spending more and more time using them.  That's no surprise, Read more...

Lisa Su Departs Freescale Semiconductor for AMD

Last week, Freescale announced that senior vice president Lisa Su would be leaving the company for other opportunities. Shortly thereafter, AMD announced that Su would be joining AMD effective the end of this year as senior vice president and general manager of global business units.  [Editor’s Note:  We don’t normally report on personnel changes in InsideDSP, preferring to focus on technology and products.  We’re making an exception in this case, because this personnel move is likely to have Read more...

Jeff Bier’s Impulse Response―Small Base Stations Finally Proliferate

By now, I’m sure you've read that mobile data demand is growing quite rapidly.  It's no surprise, really: We're increasingly reliant on our mobile devices—be they laptops, netbooks, tablets, or smartphones.  And the things we do with these devices increasingly require network access, whether it's access to the corporate VPN to collect email and trade presentation slides, access to the airline web site to change our flight reservation, or access to social networks and news sources to keep up Read more...

Jeff Bier’s Impulse Response―Using More Transistors to Save Energy

I’m frequently amazed by people who can take whatever random material happens to be in good supply and make something useful out of it. Consider this clever gentleman, for example, who made a solar water heater from beer bottles. These days, thanks to continuing advances in chip fabrication, one thing that’s in abundant supply is transistors. Over the past few years, quite a few chips with transistor counts over one billion have gone into production. Generally speaking, more transistors Read more...

Jeff Bier’s Impulse Response―Down with Fluff

In a recent consulting assignment, my colleagues and I at BDTI evaluated a semiconductor manufacturer's new-product introduction presentation and provided recommendations for improving it.  One of our key recommendations was to include data supporting major claims regarding the new product's advantages.  This may seem like an obvious idea, but after sitting through hundreds of briefings, I find that it's an idea that is not widely embraced among technical marketing people. I think that part Read more...

Jeff Bier’s Impulse Response―I Know How You Feel

A colleague recently told me that his young child, having been raised on iPhones and iPads, was amazed to find that the screen on his dad’s laptop did not respond to touch. His story reminded me of that wonderful scene in the movie Star Trek IV, where Scotty tries to use a computer by speaking into the mouse. These real and fictional anecdotes illustrate a critical truth about interactive electronic devices: the capabilities of these devices are largely defined by their user interfaces—and Read more...

Jeff Bier’s Impulse Response―How to Make a Really Annoying Demo

Last month I wrote about some of the ways in which trade show booths often fail to engage trade show visitors. This month I'd like to turn to a related subject: product demos. Demos can be an extremely powerful tool. They can also be annoying, frustrating distractions. After sitting through literally hundreds of demos—and being involved in creating a few—I've started to see some patterns in what separates effective demos from the rest of the (unfortunately much more numerous) pack. For your Read more...

Jeff Bier’s Impulse Response―Have We Forgotten the Basics?

I recently spent a day at the Design Automation Conference (DAC)—an event that has been a mainstay of the EDA industry for many years.  One of the interesting things about the exhibit floor at DAC is that you always find a mixture of new companies—often with interesting new ideas—alongside established names that have been pillars of the EDA community for decades. It’s a bit of an adventure to walk the aisles and see what’s being offered. Unfortunately, exploring a trade show exhibit floor Read more...