Chip combines NFC and post-quantum security

ST’s ST54M integrates a post-quantum cryptography (PQC) hardware accelerator, NFC controller, secure element, and eSIM on a single die. The chip helps smartphone and personal electronics manufacturers prepare for future post-quantum security…

Hall current sensor delivers sigma-delta output

The Melexis MLX91229 Hall current sensor provides a second-order sigma-delta digital output that improves signal integrity in EV traction inverter applications. Optimized for automotive systems, this output tolerates heavy EMI, helping maintain…

Position sensor gets linear 4 to 20mA current source output

A linearized output is a useful elaboration of a capacitive sensor design. But what if the circuit is located a significant distance from the control electronics? Recently, Design Ideas included a circuit that comprised a simple analog interface…

CoWoS, wafer-scale and CoWoP: Why AI packaging bottleneck is moving

Advanced AI systems are forcing the semiconductor industry to rethink the boundary between silicon, package, board, power delivery, memory, cooling, and manufacturing. For several years, the dominant discussion has centered on advanced packaging…

Implementing a DAC: The battle of the PWMs

Ones and zeroes: are clustered or spread out bits better? “It depends,” is the answer. Well, at least sorta. In the Comments section of a recent Design Idea for a DAC (Reference 1), one reader expressed a full-throated preference for an…

Hidden underflow in BF16 divider in mixed-precision FP designs

Floating-point computations dominate the landscape of all AI/ML compute but also in automotive, avionics and healthcare. While performance and compute errors dominated the landscape of floating-point design and verification, power optimizations…

Dissecting an active Ethernet splitter

Need just one more network port than you’ve currently got available (often: none)? A splitter can do the trick; just spend a few extra bucks to make sure you’ve made the right pick. I’ll begin this teardown with an analogy. Imagine you’re…

EAS tags: The invisible backbone of retail security

In the world of retail, security is not always about cameras or guards; it’s often about technology you barely notice. Electronic article surveillance (EAS) tags are a prime example: small, lightweight devices that quietly safeguard billions…

Stress analysis

Sometimes, getting true stress levels can be tricky because things happen that are sneaky. Stress analysis is often required to confirm that a designed product will perform properly in hazardous environments. Rather than trying to ascertain…

LiDAR module generates high-resolution depth maps

A 3D direct ToF LiDAR module, the VL53L9CX from STMicroelectronics offers 2.3k-zone resolution for low-compute edge AI systems. This compact all-in-one module integrates a SPAD array, post-processing SoC, two VCSELs, a BCD VCSEL driver, infrared…

Handheld receiver captures wideband RF signals

The R&S PR300 portable monitoring receiver provides 125 MHz of real-time bandwidth and a scanning speed of more than 500 GHz/s. It is designed for field-based spectrum monitoring, interference hunting, high-speed signal detection, and direction…

Simulator emulates quantum hardware behavior

D-Wave Quantum has announced a gate-model quantum computing simulator for error-aware programming and algorithm development. The cloud-based simulator provides tools for modeling quantum processor behavior, error detection, and real-time control.…