Testing

Nvidia has announced results for its forthcoming Blackwell GPU in the latest round of MLPerf industry benchmarks, Inference v4.1. “The Blackwell platform revealed up to 4x more performance than the Hopper architecture on MLPerf’s biggest LLM [large language model] workload, Llama 2 70B, thanks to its use of a second-generation transformer engine and FP4 tensor cores,” according to the company. ...

Quadsat is providing a simplified method of testing for the antenna registration process, the Danish company has announced. This is to test user terminals, including fixed, comms-on-the-move (COTM) and phased array, as well as earth stations across the network. The drone-based testing company says it is working with major satellite operators. This includes a partnership with GovSat to allow all ...

Challenges faced by automotive chip designers include longer than average expected lifespans and rigorous functional safety standards, explains Paul Martin. The expected lifetime for the vast majority of chips is typically a few years, but chips for automotive use have an expected lifespan of 10 to 15 years, to match the lifespan of the average car, and a supply lifetime ...

Astrobotic, a lunar logistics company, has unveiled its Lunar Surface Proving Ground (LSPG) – a constructed moonscape for testing- at its facility in Mojave, California. Measuring 100mx100m, the “high-fidelity 3D test field” mimics the topography and optical properties of the Moon’s surface, said the company. The site will be used for testing spacecraft and rover sensors, for example lunar landing ...

The JTAG port was introduced more than 30 years ago, but has changed as the industry has evolved, says James Stanbridge. For some engineers the term JTAG means a device programming port. For others it exists to plug in a microprocessor emulator or debugger. Originally it was devised for neither of these applications. The acronym JTAG stands for the Joint ...

To meet low-power and high-performance requirements, system on chip (SoC) designs are equipped with several asynchronous and soft reset signals. These reset signals help to safeguard software and hardware functional safety as they can be asserted to speedily recover the system onboard to an initial state and clear any pending errors or events. By definition, a reset domain crossing (RDC) ...

NI has set out its stall for AI in the test industry. Following the announcement of LabView AI assistant at the end of last year (currently in beta testing), CTO of technology and innovation, Kevin Shultz spoke to Electronics Weekly about what will be the role of AI in test. He explained that the increasing complexity of products being tested ...

Historically, component temperature has been correlated with reliability, with early studies relating field failure rates to steady-state component temperature. More recently, physics-based reliability prediction has related failure rates of electronic assemblies to the magnitude of temperature change over an operational cycle (power-on, power-off, power-on…) and rate of temperature change, both of which are influenced by steady-state operating temperature. Electronics failures ...

Remote operations may have been accelerated by the pandemic, but they were already well established to improve productivity and safety, says Andrea Vinci. With engineers frequently around hazardous equipment such as dynamometers, any measures to remove personnel from risk are welcome. Meanwhile, the skills shortage in engineering continues to bite. Retaining experience and knowledge while training a new generation is ...

The choice of battery for an application is critical. It affects the bill of materials and product lifetime cost, says Björn Rosqvist. Consider a battery-powered remote sensor. The cost of its battery is usually small compared with the overall product cost, but then think about the cost of replacing that battery. For wireless sensors deployed in remote areas, used for ...