Semiconductors on Bald Engineer

Tamper resistant memory

Tue, 07 Jun 2011 23:17:55 +0000

Watch an episode of NCIS or CSI and you might get the impression that hacking electronic devices is a simple way to learn all you need to about a person. While these shows tend to gloss over the science of the forensic work, the truth is, most electronic devices only rely on obscurity to keep data safe. Here is an article from Cambridge researchers discussing how to read contents using lasers (but not feverish typing on a keyboard for software that is clearly graphical in nature.). That sound crazy right? Don’t forgot Princeton has guidelines on security based on the fact you can freeze RAM to extend its retention.

Apple A5 vs A4 Floorplan Comparison

Wed, 16 Mar 2011 15:02:11 +0000

Apple’s latest magic trick was upgrading their previous A4 chip into a dual core variant, the A5. This chip powers the recently announced iPad 2 and is likely to be in the upcoming summer release of the iPhone 5 (4s?) The folks at Chipworks have done some reverse engineering (which may be using actual magic) to see what the inside of the A5 looks like… all 2.9Million gates of it.

EDN: ICs could run on heat waste

Thu, 30 Sep 2010 20:05:39 +0000

Joseph Heremans and Roberto Meyrs at the Ohio State University have been studying materials that could be used to turn heat from ICs into electricity. The research is focused on thermo-electricity and spintronics. In theory, this could mean mutual benefits to heavy processing: more effective heat removal from processors while generating the electricity they need to operate. “All of the computers we have now could actually run much faster than they do, but they’re not allowed to - because if they did, they would fail after a short time,” Myers said in the statement. “So a huge amount of money in the semiconductor industry is put toward thermal management.”

Inside the iPhone 4 Gyroscope

Wed, 30 Jun 2010 15:10:58 +0000

One of the major feature updates for the iPhone 4 included a gyroscope. There are two applications that a gyroscope can be used for: keeping an object in balance and providing precise positioning data. Obviously, the intended application in an iPhone is improved positioning and control of software objects. One of the questions I had about the iPhone 4 was whether there was something (very tiny) spinning inside of the iPhone or if the device was solid state. Until now, I had no idea that solid state gyroscopes existed. Engineers at iFixIt, with help from Chipworks’s Electron Microscope, have done a teardown of the iPhone 4’s MEMS based Gyroscope.