Wearables

Ian Ferguson, Vice President, Segment Marketing, ARM Holdings PLC Recently, I was lucky enough to be invited to sit on a panel focused on the opportunity for the use of wearables by the poorest three people on this planet. As I sat on this panel, I reflected on the use cases that would enable mass-market deployment of wearables, coupled with the technical and business challenges that prevent those use cases from becoming reality. Eighteen months ago, our industry was barely discussing this space and now many commentators are dismissing it as a pure niche play, but I am highly excited Read More

Jonah McLeod, Director Marketing Communications, Kilopass Technology Inc. Wearable semiconductors are not new. In the early 1970s, Intel, National Semiconductor and others introduced the first wearable semiconductor devices, the digital watch. A novelty back then, the digital watch never became the killer app that everyone imagined. Today, the digital watch has given way to wearable sensors that measure physical activity and share the wearer’s daily output with friends on social networks. There are also medical devices that monitor chronic health conditions of an increasing percentage of the population. “Individually, these applications represent modest markets on their own, but collectively, do Read More

Simon Forrest, Senior Manager of Marketing, Imagination Technologies There has been a lot of momentum lately around wearable initiatives and technologies focused on creating a new generation of chips built specifically for these devices. We provide an overview of the current trends and best practices for designing wearable devices that offer the best possible user experience. Today, low-end Internet of Things (IoT) devices and wearables typically use multiple general purpose chips to achieve microcontroller, sensor and radio functionality, leading to expensive and often compromised solutions. Meanwhile, high-end devices such as smart watches or smart glasses use existing smartphone chips which Read More

Dr. Dragan Manic, Deputy Division Head, Integrated and Wireless Systems, CSEM Switzerland Simon Gray, Head of Marketing & Sales, Integrated and Wireless Systems, CSEM Switzerland The recent growth in the number of products using wearable sensors is nothing short of remarkable. While previous applications were limited to heart-rate measurement using a chest strap for sports, nowadays the applications are crossing over from sport into wellness and medical for telemedicine. This requires portable, real-time measurement of pulse rate, electrocardiogram (ECG) signals, respiration rate, oxygen saturation, activity levels and more. Such applications place high demands on the electronics, with the need to Read More

Lip-Bu Tan, President and CEO, Cadence Design Systems Inc. Earlier this year, to stay on top of end markets, I traveled to Las Vegas and spent two days walking around the Consumer Electronics Show (CES). As I did, I thought about my FitBit and how much data it would capture over all the ground I covered. I reflected on the engineering that’s enabled that type of wearable technology in just a few short years and transformed how we think daily about our health. At CES, I saw so many wearable technologies, both in booths and on people (a lot of Read More

David Moloney, Senior Vice President and Chief Technology Officer, Movidius Sales of wearable devices are expected to exceed US$8 billion by 2018, with over 130 million units globally, according to Markets and Markets. However, while wearables are being touted as the next “must have” in consumer electronics, signs of “wearer fatigue” are becoming apparent. Endeavor Partners report that one-third of American consumers who have a wearable product stopped using it within six months, rising to over 50 percent in the case of fitness bands. Setting aside the hype, what is the reality for wearables as a category? Are consumers abandoning Read More

Svenn-Tore Larsen, CEO, Nordic Semiconductor Wearable devices promise to become big business, but without a merger of compact efficient electronics, ultra-low power wireless technology and smartphones that potential would remain unfulfilled. In 2006, Nike, the U.S.-based sportswear company, launched one of the first massmarket speed and distance sensors which, when attached to a sports shoe, recorded how far and fast the user ran. The “Nike+iPod Sports Kit” was forged from a collaboration between Nike and Apple and comprised an Apple iPod, a wireless sensor, Nike shoes that accepted the sensor, and an Apple iTunes membership. It was one of the Read More

Thomas L. Anderson, Vice President of Marketing, Breker Verification Systems, Inc. This whole planet is buzzing about the emergence of the Internet of Things (IoT) and the constant, complex web of interconnectivity it will enable. Perhaps no aspect of IoT is more personal than wearable technology, which weaves connectivity into the very clothes, shoes and accessories that people wear. The complex system-on-chip (SoC) devices that enable this level of connectedness are hard to design and even harder to verify. In fact, three attributes of wearable technology make it especially challenging for SoC verification teams. First, wearable technology is likely to Read More

Albert Heuberger, Fraunhofer-Institut für Integrierte Schaltungen Christine Kallmayer, Fraunhofer-Institut für Zuverlässigkeit und Mikrointegration Thomas Norgall, Fraunhofer-Institut für Integrierte Schaltungen Peter Schneider, Fraunhofer-Institut für Integrierte Schaltungen Christian Weigand, Fraunhofer-Institut für Integrierte Schaltungen Being discussed for years in the context of next generation personal computing, wearable technology is currently among the most prevailing topics, latest since the U.S. CES trade fair in January 2014. A lot of related products shaped as smart watches, wristbands, clips or even necklaces have been announced or reached the market. However, the consumer market is still dominated by the endless variety of apps that benefit from the Read More