Thursday, November 20, 2014

An LG job description




LG San Jose Lab is an innovation R&D group leading the development of SoCs for future smart devices and Internet-of-Things. We are seeking talented individuals at all levels to join our exciting and dynamic R&D environment. As part of the Internet-of-Things and Wearable SoC platform team, you will help development in software platform for sensor fusion, speech recognition, security/authentication, and wireless protocols.
Responsibilities:

- Develop system software to integrate into LG IoT/Wearable technology platform
develop scheduler, inter-processor-communication, and optimize RTOS

- Develop and implement for authentication/security protocols

- Develop embedded software for development board/product for technology platform

- Product integration with embedded software skill such as JTAG ICE, scope, and I2C bus analyzer

- Managing software release using SVN and Bug tracking system
instruction level debugging and code optimization develop devices drivers ( i.e. sensor hub, communication protocols

- Develop wearable, Internet-of-Things platform ( part of Always-ON platform ) architecture

- Defining software architecture working with hardware and algorithm engineering

*LI-SR1
Qualifications:
- PhD (preferred) in Electrical Engineering or Computer Science with related coursework and some industry experience or a Masters Degree and a minimum of 5 – 8 or more years related industry experience

- Experience with C and embedded software development

- Good understanding of inter-circuit communication protocols such as I2C, SPI, I2S and etc.

- Experience in RTOS ( MQX a big plus ) and multi-core platform development

- Experience in Python or other scripting language

- Experience in Android and/or other mobile platform OS

- Self-motivated, team player that can work with various groups and departments; software, hardware, and systems.

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Wednesday, November 19, 2014


News & Analysis

Trillion-Sensor Vision, Results Shared

UCSD researchers show latest efforts
11/12/2014 08:45 PM EST 
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SAN DIEGO, Calif. — Saving the planet one sensor at a time, the backers of the Trillion Sensor Summit here shared their visions and some research working toward a fully instrumented world.
"I believe in a world with abundance -- a world without hunger, with medical care for all, with clean energy for all, no pollution," said Janusz Bryzek, chairmen and CEO of the event. "One of the components creating this world is a sensor at the bottom of the pyramid for mobile health, the Internet of Things, and wearable applications. In order to get there, we need to completely transform the economy."

Experimental chips from the Energy-Efficient Microsystems Group at UCSD's Center for Wearable Sensors.(Image: UCSD)
Experimental chips from the Energy-Efficient Microsystems Group at UCSD's Center for Wearable Sensors.
(Image: UCSD)

Abundance will require another 45 trillion sensors, many of which haven't been developed, Bryzek said. Wearable medical sensors pose enormous potential, speakers said.
Researchers at the University of California San Diego are among those driving the trend. "Elimination of poor countries by 2035… galvanizes the student population," said Albert Pisano, dean of UCSD's Jacobs School of Engineering. If I'm pumping out almost 2,000 graduates a year, and they're pumped up about this, it doesn't take much to have an army dedicated to this."
Proof-of-concepts from UCSD's Center for Wearable Sensorsincluded small, inexpensive sensors for a variety of medical uses. For example, the center has developed a proprietary board with glucose monitoring sensors that can be plugged into any smartphone, a retinal prosthesis with an implanted integrated circuit, and wireless power for data telemetry.
Joe Wang, distinguished professor in UCSD's Department of Nanoengineering and faculty director of its wearables center, showed off a variety of very small skin sensors. Screen printed tattoos with embedded sensors can monitor metabolism, electrolytes, and stress indicators, he said. The same sensors could be worn or placed on objects to measure environmental conditions such as pollution or mineral levels in water.
Real stats moving up and to the right fueled some of the enthusiasm. The mobile sensor market grew more than 200% between 2007 and 2013, and the mobile health market is expected to lower treatment costs by 35%.
"The biggest challenges are the amount of data, processing this [data], and supporting infrastructure," Bryzek said. Global health monitoring will require the cost of sensors to drop to less than 50 cents each.
Wang's prototypes may be on the right track, with price points of $1 for the tattoos and $23 for the glucose meters. However, price isn't the only or even the main factor. Bryzek said a "dramatic shift of skills" and "massive retraining" will be needed to create the technology for a trillion sensors.
Developing that many sensors "is not inevitable," according to Steve Whalley, chief strategy officer at the MEMS Industry Group. "If it wasn't for TSensors Summit, we'd be going on an evolutionary pace, and maybe we'd get there, but it wouldn't be at the pace we need for the growing population."
— Jessica Lipsky, Associate Editor, EE Times Circle me on Google+
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Bert22306
USER RANK CEO
Re: An overstatement? Bert22306   11/13/2014 5:10:24 PM
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I actually do not think this is an overstatement. It is instead a trend we can see occurring already. Whether all of these sensors truly need to be connected to the Internet is another matter, but that their numbers are growing by leaps and bounds is evident.

One trend that I'm noticing is that much of modern system design is self-monitoring, self-regulating and self-healing, compared to the "adjust and forget" approach of even fairly recent times. Take automobiles as an obvious example. Remember when you had to get frequent tune-ups, and how different the car felt after getting a tune-up? That was because the engine drifted out of optimum tune steadily, between tune-ups. These days, they might change the spark plugs once in a blue moon, but you can hardly tell the difference. That's because the car is constantly monitoring and tuning itself.

Many modern systems do this, including the Internet itself. Industrial systems, ship and aircraft controls, obviously cars, buses, trains, all of these are becoming more self-adjusting, self-maintaining (e.g. filters that automatically back-flush periodically), and self-healing, or if not self-healing, at the very least, self-monitoring.

We've addressed the ongoing changes in the medical field already, in EE Times, where people can take a more active role in self-monitoring at the very least. So I don't think this sensor explosion only applies to mechanical objects.

In homes, there is a lot that can be done in the future. Some systems, like HVAC, have clearly been improving in terms of automation (and consequent sensor use). How far in the future are self-cleaning homes? Self-mowing lawns? To me, these are imminent. More general self-maintenance might be a little further in the future.

So yes, it does look like sensors are showing up in everything, to make all of this possible. Do they all need to be globally accessible (over the Internet)? That's another question. Probabaly not.
alex_m1
USER RANK CEO
Yes it can alex_m1   11/13/2014 1:41:36 PM
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@Jesssica , with medical error rates(versus best care) in westren countries at maybe 15%, And with the possibility of diagnosing diseases far earlier - when they are much easier to treat, and the possibility of machine learning coupled with all that data to offer even better care than current best care , sure 35% saving is a possibility.

As for the effects on the third world - yes they could be big. In many cases there's a lack of highly trained physicians , so if those  sensors can greatly simplify treatment so a nurse can offer it - it would have huge effects.

 But really the more exiciting sensors are labs-on-chip , which really bring a moore's law like revolution to the world of blood tests, and medicine itself.
Jessica Lipsky
USER RANK AUTHOR
An overstatement? Jessica Lipsky   11/13/2014 12:55:14 PM
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There's a lot of energy and excitement here over a connected world, but do you think such an "abundant" vision is realistic?

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A really nice read by Kevin Morris from the recent MEMS congress.



November 11, 2014

No Moore for MEMS

Sensors Stay Steady

by Kevin Morris
On April 19, 1965, Electronics magazine ran an article called “Cramming More Components Onto Integrated Circuits.” It was written by an engineer from Fairchild Semiconductor, and it contained a simple prediction that turned out to be the trend that changed the world. Gordon Moore’s article is the reference point for the explosive growth in semiconductor capability that has lasted for almost fifty years now.
In that same year, there was another article in that same magazine describing a device invented by Harvey Nathanson of Westinghouse Labs that combined a tungsten rod over a transistor to form a “microscopic frequency selective device” - the very first MEMS device. The device was later patented as the “Resonant Gate Transistor.” 
So - MEMS and logic transistors have both been around for almost fifty years. And, since MEMS and logic transistors are fabricated in the same factories, using the same techniques, and used in the same systems, there is a natural temptation to draw correlations between them. Indeed, as I attended the annual MEMS Executive Congress last week, I had the distinct deja vu sense that I was back in 1980s semiconductor land. The tight-knit community of highly-motivated people exploring a vast universe of possibilities with an exciting emerging technology whose time has come - had all the ingredients of that Moore’s Law magic that captured our imaginations and transformed our culture back before semiconductor production became the exclusive purview of entities with the wealth of nations.
Everyone seems to be silently waiting in anticipation of the same thing. When will MEMS have a Moore’s-Law-like explosion that will catapult companies with Intel-like velocity from shaky startups to stalwart supercorporations? With MEMS in every mobile device, and predictions that the world will contain a trillion MEMS sensors within just a few years, the excitement is palpable. After all, a trillion is a very big number - it works out to between 300 and 400 sensors for every man, woman, and child on Earth.
There will be no Moore’s Law for MEMS.
While 300-400 MEMS devices for every human being in existence may sound like a lot, to paraphrase Douglas Adams, that’s just peanuts to transistors. With transistor counts in the latest process nodes running into the billions of transistors per device, there will be many individuals who own transistors in the trillions. And, while this comparison may seem silly, it does highlight an important fact: Moore’s Law was not about “electronics” or “components” in general. It was about one single type of device - the CMOS logic transistor.
Of course, lithography made quantum improvements over the decades and we can now make smaller, better versions of all kinds of components - including MEMS - as a result. But the component driving that explosion was the only one we knew how to use productively in almost unlimited quantities - the logic transistor. A smartphone or tablet today can put several billion logic transistors to work without missing a beat. If we offered smartphone designers a billion more for free, they’d take it. But it’s hard to figure out what we’d do with more than a few dozen MEMS sensors in a phone. With 9 motion sensors and a GPS, your phone already knows where it is, which way it’s oriented, and how it’s moving.
Doubling up on those sensors offers no practical value. We could throw in a few variometers, hygrometers, thermometers, barometers, heck - even a spectrometer or two - and our device would be a sensory bad-ass with only a double-digit MEMS tab. And, behind each one of those sensors we’d still need a massive number of transistors to do the requisite amount of processing required to make use of the data those sensors are dumping out. In fact, the irony of the situation is that the presence of MEMS in our systems is causing a renewed demand for much more of the non-MEMS technology - like FPGAs.
There is most certainly a MEMS-driven revolution occurring in our systems. And the proliferation of those sensors - which most likely will fulfill the “trillion sensor” forecasts being tossed around by MEMS industry experts - will absolutely transform the electronics landscape again, just not with a Moore’s Law explosion in MEMS itself.
Consider today’s primary technology driver, the smartphone. There is considerable speculation as to the utility of quad-core, 64-bit processors in smartphones. Why? There just hasn’t been that much processing to do. Once we had devices that could deliver outstanding video gaming performance, there weren’t many application mountains to climb that required giant, in-phone, heavy-iron processing power. And, those big ‘ol processors impose a power penalty that’s very hard to ignore in our incredibly tight battery budgets.
But throwing a passel of MEMS sensors into the mix brings on a whole new processing challenge. Now we need to perform sophisticated analyses on massive amounts of data coming from those sensors - often constantly and in real time - in order to achieve the end-goal for our system, which is referred to as “context.” 
“Context” is simply an understanding of what is going on, extrapolated from a pile of diverse data. Context usually involves answering a simple question reliably - what is the device (or the user of the device) doing right now, and in what environment? After a bunch of algorithms are applied to a crazy stream of data, our system may conclude that the user is now “walking.” Bonus points if it knows other details like where that walking is taking place, how fast the user is going, and what environment the user is walking through.
Making a system that can reliably infer context from cross-correlating a lot of sensor data requires a few good MEMS sensors - and a gigantic amount of ultra-low-power processing prowess. That challenge is one that won’t be addressed by more or better sensors. It is also likely one that won’t be able to get much benefit from that quad-core 64-bit ARM monstrosity. Just powering that thing up for more than a quick after-the-fact analysis breaks the power budget of most battery-powered systems - and pretty much every potentially wearable device.
Solving those processing challenges will most likely require hardware architectures similar to FPGAs - which are the only devices right now that can deliver the combination of ultra-high performance, on-the-fly algorithm reconfigurability, and super-low power consumption that are needed to tackle the sensor-data tsunami. In fact, at least two FPGA companies (QuickLogic and Lattice Semiconductor) have gone after this challenge specifically, producing programmable logic devices suitable for running complex sensor fusion algorithms in battery-operated systems with tight constraints on power, cost, and form factor.
But sensor fusion is just the tip of the proverbial iceberg. When there are a trillion sensors out there in the world deluging us with data, our only hope of being able to extract high-quality, real-world, actionable information is a meta-scale heterogeneous client-and-server computing system that spans the gamut from tiny, efficient, local sensor fusion devices to enormous cloud-based, big-data, server farm analysis. Each layer of that meta machine will need to correlate, consolidate, and reduce the data available to it, and then pass the results upstream for higher-level analysis.
So, even though those sensors won’t have a Moore’s Law of their own, they are likely to be the driving factor in a formidable category of applications that will fuel the need for the same-old Moore’s Law to continue for a few more cycles. 

5 star read here.  Nice, and QUIK keep the execution spot on.  THanks in advance.

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Megachips, now that they have SITIme will put that bit together with the other ones they have for an IoT SoC.

So what do they have anyway?

but before scanning this one.

Nice QUIK,  when those new job are filled another 20 yrs of experience will have been added,  a lot to do, and I look forward to reading of the end results of these efforts in '15.  Well over 100 man yrs of experience added this past 12 months.  As an investor in their business the best thing for me to gain insight not discussed is in those numerous listings of the past 12 months.


Notice of Development of Sensor Hub LSI “frizz”
MegaChips Corporation (“the Company”) announces that it has developed the Sensor Hub LSI “frizz”
(Model No.: MA60000). The Company is scheduled to begin delivering samples at the end of October 2014
and shipping commercial products in January 2015. The FY2015 sales target for the product is 10 million
units. The details of the product are outlined below.
Currently, smartphones and wearable devices (activity meters, smart watches, etc.) are equipped with
multiple sensors including acceleration sensors, gyro sensors, and terrestrial magnetism sensors. These
sensors have led to new utilizations, including recognition of the human movement or the state of a device,
either to control the device or to record the human activity. When the main processor processes these data
from the sensors, the power consumption of the device increases significantly. To solve this problem, an
LSI called the Sensor Hub has been developed. The Sensor Hub is located between the main processor and
the sensor. While the main processor is not working, the Sensor Hub with its “Always on” function
constantly receives signals from the sensor and buffer them. The newly developed “frizz” is not just a hub
for the buffer, but a next-generation Sensor Hub LSI with DSP that performs advanced arithmetic
processing with low power consumption.
For smartphones, which continue to advance rapidly, battery life is a key issue. In addition, in the evolution
of smartphones, functions that are expected to spread rapidly include “status detection”, to detect the status
of holding a data terminal, “behavior recognition”, to detect behaviors such as walking and taking the train,
and “Pedestrian Dead-Reckoning (PDR)”, to realize a navigation system in locations where GPS radio
waves cannot be received. To achieve these functions, a high-performance Sensor Hub LSI with low power
consumption is essential. In order to meet this demand, the “frizz” is equipped with an exclusively designed
DSP for data processing with low power consumption. For example, the DSP processes heavy operations
including the orientation estimation used in PDR with a parallelized arithmetic processing circuit. As a
result, low clock operation with ultra-low power consumption becomes possible.
To prepare for the upcoming aging society, the area of wearable devices that use a variety of sensors for
healthcare and monitoring of the elderly and children is where strong growth is expected in the future. In
this area, the “frizz,” taking advantage of the Sensor Hub LSI based on DSP, responds to not only motion
sensors for acceleration and gyro, but a biosensor for which complex processing is required, including
pulse detection. In addition, the Company is advancing the creation of a library of software for processing
and operating all sorts of sensors to contribute to the rapid launch of its customers’ products. MegaChips Corporation 2/2
For the software development environment, an Eclipse-based Integrated Development Environment (IDE)
has been prepared and developers can create software using “C/C++,” which is what they are accustomed
to using. In addition, as an evaluation kit, the Company has prepared an evaluation board with ten sensors
including acceleration, gyro, terrestrial magnetism, and atmospheric pressure to allow the evaluation of
the software developed.
Upon the release of the “frizz,” Kenji Nakamura (Officer and Deputy General Manager, Division No.2,
AS Business Headquarters, which is responsible for the ASSP product business) makes the following
comments: “Our ‘frizz’ is a high-performance Sensor Hub LSI with ultra-low power consumption that will
significantly change the world of smartphones and wearable devices. We are proud that we are able to
provide products that make your lives safe, secure, and comfortable, including a navigation system for
underground malls and buildings and a remote monitoring system for children and the elderly.”
■ Main Features:
1. DSP-based Sensor Hub that performs outstanding high-speed algorithm operations
2. Maximum operating frequency 40MHz high-speed operation with ultra-low power consumption
3. User-friendly development environment
■ Basic Specifications:
・ Processor core: Cadence Xtensa LX4 based 32bit DSP “ParaForce”
・ Maximum operating frequency: 40MHz
・ Embedded memory: Instruction RAM 256KByte
 Data RAM 256KByte
・ Host I/F: SPI x 1, I2C x 1
 Dual Purpose RAM (32 bit x 64 word)
・ External I/F: UART x 1, I2C x 1, SPI x 1 (4 devices control), GPIO x 4
・ Supply voltage: Core 1.2V
 IO 1.8 / 2.5 / 2.8 / 3.0 / 3.3V compatible
・ Power consumption: Active mode 96.9uA/MHz
・ Package: 3.5 x 3.5 x 0.65 (mm)
■ Glossary
・Wearable device:
A device with a high-performance processor that can be worn while walking around.
The device is available as watch, wristband and head-mount/display versions, with usage including
healthcare and as an input device.
・PDR (Pedestrian Dead-Reckoning):
Dead-Reckoning for the trajectory of pedestrians based on information including acceleration, gyro, and
terrestrial magnetism. One of the indoor positioning methods.


Like audience who bought the IP algo house SPI, they are also DSP based...won't match the approach that QUIK has taken as far low power.........but notice that bits and pieces are not sticking around very long, they are gone a lot of the time.
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Alongside new wearables company, Lenovo reveals China-only Google Glass rival

Alongside new wearables company, Lenovo reveals China-only Google Glass rival
By , Writer
Chinese laptop and smartphone manufacturer Lenovo has made a sudden and assertive push toward smart device development by announcing the formation of a brand new company focusing on wearable tech, and by unveiling its consumer-targeted Google Glass competitor.
Whether the two will come together under the same banner hasn't yet been revealed though, as the spin-off company isn't opening its doors until April 2015.
New tech, new name
This smart devices and services company will get its own branding, separate from its Lenovo Group parent, and will take a direct-to-consumer approach rather than selling through carriers, as it currently does with smartphones.
Being based in China, it seems the smart tech branch will initially focus on selling to the local market.
The announcement comes as Lenovo unveils its Google Glass competitor, the New Glass, which is one of four smart products developed by the company's New Business Development platform.
The device is powered by the Android platform, and consists of a single, detachable eye-piece and camera with a necklace-like battery pack. This allows it to be clipped to the user's existing spectacles, if required, having the body of the device out of the way around the neck.
Control is via a paired smartphone, voice, or a using a specially made smart ring.
Competition for Google some in the shape of Lenovo New Glass.
The New Glass is being made exclusively for China initially, with a Chinese language operating system and display, but the popularity of the company's laptops worldwide will hopefully encourage foerign sales before too long.

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China’s Qihoo 360 To Invest In Israel

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Qihoo 360
The Chinese Internet-security company Qihoo 360 Technology Co. will spend some of its new a global, early-stage $60 million fund on investments in Israel, according to a report in the Wall Street Journal.
This is just the latest example of the growing relationship between China and Israel.
The business ties between Israel and China just keep on getting stronger and stronger. Corporations from both nations have invested in the other and as cultural and educational ties have also been strengthened of late.
The intended fund, called “360 Capital—IoT Fund,” will focus on investments in China, the U.S. and Israel.The plans for the new fund were revealed by a company executive during a presentation that he gave in Israel last week.
Qihoo has already made investments in Israel over the past year, including ones in two funds, Carmel Ventures and Jerusalem Venture Partners. It also invested in Israeli image-recognition-technology company Cortica Inc., gesture-control-technology company Extreme Reality Ltd. and messaging-app maker Glide Talk Ltd.
Founded in 2005, Qihoo provides Internet and mobile security products and services in China. Its core Internet security products include 360 Safe Guard, a solution for Internet security and system optimization; 360 Anti-Virus, an anti-virus application that uses multiple scan engines to protect users’ computers against various kinds of malware, as well as 360 Mobile Safe, a security program for the Google Android, Apple iOS, and Windows smartphone operating systems.
A Qihoo rep met with a number of Israeli startups over the past few weeks, including ones developing technology for wearable computing and connected homes.
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