Breakfast Bytes Blogs

Today is going to be my monthly update. This normally runs on the last Friday of the month, but that's a Cadence Global Recharge Day, so we will all be off. For various other reasons, I need to run other posts on Wednesday and Thursday (not even my traditional off-topic post before a break). Let me also point out that I'm taking next week off, so Breakfast Bytes won't appear after this Thursday until Monday 6th June.

Framework Laptop

In my post, The Framework Laptop and Right to Repair, I wrote about a laptop that has been designed to be easy to repair and upgrade since only simple tools are required, and all the component boards are available to be ordered separately.

Framework has just come out with a new and upgraded product. So, just like any other laptop, you can purchase the new, better laptop. But, if you already own a Framework laptop, you can purchase an upgrade kit and keep all the rest of your hardware. The upgrade is quite big since it contains a new motherboard, but all your peripherals (disks, etc.) and network interfaces should just move over.

For more details, see the company's website.

Google Episode of Stargate

I wrote a post, DesignCon: Google on AI for Non-AI People, about the Google keynote at DesignCon by Laurence Moroney. One thing he described was trying to write an episode of Stargate using AI. It did not go well. As he put it:

This is absolutely no threat to a professional writer

That was the first version of the script. As it says in the VentureBeat article, Can AI write an episode of Stargate? Google AI took on the challenge:

I told Laurence (Moroney) we should probably try to really step up the game if we’re going to do this again, and he accepted that challenge,” Wright said. “That’s what blew me away because it’s not just better – it’s like, whoa… better!"

You should be able to watch it, although I think you might need to be a member of The Companion:

The Stargate AI version 2 script, as read by the original actors from Stargate – including Richard Dean Anderson, Amanda Tapping, and Michael Shanks –will premiere on The Companion on May 21.

May 21st was last Saturday, but I've not been able to find a link.

Security of Open RAN

I wrote recently about Open RAN in my post Open RAN Phase 2. As I said in that post:

The RAN includes the antennas, the radios, and the basestations themselves.

In any network, especially a large one accessed by the public, one of the most important aspects is security. With perfect timing since we are coming up to the RSA Conference in San Francisco starting on 6th June. I will attend the first two days, but then it overlaps with CadenceLIVE, so I'll miss the rest.

Anyway, as the European Union says in the title of its press release, "Cybersecurity of 5G networks: EU publishes report on the security of Open RAN."

Margrethe Vestager, Executive Vice-President for a Europe Fit for the Digital Age, [isn't that a great job title] said: “Our common priority and responsibility is to ensure the timely deployment of 5G networks in Europe, while ensuring they are secure. Open RAN architectures create new opportunities in the marketplace, but this report shows they also raise important security challenges, especially in the short term. It will be important for all participants to dedicate sufficient time and attention to mitigate such challenges so that the promises of Open RAN can be realized.”

But not everything is so rosy. As it says later in the release:

However, the Open RAN concept still lacks maturity, and cybersecurity remains a significant challenge. Especially in the short term, by increasing the complexity of networks, Open RAN would exacerbate a number of security risks. Those risks include a larger attack surface and more entry points for malicious actors, an increased risk of misconfiguration of networks, and potential impacts on other network functions due to resource sharing.

There is more at the link, and if you want to read the full report, you can download the pdf.

ACM Digital Library

One of the most important organizations in Computer Science is the ACM, the Association for Computing Machinery. Like some other organizations that have been around for a long time (IEDM springs to mind), the reason for the somewhat weird name is that it was founded in 1947. That was the year that transistors were invented, and a decade before the integrated circuit would be invented.

Anyway, the ACM has lots of technical papers going all the way back and they have decided to make all of them dating from before 2000 available for free on the ACM Digital Library.

112G SerDes

I have shown a video of the Cadence 112G Long Reach built in 6nm. At DesignCon, Cadence did a demonstration of the 5nm 112G Extended Long-Reach SerDes IP opening with an AMD (Xilinx) part.

Malcolm Penn

One of the people who has been around in the semiconductor industry even longer than I have is Malcolm Penn. I still think of him as being from Dataquest, because for many years, he was. He founded his own company, Future Horizons, which has had a very good track record of predicting the ups and downs of the industry. This video is just 25 minutes long and gives Malcolm's current outlook.

Given his track record of accuracy, he is claiming one of the results that he identified as being the downturn in the semiconductor industry in Q4 2022 and Q1 2023. Obviously, this hasn't happened yet. But I recommend watching the video to see how credible this prediction is.

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