Tag Archives: Apple

Daniel Nenni at SemiWiki publishes a [very] brief history of the SoC

Posted on August 20, 2012 by sleibson2

Daniel Nenni has just posted a very brief history of the SoC, with heavy emphasis on SoCs for mobile products. The emphasis is probably warranted because mobile designs really have driven SoC design for the past decade. One of the … Continue reading →

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Vizio (!) introduces line of high-end Windows PCs and notebooks. Didn’t they didn’t read that “post-PC” memo?

Posted on June 15, 2012 by sleibson2

Today, “America’s #1 LCD HDTV” vendor Vizio launched a line of sleek notebook, ultrabook, and all-in-one desktop PCs. Howzat? Isn’t Vizio familiar with the term “post-PC era”? What have they been smoking down there in Irvine? I think Vizio is … Continue reading →

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Friday Video: How the iPhone saved a Corning glass factory in Harrodsburg, Kentucky

Posted on May 11, 2012 by sleibson2

Here’s a video about a completely non-electronic product that’s intimately interwoven into the success of a highly electronic product. The non-electronic product is durable, scratch-resistant Corning Gorilla Glass and the electronic product it was first associated with is the original … Continue reading →

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Friday Video: IKEA solves the two big problems with HDTVs—remotes and wires

Posted on April 20, 2012 by sleibson2

The following video shows how much IKEA understands about selling high-tech HDTV. Build it into the furniture so it looks good. Make the furniture modular, like all IKEA offerings. Make the cables disappear by build the speakers into the furniture. … Continue reading →

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[Friday Video] iFixit tears down an iPad 3 4G LTE using spudger, heat gun, and guitar picks. Finds new processor, more RAM, new battery, etc.

Posted on March 16, 2012 by sleibson2

Those folks at iFixit stop at nearly nothing to be the first to tear apart shiny new toys like the new Apple iPad (the iPad formerly known as the iPad 3). They flew to Australia to get a new iPad … Continue reading →

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After Silicon, SoC, and System Realization comes Dynasty Realization

Posted on February 14, 2012 by sleibson2

The EDA360 vision document divides the world of electronic design into Silicon, SoC, and System Realization. It’s a product-oriented view and it has pushed all EDA vendors to embrace what designers always knew: product design is hard from the chip … Continue reading →

Posted in EDA360 | Tagged , , , , , , | 5 Comments

Friday Video: Two minutes of system-design expertise from Matt Rogers, VP of Engineering and founder of Nest and designer of the thermostat of the future

Posted on January 13, 2012 by sleibson2

Nest is a company that’s tackling mundane technology like a thermostat and asking why these products can’t be sleek, beautiful, and smart like an iPhone or iPad. Matt Rogers, the VP of engineering at Nest who came from Apple, takes … Continue reading →

Posted in EDA360, System Realization | Tagged , , , | 1 Comment

Man, Mahler, Marimba, cellphone. Two of these things do not belong.

Posted on January 12, 2012 by sleibson2

MSNBC.com just published a story about a cell phone that stopped a performance of Mahler’s Ninth symphony last night at the New York Philharmonic. The offending phone was playing a marimba ring tone easily heard during the quiet section near … Continue reading →

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Friday Video: Apple iPhone 4S teardown by iFixIt

Posted on November 10, 2011 by sleibson2

If you’re curious about a range of Apple iPhone 4S technical topics from what’s changed from the Apple iPhone 4 to why can’t “lesser” iPhones run Siri, then take a look at this video from iFixIt:

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Want to guarantee that your next product is a huge success? Ask Apple’s Siri

Posted on October 24, 2011 by sleibson2

Troy Wolverton is a News Columnist for the San Jose Mercury News and this morning’s paper carried his fascinating column on his growing infatuation with Siri, the intelligent assistant that lives inside of every Apple iPhone 4S. The column is … Continue reading →

Posted in Apps, EDA360, System Realization | Tagged , , , | 2 Comments

Apple reports selling $1B of iPhone 4S Smartphones in three days. Is apps-driven design working as well for you?

Posted on October 17, 2011 by sleibson2

Apple announced today that it has sold more than 4 million iPhone 4S smartphones since first product availability on Friday. That’s 4 million units in three days selling for $199 at AT&T to $649 for an unlocked iPhone 4S bought … Continue reading →

Posted in EDA360, iOS, Silicon Realization, SoC, SoC Realization, System Realization | Tagged , , , , , | Leave a comment

Apple iPhone 4S: How about a peek under the hood?

Posted on October 14, 2011 by sleibson2

Friday was the first day to get your hands on an Apple iPhone 4S. I saw a photo in the San Jose Mercury News of Steve “Woz” Wozniak sitting in a lawn chair camped out at a local Apple store. … Continue reading →

Posted in EDA360, Mobile, Silicon Realization, SoC, SoC Realization, System Realization | Tagged , , , , | Leave a comment

Friday Video: Macworld’s Jason Snell has a largely successful conversation with Apple’s Siri intelligent agent

Posted on October 14, 2011 by sleibson2

Here’s an 11-minute video showing Macworld’s Editorial Director Jason Snell putting Apple’s Siri, the intelligent agent residing in the company’s new iPhone 4S, through some paces. This is a longer demo than the one at the iPhone 4S rollout and … Continue reading →

Posted in Apps, EDA360 | Tagged , , , , , | 1 Comment

Could 28nm be the gating factor for LTE handset deployment? Aftermath of the Apple iPhone 4S rollout

Posted on October 5, 2011 by sleibson2

Yesterday, Apple introduced the iPhone 4S, an improved 3G phone. It’s not the 4G LTE phone many were expecting. Anand Lal Shimpi of http://www.Anandtech.com immediately published an article with a really interesting conjecture: LTE handsets await a mainstream 28nm process … Continue reading →

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Today’s Apple iPhone 4S intro emphasizes apps. Built-in apps

Posted on October 4, 2011 by sleibson2

With much of the expected fanfare, Apple introduced its next iPhone: the 4S. The iPhone 4S is a world phone with both GSM and CDMA capabilities, but it’s not a 4G phone. However, that probably doesn’t matter. With its usual … Continue reading →

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Jim Hogan coins “Jobs’ Law” and nails it to the door of System and SoC Realization

Posted on September 26, 2011 by sleibson2

Jim “make me some money” Hogan, perhaps the most visible VC in EDA, has just published an article titled “Jobs’ Law” on the System-Level Design Community Web site where he defines Jobs’ Law (Jobs, Steve Jobs, who shakes whole industries … Continue reading →

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Google’s planned purchase of Motorola Mobility is a pure EDA360 play: Software drives Hardware

Posted on August 16, 2011 by sleibson2

When I told my good friend David Thon that Google’s planned purchase of smartphone maker Motorola Mobility was a pure EDA360 play, he invited me to explain. In simplest terms, EDA360 posits that software now drives hardware in the processor-centric … Continue reading →

Posted in Android, Apps, EDA360, Firmware, iOS, System Realization | Tagged , , , , , , , | 1 Comment

Friday Video: Cool video tricks with the Apple iPhone 4’s CMOS camera and the rolling-shutter effect

Posted on July 22, 2011 by sleibson2

Normally, a CMOS image sensor’s rolling “jello” shutter is a liability. Pan the camera too quickly and vertical straight lines become curved. That’s because there’s a time delay between the capture of one line of video and the next, and … Continue reading →

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What’s the current cost of adding LTE to a mobile phone? $39.75 says an IHS report.

Posted on July 11, 2011 by sleibson2

According to a report published recently by  the IHS iSuppli Teardown Analysis Service, it costs nearly $40 to add LTE wireless capability to a mobile phone handset. That’s the conclusion of a teardown report on the HTC Thunderbolt mobile phone, … Continue reading →

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Friday Video: Will your chip design enable 15 minutes of fame?

Posted on June 24, 2011 by sleibson2

Most of the world doesn’t get excited about GHz, nm, Gbytes, and the other metrics of excess success we technologists wallow in. The majority of the people on this planet get excited about what those metrics allow them to do. … Continue reading →

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Want to know a secret about Apple’s iPhone apps? Things didn’t go exactly as planned according to San Jose Mercury News story

Posted on June 4, 2011 by sleibson2

Chris O’Brien of the San Jose Mercury News often writes extremely interesting tech stories from Silicon Valley and today’s newspaper carried a page-1 story about Apple’s iPhone apps, as told to O’Brien by former senior director of worldwide product marketing … Continue reading →

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Adobe CEO Shantanu Narayen predicts Android tablets will overtake Apple iPad

Posted on June 3, 2011 by sleibson2

Speaking at yesterday’s D9 Conference in Rancho Palos Verdes, California, Adobe CEO Shantanu Narayen predicted that sales of Android-based tablets would overcome iPad sales in the same way that Android phone sales have finally overtaken iPhone sales. You can’t tell … Continue reading →

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Microprocessor Report pries a few more secrets from the Apple A5 processor and asks if Intel should break itself in two

Posted on June 1, 2011 by sleibson2

A few weeks back, I wrote about the Apple A5 processor [link] introduced along with the iPad2. (See “Peeling back the layers of the onion that’s Apple’s A5 processor for the iPad2”)  At that time, there wasn’t much hard information … Continue reading →

Posted in Apps, ARM, EDA360 | Tagged , , , , | 1 Comment

Nvidia CEO Jen-Hsun Huang says Android tablets will overtake Apple’s iPad in 30 months

Posted on May 17, 2011 by sleibson2

 According to this article on Techspot.com, Nvidia CEO Jen-Hsun Huang told the audience at the Reuters Technology Summit in New York that Android tablets will overtake Apple’s iPad in 30 months. He said that it took the Android phone about … Continue reading →

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Nvidia’s CEO Jen-Hsun Huang explains why Android tablets aren’t selling, yet

Posted on May 16, 2011 by sleibson2

This CNET blog covers an interview with Nvidia’s CEO Jen-Hsun Huang. It caught my eye over the weekend. In the blog entry, Huang gives his opinion and reasons why Android-based tablet sales trail those of Apple’s iPads. Huang has an … Continue reading →

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