Featured

Open Letter to Ted Tewksbury, Velodyne’s New CEO

Featured, Opinion

Dear Ted, ‌
‌‌
‌Velodyne’s recent announcement introducing you as its new CEO didn’t surprise me. You’re the right executive arriving at the right time to correct the course of a vision-challenged company that has lost its way.

Velodyne went public in September 2020 through the dubious mechanism of a special-purpose acquisition company (SPAC) merger with blank-check company Graph Industrial. Since then, as the corporate board and its largest shareholder have relentlessly exchanged accusations, Velodyne has become best known for its dysfunction.

Farm Drones Going Hog Wild

Audition, Featured

By Junko Yoshida

Drones are coming to the farm, hot above the heels of marauding wild boars.

With the explosive growth of feral hog populations that wreak havoc on crops and fields, farmers worldwide are suffering a significant uptick in crop loss.

Stepping to the front lines in this agricultural clash is Sara Nozkova, CEO and cofounder of Flox Robotics, a drone startup based in Sweden.

NXP Resets, Victim No Longer

Featured, Forensics

By Bolaji Ojo

What’s at stake‌
‌NXP is growing, well above the semiconductor industry average, and is leveraging prior acquisitions and financial strength to establish itself as a major player in the market. Can the company maintain this growth profile in the face of hungry competitors and against the backdrop of its own history? It may take several years for NXP to prove it can withstand market and geopolitical pressures beyond its control.

JIC is a Poor Replacement for JIT

Featured, Opinion

By Bolaji Ojo

The electronics industry is at it again. Notorious for offering bewildering solutions to chronic and possibly unsolvable problems, OEM and semiconductor executives are convulsed with figuring out a fix for the supply shortages that have shuttered some automotive manufacturing plants and crimped sales as global economies struggle to recover from the pandemic.

Open Letter to Zuck: Prove to Us That ‘Ethics in Tech’ Is Not an Oxymoron

Featured, Opinion

By Girish Mhatre

Dear Zuck,

You can hide behind a rebranding, but you can’t run from your most egregious accomplishment: You’ve delivered, in a most terrifying way, on that infamous slogan of yours, “Move fast and break things.” You’ve broken people, societies and dented American democracy. What you’ve built is nothing less than “a toxic propaganda guidebook for the ages,” according to New York Times columnist Kara Swisher.

A New Semiconductor World Imagined

Featured, News & Analysis

By Bolaji Ojo

What’s at Stake?
The challenge posed by Nvidia – via its planned acquisition of Arm – to Intel’s x86 architecture is real and potentially unstoppable, and should not be casually dismissed. With a huge market at stake, we expect Intel to fight back hard. But no matter what kind of headwinds Nvidia faces from Intel, Arm licensees and international regulators, the deal signals that a new day is dawning in the chip market – one that will have major ramifications for all the players, and for consumers too.

Rest in Peace: Arm, 1990 – 2022

Featured, Opinion

Draft of a funereal eulogy to be read in the event of Nvidia’s acquisition of Arm Ltd.

So, farewell, Arm Ltd., you were a fine company. You were a child of Cambridge, England, but you only made it to 32 years old.

Nothing lasts forever. But some things and ideas last a long time and become part of the landscape, part of what defines what else can happen. And some things don’t last so long or cease to endure, and can be moved around or taken off the table for commercial benefit.

With HD Radar, Arbe Robotics Pits Price vs. Pride

Audition, Featured

By Junko Yoshida (additional reporting by Jenn Baljko)

What’s at stake?
Arbe Robotics, a 2015 Israeli startup that went public this month through a SPAC (special-purpose acquisition team), seemed to have a lot going for it in recent years. Today, it might be at a crossroads. Arbe’s overreliance on its very-high-performance 4D imaging radar could deter it from securing a spot in a more immediate automotive market, one where Tier 1s demand designs that rely on “good enough” solutions.

Engineering at the Edge of Knowledge

Featured, Truth & Consequences

By Girish Mhatre

What’s at stake?
The future of the driverless car: Are we attempting the impossible?

Intel, Chipmakers, and the Fear Card

Featured, Uncategorized

By Bolaji Ojo

Intel Corp. CEO Pat Gelsinger wants the EU to “take control of its destiny” by securing access to critical semiconductor supplies. He has similarly embarked upon the same mission for the United States. The effort is admirable but also misleading and fatuous. Intel is a public enterprise, not the right arm of the U.S. government nor a “physician” assigned to help heal the broken or compromised semiconductor supply chain.