Pre-compliance testing is a phenomenon that should be a no-brainer, but for lots of reasons—none of them good—it’s not always done. When you’re doing a design that requires RF and you don’t do the testing, you’re really asking for trouble. That goes double for a product that’s going to ship into multiple geographies. To understand how this process should occur, I spoke to Paul Denisowski, a Product Management Engineer at Rohde & Schwarz, on this week’s Embedded Executives podcast ..read more

Engineers are usually good at engineering, but writing? That’s a different story. In many cases, lacking the ability to write well can hurt engineers. This rears its ugly head when these engineers are job hunting. Having mis-spellings and bad grammar on a resume is a huge red flag. This is particularly true for some real cherry jobs attracting numerous applications. To understand what this means and the effect it could have on an engineer’s future, I brought back Marcus Webster, who is the principal of Webster & Webster Associates. Marcus last spoke to us about the engineering shortage. C ..read more

The Embedded Kit recently conducted a survey to understand the biggest challenges facing an embedded developer. You would think those challenges are obvious, and some of them are, but the survey uncovered some fairly interesting areas that are not so obvious. If you’re interested in finding out where those not-so-obvious challenges exist, check out this week’s Embedded Executives podcast with Pierre Gal, Head of Product Development at The Embedded Kit ..read more

Do you understand the metrology that applies to semiconductor manufacturing? I know I certainly didn’t, and found out how little I knew about this essential technology when I spoke to David Doyle, the President and Managing Director of Heidenhain Corp. While mostly applying to semiconductors, the technology can be deployed on any manufacturing platform. But semiconductor manufacturing has to be so precise, and that’s putting it mildly, that things are measured in terms of microns and nanometers. Check out this week’s Embedded Executives podcast. to get the baseline understanding on how impor ..read more

The LoRa Alliance recently conducted a user study to see how far LoRaWAN technology has penetrated into the community. If you’re not familiar, LoRaWAN is a low-power wide-area network that has a range that can be measured in miles. I wanted to understand what the results of the user study showed. Do developers feel confident in deploying the technology? How does it work globally? To understand more I spoke to the Alliance’s Chairwoman and CEO, Donna Moore, on this week’s Embedded Executives podcast ..read more

Are SOMs and COMs the same thing? Some people would say yes, but in reality, they are not. So, what’s the difference. To get a better understanding of the matter, I spoke to Matthew Burns, a Global Director at Samtec on this week’s Embedded Executives podcast. The second part of this discussion is which is appropriate for your application. Tune in to find out ..read more

Have you ever heard of an isolator without a power supply? I hadn’t either, until now, sort of. That’s not exactly what Infineon is launching, but it’s close enough that I needed to have a conversation with Daniel Callen, Infineon’s Sr. Manager in the Power IC Group to understand exactly what the company is launching. If your application is in solid-state relays, industrial automation (PLCs), or commercial HVAC controllers, this is a conversation you should hear. Check out this week’s Embedded Executives podcast ..read more

MEMS have been used in lots of sensors and even in microphones. But, until now, I hadn’t seen them used in speakers. xMEMS Labs is one vendor that’s doing just that, and the sound is incredible. When you hear how it works, it really makes a lot of sense. And if you listen to this podcast, you will hear exactly how it works. Check out my discussion with Mike Housholder, the Vice President of Business Development at xMEMS Labs in this week’s Embedded Executives podcast ..read more

COM Express has been around for at least a decade. While many people think of it as a standard architecture (it is), it can be customized in lots of different ways. To understand how a standard can be made custom while remaining standard, I spoke to Earle Foster, a Senior Vice President, Sealevel Systems in this week’s Embedded Executives podcast. It’s actually easier than you might think ..read more

A few years ago, Microsoft acquired Express Logic, who’s key product was the ThreadX operating system. Fast forward to today, and Microsoft has released that operating system to the open-source community. Why did they do that? And what does that mean to the development community? I was really curious about these issues, so I spoke to Frédéric Desbiens, who manages the embedded, IoT, and Edge computing programs at the Eclipse Foundation on this week’s Embedded Executives podcast ..read more