Embedded Executive

For its full existence, Arm has primarily been an IP vendor. That has now changed. Arm will be producing silicon products, similar to many of its customers. Getting to that point required an assist from some of its partners, including Synopsys. To understand what an “assist” consists of and what the longer-term outlook looks like, I spoke to Frank Schirrmeister, the Executive Director of Product Management for System Solutions at Synopsys, on this week's Embedded Executives podcast.

Digital transformation, particularly in industrial equipment, has the ability to change the landscape of design. Really? Do you even know what digital transformation is? It's a term that Doug Cougle, the SVP of Operations and Business Development at NTX Embedded, used in a recent conversation. He said it with such conviction that I thought, “Maybe this is something I should learn more about.” I did, and I think you should as well, which is why I invited Doug to be a guest on this week's Embedded Executives podcast.

Embedded Computing Design Editor, Ken Briodagh, talks with Bartek Kling, CEO of needcode, at embedded world 2026.

Rich Nass interviews Julien Battiston with NXP at embedded world 2026 in Nuremberg.

End devices are shipping with the AI box checked. In other words, OEMs are saying that their products are AI-enabled. But are they really, or is this just marketing spin? The first response is that it depends on how you define AI. The second is that some of the features being implemented really are doing so with AI, but there might be other (simpler?) ways to handle the same functions. To make this clearer, I spoke to Steve Tateosian, the Senior VP and GM for IoT, Consumer, and Industrial MCUs for Infineon Technologies, on this week's Embedded Executives podcast.

Ken Briodagh of Embedded Computing Design interviews PQ Shield about post-quantum computing on the Embedded Executive podcast LIVE at embedded world 2026.

Editor-in-Chief, Ken Briodagh, interviews Vinay Argarwal, GM MSP Microcontroller, Texas Instruments, at embedded world 2026.

Aptiv makes a clear distinction between “intelligent mobility” and “autonomous drive.” It's easy to see how the two terms can be used interchangeably, but Aptiv is applying the former to many platforms that are not automobiles. And because of the company's experience in the automotive space, it can do so in a big way. To understand the difference between the two terms and the impact that Aptiv can have in this space, I spoke to Deepali Trehan, Aptiv's Senior VP and Chief Product Officer, on this week's Embedded Executives podcast.

Ken Briodagh, Editor in Chief of Embedded Computing Design, sits down with Christoph Herzog, Co-CEO, CTO of TASKING, for a live embedded world episode of Embedded Executive.

Ken Briodagh, Editor-in-Chief at Embedded Computing Design, interviews Jose Ruiz from AdaCore at Embedded World.

Ken Briodagh, Editor in Chief at Embedded Computing Design, interviews Jonathan Hacker from TeleCAnesis at Embedded World!

If you're building an Edge-based device, you need to be concerned about power consumption. If you're building an Edge-based device that's running on a battery, power consumption rockets to the top of the priority list. One vendor that has a lot of say in where power levels reside is GlobalFoundries. Along with its customers, the company sets many of the rules when it comes to power. To see what those rules are and where those levels currently reside, I spoke to Ed Kaste, the Senior Vice President of the Ultra-Low Power Business at GlobalFoundries, on this week's Embedded Executives podcast.

Rich Nass interviews Greg Sheridan and Eric Welsh with Octavo Systems at embedded world 2026.

When the discussion of “AI everywhere” comes up with the folks at onsemi, they know that there's far more to the design complexity than massive amounts of processing. They help designers deal with the massive amount of power that's required to drive these systems. Embedded Computing Design's Rich Nass sat with onsemi's Felicity Carson to understand how the company is working with designers to maximize power efficiency.

Digital twins, a virtual representation of a physical product, can simplify your development process. To me, doing something that sounds quite complex can't actually make something easier. However, as Marc Serughetti, the Vice President of Product Line Management for the Synopsys Systems Design Group, explains to me, that's really how it works. Hear it from the expert on this week's Embedded Executives podcast.

Ken Briodagh, Editor in Chief at Embedded Computing Design, interviews Jeff Baldwin from Sealevel Systems at Embedded World!

Haydn Povey of SCI Semiconductor discusses the world's most secure microcontroller with Rich Nass, from Embedded Computing Design.

Ken Briodagh, editor of Embedded Computing Design, interviews Scott Turnbull with fidus.

If you weren't able to attend embedded world in Nuremberg, Germany, a few weeks ago, you'll love this recap of the event featuring David Sandys, the Senior Director of Technical Enablement and Engagement at DigiKey. While it's not possible to see everything at a show as large as embedded world, David and I pull out many of the highlights. Check out this week's Embedded Executives podcast. and hear about some of the things that stood out for David (and for DigiKey).

Ken Briodagh, Editor-in-Chief, Embedded Computing Design, interviews Nicolas Demoulin, Senior Marketing Manager, Microchip Technology at embedded world 2026.

Ken Briodagh, Editor-in-Chief of Embedded Computing Design, interviews Joao Pereira, Embedded Market EMEA with QNX at embedded world 2026

If you were not aware, you need to be: we are in a memory crisis. Most systems developers either can't get the memory they need today, or they are being quoted exorbitant prices for that memory. And “systems” fall into just about every application. The crisis has a lot to do with the huge capacities needed for artificial intelligence, but there are other reasons as well. To understand what this means, and when (and if) it'll end, I spoke to Sean Dougherty, a Vice President with Everspin Technologies, on this week's Embedded Executives podcast.

Lattice Semiconductor's Esam Elashmawi sits with Embedded Computing Design's Rich Nass to talk about the company's latest programmable devices.

Systems are demanding more from their memory subsystems, and they can get it thanks to the latest controller from Rambus, as evidenced in the discussion between Rambus' Bart Stevens and Embedded Computing Design's Rich Nass.

Handling your AI off-chip is a great way to increase performance, which was the topic of the discussion between Axelera's Fabrizio DelMaffeo and Rich Nass of Embedded Computing Design

Industrial power conversion is somewhat of an obscure topic, but nonetheless, super-important for people designing any type of platform or equipment for the industrial space. At the top of that list, and the application that's responsible for changing our designs seemingly overnight, is the data center. Efficiently powering these data centers is key because they consume lots of power, and they are popping up in more places than originally expected. To help understand how to deal with these key issues, I spoke to Steve Tateosian, Infineon Technologies' Senior VP for its IoT, Compute and Wireless Business Unit, on this week's Embedded Executives podcast.

Editor Rich Nass interviews Alex Wood, Global Marketing Director, Tria Technologies, and Robert Thompson, Director Edge Processing Ecosystems, NXP, at embedded world 2026.

You've heard it over and over—you must incorporate security into your design. And in most cases, that's happening today. But the task can still be somewhat daunting. That's where a vendor like Thistle Technologies comes into play. They can make the integration far easier than you might have expected. Hear why and how from the company's Founder and CEO, Window Snyder, who has seen far more than most of us when it comes to security. Window was this week's guest on the Embedded Executives podcast.

T-minus six days for embedded world in Nuremberg. If you've been in the embedded space for any amount of time, you're likely aware of embedded world, which is the annual global meeting place for the industry. On this week's Embedded Executives podcast, I was able to corral Axel Sikora, the Chairman of the conference's technical committee. We walked through some of the highlights of the upcoming event.

Bluetooth is everywhere, right? Until recently, I would have said “Almost everywhere,” since it hadn't yet affected the industrial sector. However, according to Simon Ford, the Founder of Blecon, Bluetooth has now entered that final frontier. It's done so for obvious reasons, like power, performance, and ubiquity, and a few other reasons. Hear what Simon has to say on this week's Embedded Executives podcast.

Bluetooth claims to own the low-power wireless space with its Low Energy (LE) flavor. A newer, yet older entrant in the space wants to claim that throne. That would be Low Energy UWB, or LE-UWB. And now you understand the reference to newer-older. UWB has been around for many years, but the LE variant is relatively new. In addition to lower power, it also offers a much higher bandwidth than Bluetooth, amongst other benefits, all of which are detailed by Frederic Nabki, the Co-Founder and Chief Technology Officer of SPARK Microsystems. Frederic joined me on this week's Embedded Executives podcast.

There are many different ways to look at the tangled web of AI. For example, tackling from the inference perspective is one way of looking at the puzzle, as not everyone is doing that. One vendor, who may have a leg up, is VSORA, who claims to "make AI more accessible, efficient, and sustainable than ever.” That sounds like a tall order, but a great move to reaching that goal is to bring along someone who's actually climbed the mountain before. In this case, that would be Sandra Rivera, a long-time Intel veteran and former CEO of Altera, and now the Chairwoman of the Board at VSORA. Sandra was my guest on this week's Embedded Executives podcast.

The Chips and Science Act has been with us for a while now, and obviously, technology doesn't stand still. To understand what's going on with this important act, I spoke to Reza Azarderakhsh, the Founder and CEO of PQSecure Technologies. Reza introduced this act to our audience about a year ago, so this serves as a great update. We also dive into the related security issues developers need to stay on top of. Hear it all on this week's Embedded Executives podcast.

Kinetic energy can be harvested from very simple mechanical movements, like the push of a button or the turning of a knob. WePower Technologies has been able to do more with that small amount of power than I expected. For example, they can power a transceiver to turn a light on or off simply by pushing a button or power the mechanical mechanism in a door lock by turning a knob 90 degrees. This would replace a battery that needs to be swapped on a regular basis. Hear more about it on the week's Embedded Executives podcast, where I speak to WePower Technologies' Founder and CEO, Larry Richenstein.

Avnet recently surveyed part of its core audience, and the topic was AI's Impact on Engineering. It doesn't get much closer to home than that. To understand how the survey was conducted and, more importantly, what the results showed, I spoke to Alex Iuorio, Avnet's Senior Vice President for Global Supplier Development. Alex and I discussed the results, what they mean, and what the future looks like in terms of AI in engineering. Check out this week's Embedded Executives podcast to hear what he had to say.

We've all seen the wireless charging devices; you set your phone down on the charger, come back after a while, and your phone is charged. If the charger manufacturer followed the standard set forth by the Wireless Power Consortium (WPC), that scenario would play out. If they didn't follow the standard, then you may come back to an uncharged device. Recently, the WPC released the latest version of its charging spec, pushing the charging level from 15 W up to 25 W. Hear more about it on this week's Embedded Executives podcast, where I speak to the WPC's Marketing Director, Paul Golden.

It's time for an update on Wi-Fi. On this week's Embedded Executives podcast, we take a look at what's the latest, what's coming, what's real, and what's not so real, all as it pertains to Wi-Fi. To get answers to these questions, I spoke with Sivaram Trikutam, Senior Vice President of Wireless Products at Infineon Technologies. Sivaram and I went through the latest protocols to understand how things like range, power, frequency, and bandwidth will change (or not) going forward. To that end, Infineon just launched its latest Wi-Wi-Fi transceiver, the AIROC ACW741x product family, which the company claims is the industry's first 20-MHz tri-radio device optimized for IoT applications.

There are lots of different ways that IoT devices can communicate. In some instances, that's a good thing. But in other cases, it's hindering the growth of IoT devices. And that's a problem, at least according to Mike Rohrmoser, a Vice President at Digi. In this week's Embedded Executives podcast, Mike explains how protocols are evolving and what needs to occur to ensure interoperability between all devices, including those that may have been in the field for decades.

There's no moss gathering under the Connectivity Stands Alliance, as the group recently announced the latest rev of the ZigBee spec, version 4.0. This new version enhances the security efforts from the previous generation, and also takes a hard look at smart energy in the latest devices. One of the keys, as you'll hear, is the backward compatibility that's been maintained. Faisal Bhaiyat, the Co-Chair of ZigBee Working Group, Connectivity Standards Alliance, and also a Senior Software Architect with Silicon Labs, fills me in on the details on this week's Embedded Executives podcast.

You're likely aware of many of the great things AI can do for you. And I'm guessing you've seen many of the nefarious things it can be used for. I was just brought up to speed on one of the latter items, and it's something you should be aware of as well. In my discussion with Marcus Webster, the Founder and President of Webster and Webster Associates, I learned that people are using AI to help them get jobs, and in some cases, they are jobs that they should not be getting, for security reasons. People are submitting fake resumes and even conducting fake video-based job interviews. Honestly, it's both fascinating and scary. Check out this week's Embedded Executives podcast to learn more.

Most of the RISC-V offerings that I've seen have been pushing very high performance, with lots of cores and lots of chips. Upbeat Technology is taking a different tack by looking at very low power levels. In my discussion with Jerry Chen, Founder and CEO of Upbeat Technology, he explains the reasons for that approach, and, as you'll hear, he tells it like it is and explains why the company partnered with SiFive. The applications that make sense for the Upbeat offering include always-on IoT, wearables, drones/UAVs, smart audio, predictive maintenance, and edge-AI sensors, basically anything battery-powered. Hear our discussion on this week's Embedded Executives podcast.

It's not the first time this has occurred, but it is the latest—a previously commercial real-time operating system is now being offered as open source. In this case, it's SMX from Micro Digital. If you're wondering, like I was, where the company would choose to go this route, check out this week's Embedded Executives podcast with Ralph More, the Founder and President of Micro Digital.

There are lots of semiconductor vendors that do a great job of providing AI hardware. But unfortunately, for many of them, their offerings end there, requiring developers to source software and tools from multiple sources. It's no secret that designing a system with AI is complex enough. Having to go to different vendors for different pieces just adds multiple layers of complexity. Analog Devices is taking a different tack, where they are providing just about everything the developer needs, thanks to its CodeFusion Studio, which includes an IDE, a software development kit, and coding tools. Hear more about it on this week's Embedded Executives podcast, where I spoke to Rob Oshana, Analog Devices' Senior Vice President of Software and Digital Platforms.

Every IoT device should comply with the Connectivity Standard Alliance (CSA) Matter standard, but we know that's not the case. For some developers, doing that is a no-brainer. However, there are some developers who struggle with the process. For that latter group, the CSA recently released a Matter-compliant platform certification that should help them get to market far more quickly. To explain how that works, I spoke to Jon Harros, who leads the Alliance Certification and Testing team at the CSA, on this week's Embedded Executives podcast. Jon goes through the need for the program, how it's implemented, and what developers need to know.

Compilers and ADAS aren't often used in the same sentence. For developers, that anomaly can represent a design challenge, as compilers in general are not designed for this particular application, which also happens to be at the top of the safety and security checklist. To understand how these compilers should be tested and implemented, I spoke to Sjoerd van der Zwaan, the Chief Product Officer at Solid Sands, on this week's Embedded Executives podcast. Sjoerd explains how and why compilers for ADAS are different from general compilers, and why you need to run your compiler through an appropriate series of tests to ensure compatibility.

AI at the endpoint gets yet another boost from EMASS, a fabless semiconductor company that recently emerged from stealth mode. Having your processing at the endpoint presents a few significant challenges, namely the amount of processing that can be made available and the ability to run from a battery. EMASS has come up with a way to do this a little differently from what's been done previously. They can attach their RISC-V processing element to any sensor, making the device an AI accelerator. It's a little difficult for me to put into words here, so check out this week's Embedded Executives podcast, where I spent some time with Mark Goranson, EMASS's CEO, who explains it in detail.

No matter what your end device is, be it a light bulb or a driver's license, it needs to be secure. I don't think we need to go through the reasons why it needs to be secure. How you do that is becoming increasingly more difficult. And you may be looking at protecting millions of devices, where each one needs its own unique identity. To get a handle on how you would do this, at least where you would begin this daunting task, I spoke to two experts: Patrick Carrier, a Manager for Secure Solutions at Infineon, and Xin Qiu, the Head of Security Solutions at CommScope. On this week's Embedded Executives podcast, they lay out the need and then the process a developer would follow.

AI is a technology that generally requires a significant amount of power and high compute performance. Hence, it's typically relegated to the Cloud or to an Edge-based computer.Performing AI at the endpoint has not been feasible for those reasons. With ambiq's Sub-threshold Power Optimized technology (SPOT), performing AI at the endpoint is a reality. And the doors/applications that it opens are extremely cool. Hear more about it in this week's Embedded Executives podcast, where I spoke to Ambiq's Vice President of AI, Carlos Morales. Note that Ambiq just recently released the latest version of neuralSPOT, which now includes key performance enhancements specific to the company's Apollo5 family, amongst other features, some of which are specific to AI development.

We've done podcasts in the past that discussed automating your code documentation. But we haven't touched much on automating the code generation itself until now. On this week's Embedded Executives podcast, I spoke to Jonathan Hacker, the Founder and CTO of TeleCANesis, and that's exactly what they do. We got into the issues of why automated coding is better than manual coding. Then we had a very interesting discussion about why you shouldn't consider AI for code generation, at least not yet.

Designing a device that incorporates AI can be daunting, for a good reason—it's very complex. When you push that design out to the Edge, it brings in even more challenges, both on the hardware and software sides of the equation. To understand what these challenges are and where a designer can turn for help, I spoke to Amir Panush, the CEO of CEVA, on this week's Embedded Executives podcast. He addresses these issues on a regular basis and has a good understanding of what a designer needs to know.

Silicon Labs recently announced an MCU that has achieved the highest level of security possible to date, which is PSA Level 4. The questions you may be asking are, “What does that mean, and is this something I need to understand?” To get answers to these questions and many related ones, I spoke to Sharon Hagi, the Chief Security Officer at Silicon Labs, on this week's Embedded Executives podcast. You may be surprised by his responses, that not every design needs this level of security.