EE Times Current

With advanced safety features, sophisticated sensors, and personalized temperature controls, software-defined vehicles require more power than ever before. Traditional automotive power systems simply can’t keep up with the demand. As the industry moves toward the adoption of 48-volt technology, a zonal architecture will play a critical role in this transition. This podcast covers why auto industry is undergoing a big E/E transition and the zonal architecture fundamentals, covering 48V power architectures, zonal E/E architecture, software-defined vehicles (SDV), and how integrated solutions such as 48V e‑fuses enable this transition.

This latest episode of Brains and Machines features a panel discussion on neuromorphic engineering and physical computing held at the Atoms to Bits: The AlphaBet of Intelligence v2.0 conference at the University of Manchester, held in February 2026. The panelists were Dr. Damien Querlioz, Dr. Julian Büchel, Professor Tamalika Banerjee, Dr. Maxence Ernoult, and Professor Steve Furber, and the session was chaired by Dr. Sunny Bains of University College London. Discussion follows with Dr. Giulia D’Angelo from the Czech Technical University in Prague and Professor Ralph Etienne-Cummings of Johns Hopkins University.

In the latest episode of Brains and Machines, Sally Ward-Foxton of EE Times talks to Dr. Sunny Bains of the University College London. They discuss the importance of power in all AI systems, the benefit of having dedicated inference chips, and where neuromorphic fits into the market. Discussion follows with Dr. Giulia D’Angelo from the Czech Technical University in Prague and Professor Ralph Etienne-Cummings of Johns Hopkins University.

Challenges: power generates heat. Heat distorts wires and changes transistor behavior. A change in wires and transistors implies that initial power estimates were wrong.More and more designers are moving to heterogeneous architectures. This comes with new challenges as compared to the 2D domain. Come learn how the Calibre team can help achieve successful 3D IC design goals.

In this latest episode of Brains and Machines, Professor Rodolphe Sepulchre, a control theorist from the University of Cambridge, talks to Dr. Sunny Bains of University College London. They discuss the inspiration he took from studying biological neurons, why both discrete and continuous behaviors are inherent to how they work, and why building neurons is often easier than simulating them. 

Today, we’re diving into the fascinating world of edge AI, exploring its rapid evolution and its transformative impact on industries like automotive. With advancements in model efficiency and hardware capabilities, edge AI is reshaping design requirements for devices, particularly in balancing the critical factors of power, performance, and cost. Let’s set the stage and delve into how these trends are driving innovation at the edge.

Neuronova is an analog neuromorphic startup based in Milan, Italy. In this episode of Brains and Machines, the CEO and CTO talk to Dr. Sunny Bains of University College London about their inference processor that idles at less than 10 nanowatts and what they hope to do with it. Discussion follows with Dr. Giulia D’Angelo from the Czech Technical University in Prague and Professor Ralph Etienne-Cummings of Johns Hopkins University.

Professor Chris Eliasmith is a computer scientist and philosopher who’s been modelling cognitive systems for almost three decades. In this episode of Brains and Machines, he talks to Dr. Sunny Bains of University College London about his neural engineering framework and the semantic pointer architecture his team have developed to implement it. Discussion follows with Dr. Giulia D’Angelo from the Czech Technical University in Prague and Professor Ralph Etienne-Cummings of Johns Hopkins University.

Dive into the evolving world of asset tracking and locationing with Renesas!Explore what ‘locationing’ really means in the evolving space of asset management, how to leverage the various cutting-edge Renesas locationing technologies to gain visibility and control over your assets, and how Renesas as a field-proven leader within this technology space can empower you and your customers to move from simple tracking to intelligent, real-time locationing. 

In this episode, we look at the changing landscape of multi-die design, highlighting how the industry is addressing current challenges and opportunities. We share customer perspectives on essential requirements, including design considerations, scalability, performance and integration, while outlining the current state of multi-die design and the elements shaping future developments. Discover how companies are responding to these demands and gain insights into the future of multi-die design.

Dr. Claudia Lenk’s group creates brain-inspired hearing systems with micromechanical hair cells. In this episode of Brains and Machines, she talks to Dr. Sunny Bains of University College London about the advantages of the approach and how it could be applied to speech processing in AI. Discussion follows with Dr. Giulia D’Angelo from the Czech Technical University in Prague and Professor Ralph Etienne-Cummings of Johns Hopkins University.

In this episode, we’ll explore Siemens EDA’s innovative approach to AI and dive into Calibre-specific topics. We’ll discuss when to use Calibre, when it might not be the best fit, and how to leverage it to maximize productivity and designer effectiveness—all without compromising on quality.AI is everywhere these days, from space exploration to dating apps, and Siemens has been a pioneer in this space, investing in AI long before it became a trend. So, let’s dive in and explore how Siemens EDA is shaping the future of design with AI.

Brad Aimone from Sandia National Labs works with the world’s biggest neuromorphic platforms. In this episode of Brains and Machines, he talks to Sunny Bains of University College London about how this allows him to think deeply about what they’re good for. Discussion follows with Giulia D’Angelo from the Czech Technical University in Prague and Professor Ralph Etienne-Cummings of Johns Hopkins University.

Professor Barbara Webb from the University of Edinburgh in Scotland​ uses physical robots to validate neural mechanisms in crickets, ants, and bees. In this episode of Brains and Machines, she talks to Dr. Sunny Bains of University College London about her work. Discussion follows with Dr. Giulia D’Angelo from the Czech Technical University in Prague and Professor Ralph Etienne-Cummings of Johns Hopkins University.

Today we’re talking about something that’s top-of-mind for a lot of you: closing the reliability gaps in increasingly complex analog and mixed-signal IC designs—and doing it earlier, faster, and more systematically.As designs become more heterogeneous and integration of IP blocks more intricate, traditional simulation and ERC tools often aren’t enough. They’re reactive by nature, catching issues too late in the flow—when rework is costly, and design intent is harder to trace.That’s why “shift-left” verification has become more than just a buzzword. It’s a strategic necessity. And today’s conversation is all about one of the tools helping to make that shift actionable: Siemens’ Insight Analyzer.

Professor Gert Cauwenberghs has been working toward building brain-scale systems for decades. At the University of California San Diego, he’s now one of the leaders of the Neuromorphic Commons hub, also known as Thor, which will give the wider community access to neuromorphic hardware and simulators. In this episode of Brains and Machines, he talks to Dr. Sunny Bains of University College London about his approach to making systems that use minimal energy, are highly interconnected at all levels, and are surprisingly flexible. Discussion follows with Dr. Giulia D’Angelo from the Czech Technical University in Prague and Professor Ralph Etienne-Cummings of Johns Hopkins University.

Professor Gordon Cheng builds humanoid robots that can feel their environment using artificial skin. In this episode of Brains and Machines, he talks to Dr. Sunny Bains of University College London about how the skin was designed, how it improves safety and why neuromorphic engineering will be important for machine autonomy. Discussion follows with Dr. Giulia D’Angelo from the Czech Technical University in Prague and Professor Ralph Etienne-Cummings of Johns Hopkins University.

Professor Gordon Cheng builds humanoid robots that can feel their environment using artificial skin. In this episode of Brains and Machines, he talks to Dr. Sunny Bains of University College London about how the skin was designed, how it improves safety, and why neuromorphic engineering will be important for machine autonomy. Discussion follows with Dr. Giulia D’Angelo from the Czech Technical University in Prague and Professor Ralph Etienne-Cummings of Johns Hopkins University.

Dr. Charlotte Frenkel from the Technical University of Delft set records with a low-power neuromorphic chip she designed as part of her Ph.D. In this episode of Brains and Machines, she talks to Dr. Sunny Bains of University College London about what she has learned about building simplicity into chips and integrity into benchmarks. Discussion follows with Dr. Giulia D’Angelo from the Czech Technical University in Prague and Professor Ralph Etienne-Cummings of Johns Hopkins University.

The semiconductor industry is undergoing a shift with the rapid adoption of multi-die design, driven by the promise of improved power, performance, and area (PPA). But with innovation comes complexity, and one of the biggest challenges is ensuring silicon reliability and health through effective multi-die testing.In this episode, we dive deep into the world of multi-die design for test: what it means, how it differs from traditional monolithic design testing, and why it’s critical for the future of semiconductor manufacturing. Learn how testing spans from individual dies to multiple dies to die-to-die links, and why silicon data is essential for maintaining multi-die health during both manufacturing and in-field operations. We will explore the future of multi-die design for test and discuss Silicon Lifecycle Management (SLM) strategies that designers can implement today to stay ahead.

Dharmendra Modha’s TrueNorth chip added the word neuromorphic to the technorati lexicon back in 2014. In this episode of Brains and Machines, he talks to Sunny Bains of University College London about how that project led to his work on NorthPole and the axiomatic approach he took to design. 

In this episode of Brains and Machines, Dr. Terry Sejnowski talks to Dr. Sunny Bains of the University College London about how information flows both ways between neuroscience and engineered intelligence, proposes a new way of looking at memory and considers the Hopfield-Hinton Nobel Prize. 

Dr. Jennifer Hasler of Georgia Tech is best known for her work with field programmable analog arrays (FPAAs). In this episode of Brains and Machines, she talks about the importance of, and progress in, analog electronics for AI with Dr. Sunny Bains of the University College London. Discussion follows with Dr .Giulia D’Angelo from the Czech Technical University in Prague and Professor Ralph Etienne-Cummings of Johns Hopkins University.

Dr. Tony Lewis, CTO of BrainChip, and four other key scientists talk to Dr. Sunny Bains of University College London. They discuss their business strategy, their temporal event-based neural network (TENN) and the next iteration of the Akida chip. Discussion follows with Dr. Giulia D’Angelo from the Czech Technical University in Prague and Prof. Ralph Etienne-Cummings of Johns Hopkins University.

In this episode of Brains and Machines, emeritus Prof. Rodney Brooks of Massachusetts Institute of Technology, currently CTO of Robust AI, talks about bottom-up and top-down approaches to robotics and AI with Dr. Sunny Bains of University College London. Discussion follows with Dr. Giulia D’Angelo from the Czech Technical University in Prague and Prof Ralph Etienne-Cummings of Johns Hopkins University.

Many IC design teams struggle with tight deadlines and limited resources. The industry is constantly searching for new ways to improve efficiency without compromising design quality. While they might find tools that run incrementally faster, the real gains come from adjustments to the design flow – including what we call ‘shift-left’ strategies that pull signoff-quality verification into the design implementation stage. Join our host, Eric Singer, for a compelling interview with David Abercrombie, Product Management Director of Artificial Intelligence & Licensing Applications at Siemens EDA.

Dr. Katie Schuman of the University of Tennessee explains the advantages of evolutionary approaches in neural processing to Dr. Sunny Bains of University College London. Discussion follows with Dr. Giulia D’Angelo from the Czech Technical University in Prague and Professor Ralph Etienne-Cummings of Johns Hopkins University.

Dr. Sunny Bains talks to four key figures at Innatera, a spin out from the University of Delft in the Netherlands. They are hoping that their latest spiking neural network chip will become AI of choice for people working on sensor applications. Discussion follows with Dr. Giulia D’Angelo from the Czech Technical University in Prague and Prof. Ralph Etienne-Cummings of Johns Hopkins University.

Renesas, known for its industry-leading MCU and MPU portfolio, has a comprehensive power management portfolio addressing existing and emerging applications. This compelling interview covers how Renesas is addressing power challenges in the automotive and industrial sectors, including solutions for xEV traction inverters, zonal control, and portable power stations. Renesas’ approach emphasizes complete, scalable designs and rapid prototyping, facilitating faster time to market for manufacturers.

UCL’s Dr. Sunny Bains talks parallelism, neural net efficiency and risk taking with Caltech’s Prof. Carver Mead. Now an emeritus professor, Mead has been instrumental in the development of chip design, and was one of the first employees of Noyce and Moore, which later became Intel. He’s also one of the founders of the field of neuromorphic engineering. Discussion follows with Dr Giulia D’Angelo from the Czech Technical University in Prague and Prof. Ralph Etienne-Cummings of Johns Hopkins University.

There is a lot of hype in the industry around AI, but behind the hype there is the reality. That reality is that AI really is impacting virtually every aspect of semiconductor design. However, its not as simple as taking general purpose AI solutions and hoping they work for EDA, the risks are too high and when dealing with parts per billion (or trillion) in acceptable errors, hallucinations are not acceptable. What is needed are Verifiable AI solutions that deliver results that users can trust and that reduce the overall resources needed to complete a task. At Siemens EDA we have been able to leverage Verifiable AI to accelerate virtually every aspect of the design and verification process. 

The podcast interview explores the role of RISC-V in the automotive sector. It begins with a brief introduction to RISC-V, explaining it as an open standard instruction set architecture (ISA). The discussion then shifts to current automotive trends from a processing perspective, highlighting advancements and the increasing importance of robust, high-performance computing. 

In this special episode of the Brains and Machines podcast, Dr. Sunny Bains and Dr. Giulia D’Angelo talk to four early career researchers: Dr. Kenneth Stewart, a computer scientist at the U.S. Naval Research Laboratory in Washington DC; Dr. Laura Kriener, a postdoctoral researcher at The University of Bern in Switzerland; Jens Pedersen, a Ph.D. student at The Royal Institute of Technology (KTH) in Stockholm, Sweden; and Dr. Fabrizio Ottati, an AI/ML computer architect at NXP Semiconductors in Hamburg, Germany. They discuss learning rules for spiking neural networks, primitives for computations on neuromorphic hardware, and the benefits and drawbacks of neuromorphic engineering. 

In this podcast, we talk focus on security, talking to Infineon Technologies about the Cyber Resilience Act (CRA) and its implications for the entire supply chain, plus a chat with zeroRISC about the role of open-source silicon security in embedded systems and IoT.

In this episode, Dr. Sunny Bains talks to Dr. Dylan Muir, the head of research at SynSense. They discuss the company’s products, including Speck, Xylo, and Rockpool, some of the design choices that were made to bring these to market, and their recent acquisition of sister company IniVation. Discussion follows with Dr. Giulia D’Angelo from the Fortiss research institute in Munich, and Professor Ralph Etienne-Cummings of Johns Hopkins University.

This week’s EE Times Current features three exclusive interviews recently conducted by embedded.com’s editor-in-chief, Nitin Dahad at Embedded World 2024 in Nuremberg. Nitin discussed topics including AI inferencing, Software Ecosystems and Trends in Industrial Automation. 

In this episode, Dr. Sunny Bains talks with Professor Christian Mayr from the Technical University of Dresden, who worked on SpiNNaker with Steve Furber for many years. He is taking that project into the future with SpiNNaker 2, which is mostly built, SpiNNaker 3, which is his next design project, and the startup SpiNNcloud. Discussion follows with Dr. Giulia D’Angelo Marie Curie Fellow at The Czech Technical University in Prague, and Professor Ralph Etienne-Cummings of Johns Hopkins University.

Dr. Elisa Donati of the Institute of Neuroinformatics in Zurich talks to Dr. Sunny Bains about neuromorphic circuits for prosthetics, drug delivery and more. Discussion follows with Dr. Giulia D’Angelo from the Fortiss research institute in Munich, and Professor Ralph Etienne-Cummings of Johns Hopkins University.

In this episode, Dr. Sunny Bains discusses neuromorphic chips with Dr. Amirreza Yousefzadeh, who has most recently worked at imec and the University of Twente. Discussion follows with Dr. Giulia D’Angelo from the Fortiss research institute in Munich, and Professor Ralph Etienne-Cummings of Johns Hopkins University.

Join us in lasteset episode of EETimes Current as we delve into the transformative potential of 1.6 Terabit Ethernet (1.6TbE) alongside the pivotal role played by advanced 224G SerDes and emerging linear optical interfaces. Discover how this convergence optimizes area, power, and latency, enabling efficient processing of large language models and unstructured data with memory pooling and cache coherence. From mitigating datapath bottlenecks to unlocking new frontiers in compute throughput, we dissect the significance of next generation electro optical interfaces with 1.6T Ethernet in shaping the future of computing infrastructures.

In this episode, Professor Shih-Chii Liu, co-director of the Sensors Group at the Institute of Neuroinformatics (INI)—part of both the ETH and the University of Zurich, Switzerland—talks to Brains and Machines host, Dr. Sunny Bains, about neuromorphic cochlea, sparsity and deep networks, and what it will take for the technology to solve real problems in industry. Discussion follows with Dr. Giulia D’Angelo from the Fortiss research institute in Munich, and Professor Ralph Etienne-Cummings of Johns Hopkins University.

In this episode, Professor Emre Neftci, director of the Neuromorphic Software Ecosystems group at the Peter Grünberg Institute, talks to Brains and Machines host, Dr. Sunny Bains. He and his PGI colleagues, part of the Jülich Research Centre in Germany, think about how neurons can be trained and organized to learn in an efficient and brain-inspired way. You'll hear about his work in making backpropagation compatible with spiking neural networks, dealing with device variability, and one- and few-shot learning.

In this episode of Brains and Machines, you’ll hear Dr. Chiara Bartolozzi talk about how neuromorphic technology can be used to implement attention mechanisms, the importance of embodiment, and why we need a solid theory of how neural systems can work together to create intelligence. 

In this episode of the Brains and Machines podcast, EE Times regular Sunny Bains talks to Dr. Tobi Delbrück, one of the original neuromorphic engineers from Carver Mead's team at Caltech. Now a professor at the Institute of Neuroinformatics in Zurich, he has spent his career developing neuromorphic cameras and other technology. In this interview, you'll find out how he got started in the field, his work developing the dynamic vision sensor (also known as an event camera) and the pros and cons of sparse representations.

In this episode of the Brains and Machines podcast, EE Times regular Sunny Bains gets deep into nanoscale ferroelectrics with Professor Beatriz Noheda, director of the Groningen Cognitive Systems and Materials Center (CogniGron). They discuss how this unusual interdisciplinary research center works, why nanoscale ferroelectrics may be useful in brain-like systems, and a little about how they are designed and fabricated.

In this episode of the Brains and Machines podcast, Dr. Giulia D’Angelo from the Italian Institute of Technology interviews her IIT colleague, Dr. Simeon Bamford, who is currently working on tactile neuromorphic sensors. They talk about creating circuits to perform functions lost to brain damage, Bamford’s involvement with the commercialization of dynamic vision sensors, and his latest research on robotic touch. Discussion follows with Dr. Sunny Bains of University College London, and Prof. Ralph Etienne-Cummings of Johns Hopkins University.

Our future environment depends on renewable and sustainable energy. To maximize sustainable energy sources, energy gathering and grid integration are essential. Silicon carbide (SiC) makes green energy systems more efficient and resilient. To ensure high-quality goods and system design flexibility, end-to-end vertical integration is necessary. In this podcast with Simon Keeton, executive vice president and general manager of the power solutions group at onsemi, we analyze the pivotal role that SiC solutions play in optimizing energy harvesting and efficient grid integration for sustainable energy sources. We will also introduce the next PowerUP Energy Virtual Conference, coming on Dec. 12 and 13.

In the latest episode of Brains and Machines, EE Times regular Dr. Sunny Bains talks to Professor Melika Payvand, who designs neural systems from the circuit-level up at the Institute of Neuroinformatics in Zurich. You'll find out the role that memristors are playing in the systems she designs, why neural circuits need to operate at different timescales, and why copying some features of biological dendrites could add computational power to silicon brains. Discussion follows with Dr. Giulia D’Angelo from the Italian Institute of Technology and Professor Ralph Etienne-Cummings from Johns Hopkins University.

In this latest episode of Brains and Machines, EE Times regular Dr. Sunny Bains talks to now Emeritus Professor Steve Furber as he prepares to leave the University of Manchester. They talk about associative memories, the original SpiNNaker neural simulator designed using densely-interconnected ARM cores, and the new generation of the technology currently being assembled. Discussion follows with Dr. Giulia D’Angelo from the Italian Institute of Technology and Professor Ralph Etienne-Cummings from Johns Hopkins University.

In Part 2 our conversation with Power Integrations' Peter Vaughan, we'll take a more in-depth look at the technology that is already available for electric vehicles (EVs) as well as the path that lies ahead. The last time, we covered every aspect of the history of the electric car, which led us naturally to the present day and the introduction of the brand name Tesla, which has had a major impact on the competitive landscape of EVs. However, what are some other names that are contributing to innovation? In today's episode of EE Times Current, we will learn more about the cutting-edge technology that goes into electric vehicles.