As consumers, wireless technology is often taken for granted. How difficult would everyday life be without it? Can I open my garage door today? How do I turn on my Smart TV? Where are my social networks? Most of our daily wireless connections - from Wi-Fi and Bluetooth to cellular, SatNav and GPS - use carrier frequencies below ~6 GHz. Typical 50 ohm SMA connectors and cable assemblies (or similar) usually work in these types of applications. What about newer applications like 5G and … [Read more...]
Samtec and Achronix Technologists Detail 112 Gbps PAM4 FPGA Implementation
Readers of the Samtec blog know we are always talking about next-gen speed. Current channels rates are running at 56 Gbps PAM4. However, system designers are starting to look at 112 Gbps PAM4 data rates. Intuition would say that bleeding edge data rates like 112 Gbps PAM4 only occur in the data center. Why might that not be the case? FPGA vendors are releasing any number of new solutions featuring 112 Gbps PAM4 transceivers. FPGAs reside in a number of applications like 5G, AI/ML, … [Read more...]
A British View of Thanksgiving
Autumn is a tough time for us Brits. From the beginning of September when the kids go back to school until Christmas Eve, we have little to get excited about besides the nights closing in and the weather getting worse. For our American cousins, Thanksgiving is a reason for celebration in that long drag towards Christmas, but it is one that many Brits do not fully understand. If you were to ask some of us what Thanksgiving means, we might talk about turkey, family, and the Black … [Read more...]
Samtec and Submer take on Immersion Cooling at OCP
Autumn is shaping up to be a popular time for digital trade shows this year, and OCP Tech Week will be occurring November 9 - 13, 2020. OCP Tech Week 2020 will provide Engineering Workshops, live lectures, and interactive collaboration sessions. During this digital trade show, the OCP community will discuss OCP achievement over 2020, and future trends to expect during 2021. This year, Samtec is supporting Submer with our ExaMAX® High-Speed Backplane Cable. Submer's Scott Noteboom … [Read more...]
Samtec Technical Expert Speaks at PCI-SIG Fall Virtual DevCon
Another event popular in the tech event circuit is PCI-SIG® DevCon. While DevCon events are usually in-person around the globe, this year, like so many others events, PCI-SIG DevCon is going virtual. PCI-SIG DevCons are members-driven events that provide an opportunity to learn directly from the industry’s PCIe® experts. Attendees can participate in technical trainings to gain best practices. The PCI-SIG Fall Virtual DevCon includes technical presentations from PCI-SIG Workgroup Chairs … [Read more...]
DesignCon Back to School Webinar: Current Distribution, Resistance & Inductance in Power Connectors
Our friends at DesignCon and Design News are launching the DesignCon Back-to-School webinar series. Experts from DesignCon's conference will share their insights from the electronics chip, board, and system industries, walking through use cases, defining various tools, and providing an understanding of why some designs look good on paper but fail once implemented. Samtec is presenting Current Distribution, Resistance & Inductance in Power Connectors. This paper won the DesignCon 2020 … [Read more...]
Samtec Technologists to Attend AI Hardware Summit 2020
AI continues to shake up the tech industry. Nvidia's plans to buy UK-based Arm Holdings from Japan-based SoftBank illustrates that point. Nvidia GPU chipsets make-up the majority of data-center focused AI hardware applications. The Arm Holding licensee ecosystem offers a new territory for Nvidia to harness the power of AI. Just about every mobile device (smartphones, IoT, etc.) in the world uses compute engines with Arm technology. Guess where AI growth will be fastest on the near … [Read more...]
New Samtec Products and Technologies Presented At Tech Days
Our friends at EETech are sponsoring Industry Tech Days. Although they didn’t ask for my advice, I suggested they use the tagline of “Three Days of Peace and Music” for the event. They rejected that brilliant (and original) suggestion and went with “the largest ever virtual trade show and conference for electrical engineers worldwide.” Next, I proactively suggested “Have It Your Way” as a slogan to describe the variety of content available. Not knowing a good idea when they hear … [Read more...]
The Future of Trade Shows
As I write this in early July, we are looking at the calendar of events and trade shows for this year, and there are few survivors. The Coronavirus pandemic of 2020 has seen almost all public events cancelled, from the Olympics to the Eurovision Song Contest. Less well reported, but of more importance to manufacturers like Samtec, is the almost total collapse of the trade show calendar. Trade shows are an important channel of communications with customers. A booth at a trade … [Read more...]
Samtec to Exhibit at OCP Virtual Summit
The global coronavirus pandemic continues to spread. Thankfully, parts of normal life are returning. Employees are slowly going back to work. State parks are opening. Sports leagues like the Budesliga and the NFL are ramping up activities. Light is (finally?) at the end of the COVID-19 tunnel. However, new "normals" may be regular "normals". Trade shows have been "normal" to business. Will they continue to be so? Some of us hope so. In the mean time, many large trade show events have … [Read more...]