Tekmos' Blog

As children, many people seem to have trouble eating their vegetables. I can still remember my own grandmother's disapproving look, as basically everything but the vegetables disappeared from my plate. Of course I would then make a valiant attempt at dessert, as my grandmother's cobbler, pie or chocolate anything was truly the stuff of legend. But she would have none of it. It was back to the vegetables for me, with dramatic slow, choking swallows, while simulating my best near death experience. In time, to her credit, creativity came to play a role. It was probably the peas, floating in gravy, nestled seductively in a puddle on top of my mash potatoes that started the change. "Ducks in a pond", she called it. Ok, so they weren't ducks, and it was not a pond. But the peas went down quickly, and the whole thing tasted pretty darn good. In time the green beans, carrots and honestly just about anything became fair game. I guess I can blame my grandmother, as today there doesn't seem to be anything that could possibly land on my plate that will not be eaten with great enjoyment. Maybe too much so, if the truth was told.

Doing something that may seem to be a problem, to have an eventual better overall outcome, is not just a technique for grandmothers. The rules of an organization, or laws of a land can also be viewed through such a lens. In Europe, for example, the large number of chemical substances being manufactured, and the unknown effect on human health and the environment became a concern. Regulations were created, such a Registration, Evaluation, Authorization and Restriction of Chemicals  (REACH), to register, evaluate, authorize and possibly restrict certain harmful chemical substances. Or the Restriction of Hazardous Waste in Electrical & Electronic Equipment (RoHS) directive, where components are tested for specific substances, such as Lead (Pb), Cadmium (Dc), Mercury (Hg) as well as a list of other materials to verify there is less than 0.01% of that substance by weight. While these regulations do require more work and verification, they also truly do help protect the environment and human health.

At Tekmos, we take these directives seriously. We take the extra effort needed to help ensure that potentially harmful substances are controlled throughout our industry and in our business practices. Tekmos REACH and RoHS Compliance Statements have been created, and are easy to view and download from our website. We view compliance with these directives as our responsibility and obligation, to our business partners, our employees, and all others who use and depend on the products we make. At Tekmos we take the effort to make our world a little safer. Oh, and we also don't mind eating our vegetables when the time comes either.

Tekmos once again is a corporate sponsor and exhibiting at the International Conference on High Temperature Electronics, May 10-12 in Albuquerque, New Mexico and will be exhibiting at the IoT Developers Conference in Santa Clara, California May 25-26.

HiTEC is a forum for presenting leading high temperature electronics research results and application requirements and the Iot Devcon is a conference and trade show specifically for the IoT product developer.

Tekmos has presented a paper, and maintained a display table at the July 6-8 2015, International Conference and Exhibition on High Temperature Electronics Network at Churchill College in Cambridge, England, at HiTEC 2014 in Albuquerque, and attended earlier conferences. This annual conference, alternates venues between the U.S. and England, is dedicated to high temperature electronics, ranging from the relatively cool 175ºC up to the 1200ºC range for Silicon Carbide. It also covers high temperature materials and passive components. 

Attending the presentations does a lot more than just give Tekmos an opportunity to present our research. Listening to the presentation of other papers has led to some consideration of additional techniques that Tekmos may pursue. It is important to know what others are doing. The question and answer period following each presentation gives more insight and understanding than can be obtained from reading the paper alone. 

One advantage of exhibiting at a conference is that it provides feedback about what customers really want to see in products.  It also shows what the competition is doing.  Together, that provides invaluable marketing guidance for our own efforts. 

This month we have published our brochure describing Unify ASICs for the IoT.

System engineers need to meet the challenges of smaller physical packaging, lower power consumption and better connectivity solutions that offer fast time to market. The Unify - ASICs Brochure describes capabilities and approaches of how Unify ASICs achieve smaller space with low power by using standard parts combined with our low risk Unify ASIC. The Unify ASIC features a silicon interconnect combined with integration of logic and mixed signal technologies by Tekmos for better connectivity solutions.

The Unify ASIC designed by Tekmos for the customer, provides a breakthrough approach offering the lowest development cost for a System in a Package solution for new products. The Unify ASIC includes design security making it extremely difficult for others to copy a customer's product design. Unify ASICs protect market share and allow the customer to maintain higher selling prices over the life of their product.

Tekmos will be an exhibitor at the upcoming IoT Developers Conference in Santa Clara, May 25-26. We will be located in the exhibit area and look forward to your stopping by to see how Unify ASICs can improve your product developments.

The month of May seems to be a great time for many conferences this year. Tekmos is a major sponsor and exhibitor at the upcoming IMAPS HiTEC High Temperature device conference in Albuquerque, New Mexico, May 10-12. Tekmos will be featuring our high temperature microprocessors, memory devices and ASICs, with ASICs able to operate up to 300ºC. We look forward to presenting our latest product offering for high temperature applications ranging from 175ºC to 300ºC. Please visit us in the exhibit area and learn more about our high temperature microprocessors and ASICs with long lasting operational life.

Tekmos celebrated its year end get together at the Texas Land & Cattle Restaurant with a very tall Christmas tree looming over the festivities. There was a full house of Tekmos team members along with their families enjoying choices of smoked sirloin, prime rib, Cesar salads with lime cilantro dressing, creamed spinach, salmon, and barbecue shrimp. Lynn Reed wore his traditional Christmas tie and a Santa hat. Carole Reed is saluted for organizing a smooth celebratory event. The only hitch was that very large Christmas tree of which no one had control.

The Zilker Tree is located in Zilker Park just around the corner from the restaurant where Tekmos employees and family gathered. Every year the tree is lit for the holiday season and every year 400,000 plus people drive, walk, and bicycle to walk under, twirl and photograph themselves at the Zilker Tree as well as stroll through the Trail of Lights that winds through the park.

The Zilker tree stands 155 feet tall and is composed of 39 streamers, each holding 81 multicolored, 25-watt bulbs - totaling 3,309 lights. At the top of the tree, a double star measures 10 feet from point to point. The double star displays 150 frosted bulbs. This unique spiral pattern of lights was created by City of Austin electricians. At its circumference, the tree measures 380 feet. The diameter is 120 feet. The base of the tree is made up of 19 utility poles, each 14 feet tall, arranged in a circle around the Moonlight Tower.

On December 10, 1967, the first tree was lighted by Mayor Pro Tem Mrs. Emma Long. In subsequent years this honor has been awarded to the young winner of a city-wide tree coloring contest.

While the traffic slowed the arrival and departure to the Tekmos party, it also brought the spirit of the season to make the year end gathering memorable.

Throughout the past year, we have presented several articles on IoT, the Internet of Things. I was asked if I could summarize the ideas in a short couple of paragraphs. Of course, summaries always leave the writer with the issue of potentially throwing out some of the key ideas that make the topic interesting. I said I would give it a try anyway.

The Internet of Things is all about connecting diverse electronics to make them even more useful. The flow of information often starts with analog sensors, measuring almost anything one can think of, from temperature, speed, pressure, and location, to color, voice, and personal characteristics. Often the analog signals are made into digital ones and zeros and transmitted somewhere. There is often some type of processing of this information to add meaning or context. The data can then be used to inform people or machines which in turn take some action. The range of possible uses is extremely wide, from telling where your cat is to turning on air conditioning when someone is anticipated to be in the building. It can be used to automatically order replacement parts when a machine becomes aware that parts are wearing out or sensing that you are at the grocery store and sending a text reminder that it thinks you are running low on milk. But the IoT is not just a cute toy. For example, the amount of money to be saved by smart energy use is tremendous. There are predictions that the major use of IoT for the next several years will be retrofitting to make old machinery more efficient.

As one might expect, good things come at a price. As expected, there are a large number of technical issues. We talked about sensors and issues on making electronics smaller by such approaches as stacked die. The article on having someone taking over your car, while you are driving it, points out what is likely the biggest problem of all: making devices so that, either intentionally or unintentionally, the interconnectivity does not lead to major problems. While having your refrigerator send spam may be a humorous annoyance, having one's pacemaker subject to a hacker is truly frightening. During the next year, we will investigate more aspects of the IoT and some of the ramifications of implementing it. We will also look at how the technology is evolving.