CEO Interview: Eric Broockman, Alereon, Inc.

Alereon is an Austin semiconductor firm specializing in high-bandwidth, low-power Wireless USB and WiMedia UWB chipsets for PCs and portable products. Alereon's AL5000 Worldwide Wireless USB Chipset is currently the only silicon that operates over the full 3.1 to 10.6 GHz spectrum, giving developers all 49 UWB channels across all 14 UWB bands over which to transmit.

Portable Design interviewed Alereon's CEO Eric Broockman about his views on Ultrawideband, Wireless USB and a wide range of wireless issues that affect portable designs. Catch the video below and watch for the interview in a forthcoming issue of Portable Design.



If you'd rather listen to Eric, click on the podcast below, which you can also download here.

CEO Interview: Mark Thompson, Fairchild Semiconductor

After inventing the planar semiconductor and giving birth to the semiconductor industry in Silicon Valley, Fairchild Semiconductor has gone on to become a premier power semiconductor company--and more, recently, an active advocate of green technology, an area where it's well positioned to make some significant contributions.

Portable Design sat down with Fairchild's CEO Mark Thompson to catch up with his views on portable power, green power, and where the semiconductor industry is headed. The following video is an excellent primer on all three. The interview will appear in the February, 2008 issue of Portable Design.

Kato Keynote at SDR Forum 6 November 07

Dr. Shuzo Kato of Japan's NICT presented the Day Two keynote at the 2007 SDR Tech Forum, speaking on "Cognitive Radio for Best Spectrum Utilization through SDR- Various Definitions and Implications." This video, capturing all of his slides, is probably the most data-dense introduction to cognitive radio on record.

Dr. Kato received his Ph. D degree in electrical and communications engineering from Tohoku University, Sendai Japan in 1977. From 1977 to 1995, he worked at NTT (Nippon Telegraph and Telephone) Research Laboratories in Japan, specializing personal and satellite communications systems R&D. These include core technology development for TDMA equipment, modems, and forward error correction schemes in addition to ASIC implementation of PHS (Personal Handy Phone) handsets and many satellite communication terminals. He has managed to develop 39 kinds of ASIC developments so far without re-spins including the world first TDMA chip set in 1986, the world fastest Viterbi decoder chip in 1987 and 1993, lowest power consumption ADPCM codec (500 m W) in 1994, best receiver sensitivity (6 dB improvement) and the world first 2 V operating CMOS SOC PHS baseband chip (deploying first coherent demodulator for 384 kb/s mobile terminals) and many others.

Dr. Kato has published over 190 technical papers, held over 75 patents (including a patent which became DOD (Department of Defense, USA) standard in 1998), co-founded International Symposium on Personal Indoor and Mobile Radio Communications (PIMRC). He is a Fellow of the IEEE and IEICE and served as an Editor of IEEE Transaction on Communications, Chairman of Satellite and Space Communications Committee, COMSOC IEEE, a Board Member of IEICE Japan.