By Malcolm Fuller, Contributing Writer LOS GATOS, Calif.—Sometimes, an inflection point only comes along once in a generation. When it comes to power consumption, that time is now, according to Bruce McWilliams, President and CEO of SuVolta. For decades, the electronics-design paradigm was all about the megahertz arms race, as Intel pushed out faster and faster microprocessors in a battle for supremacy

(Odometer: 22,290 miles) LOS GATOS, Calif.–The electronics industry is so technically advanced and its companies so increasingly specialized that battling the power issues attendant with device scaling has taken on a life of its own. Welcome to SuVolta, a startup here in the shadow of the Santa Cruz Mountains that was founded to develop and license CMOS technology to reduce

FORT WORTH, Texas–What’s the secret to engineering a startup success? Maybe owning a plane together. Gary Chemelewski and Barry Jason go way back, back to Motorola days when Chemelewski was a design engineer and Jason was in research. They were friends and they owned a plane together. And they had some similar notions about innovating inside a large and successful

In the first of a three-part series of video excerpts from Design West, Munro & Associates' Al Steier and TechInsights' John Scott-Thomas analyze the Chevy Volt's battery pack. Here is their presentation, edited to 15:05:

TAMPA, Fla.–Every introduction of new technology into the smart grid opens it up to further attack. That was Mike Duren’s frank assessment when we stopped here at Sypris Solutions to chat with him and Mike Walsh, the company’s president. More design resources Sypris is an EMS and engineering-services company, but it has built a solid reputation in the electronics threat-mitigation business.

SAN JOSE, Calif.–The fun aspect of trade shows is getting to see amazing demos and take home some amusing give-aways–booth swag, if you will. More design resources As Moore's Law marches on, these toys get smaller, more interesting (or funny) and cleverer. We met Microchip Product Marketing Manager Greg Brown during our tour of Arizona two weeks ago, and, here

LARGO, Fla.–Like yoga, the pinnacle of design innovation is a balance struck between form, functionality, cost and, oh, 10 or 20 other variables.   Not easy, but, like yoga, can be learned over years of practice. The best part of our Drive for Innovation meetings is finding people who can articulate their best efforts at achieving balance with what are

When generals in the U.S. military are attending to CES and considering how to deploy consumer computer tablets into their forces, you know it’s a different world. (More on that later). It’s a different world than it was a few years ago, and it’s a different world when it comes to power management — crucial for mobile systems in any

MARLTON, N.J.–We've been slowly peeling back the onion on the Chevy Volt and EV technology on this site. (We'll be tearing down a Volt next year and analyzing it to cap off this adventure). John Donovan has been looking under the hood at the Volt, such as interfacing the motor with the engine and electric driving and Henry Muyshondt examined "Making the ‘MOST’ of