Software defined instrumentation takes center stage in this week’s Fish Fry podcast! Ben Nizette and I chat about how Liquid Instruments is changing the face of test and measurement. We examine each of their hardware platforms and investigate why this kind of flexible, modular, reconfigurable, and shareable instrumentation is the way of the future. Also this week, I check out the first commercially viable flexible plastic microprocessor chips developed by a team of researchers at University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign and British flexible electronics manufacturer PragmatIC Semiconductor.

The Internet of things is not a concept, it is a network, the true technology enabled network of all networks” - Edewede Oriwoh

I have often said that the lure of flying is the lure of beauty. - Amelia Earhart 

In this week’s podcast, University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign Professor Naira Hovakimyan joins me to discuss how the development of the new Center for Autonomous Vehicles in Air Transportation Engineering (AVIATE) at UIUC will help charter a course for flying taxis! We investigate Hovakimyan’s L1 adaptive flight control system and the role it will play in the development of this kind of autonomous aircraft. We also chat about the different technologies developed by team members at UIUC in association with this project and how various universities and companies including Georgia Tech, MIT, Boeing, Kitty Hawk and Google Wing are coming together to make flying taxis a reality. Keeping with our high flying theme this week, I also check out the details of a new air utility vehicle called the Speeder 2 unveiled by Mayman Aerospace at the recent Draper Venture Network CEO Summit in California.

Can big data and artificial intelligence help solve the problems plaguing the semiconductor industry? That is exactly the topic of this week’s Fish Fry podcast! Athinia CEO Laura Matz joins me to discuss how Athinia is using AI and big data to solve critical semiconductor challenges. We discuss collaboration across the semiconductor industry, how Athinia is creating new insights in material optimization, and why military-grade requirements for data security are integral to Althinia’s cloud infrastructure and operations.

What if we could revolutionize manufacturing and save energy at the same time? My guest is PulseForge CEO Stan Farnsworth and we are digging into the details of PulseForge’s new digital thermal processing. Stan and I investigate how this kind of thermal processing differs from traditional thermal processing and how it can vastly reduce the amount of energy used in manufacturing. We also take a closer look at each of PulseForge’s application areas, including curing and sintering, soldering and debonding, and why Stan believes that rethinking manufacturing is crucial to future electronic design innovation. 

Are you ready for some exciting nanocrystal technology? I certainly hope so! In this week’s Fish Fry podcast, Igor Coropceanu joins me to discuss how he and a team of fellow researchers at the University of Chicago discovered a new way to make nanocrystals function together electronically. We explore why this breakthrough in nanocrystal technology could lead to future devices with new abilities, what applications this would be a perfect fit for, and why this study reflects a step forward in new material research as well.

Motors big and small take center stage in this week’s Fish Fry podcast! Marcello Williams Silva (Infineon) joins us to discuss trends in automotive designs. We investigate how consolidation is changing the automotive landscape, the role that parallel processing units will play in future automotive and eMobility designs, and the critical design elements we should consider when it comes to our automotive designs. Keeping with our motorized theme this week, I also check out the first DNA-based motors that combine computational power with the ability to burn fuel and move in an intentional direction.