EDN: Voice of the Engineer

AI agents are beginning to change something more fundamental than how organizations use software. They are beginning to receive authority. A conventional AI system can provide information, summarize data, identify alternatives, or recommend an action. An agent can increasingly go further. It can select an action, execute it, commit resources, change a system, initiate a transaction, and modify an engineering workflow. And potentially make decisions without waiting for a human at every step.

As 5G-Advanced continues to roll out, bringing AI/ML integration, integrated sensing and communication (ISAC), RedCap, and non-terrestrial network capabilities, support for 3rd Generation Partnership Project (3GPP) Release 19 (R19) is emerging, setting the stage for initial 6G deployment and testing. Qualcomm Technologies, for example, is already incorporating AI/ML into RF modems to control real-time signal conditions, dynamic impedance matching, and predictive power scaling.

There are several ways to boost a relatively low AC or DC voltage by a factor of two or three, each with tradeoffs and constraints. Lower-voltage circuitry dominates much of design and associated discussions, with ICs and systems operating from five, three, and one, and even sub-one volt rails. There’s good reason for this: in general, such circuits require less power and have lower dissipation than higher-voltage circuits.

Modern RTL verification flows generate more evidence than engineers can always review with equal priority. Simulation, assertions, coverage, and formal analysis each expose different classes of behavior, but a large design can produce hundreds or thousands of properties. This article describes an AI-assisted workflow that uses machine learning to prioritize those properties while leaving proof and counterexample generation to the formal engine.

Take a baseline device, remove a subsequently added protocol and replace it with a function, and…you end up with a bigger-than-expected revision? As I alluded to in a blog post a week-and-a-half back, I’m nearing the finish line of my teardown series on TP-Link smart plugs.

Thermal imaging sits at the intersection of science and engineering, where invisible heat patterns are transformed into visible insights. By harnessing the physics of infrared radiation, converting it into electrical signals, and mapping those signals into pixel-based images, engineers unlock a powerful tool for diagnostics, safety, and innovation.

As 5G and 5G-Advanced push uplink efficiency and modulation performance, engineers are revisiting where power amplifier (PA) linearization should happen and how it should be validated. Hardware-in-the-loop testing of AI-based digital post-distortion (DPoD) is now linking today’s 5G measurements with possible 6G receiver architectures. PA linearity remains one of the hardest tradeoffs when designing wireless communication systems.

Traditionally, every generation of cellular technology has been mostly about moving data faster. However, 6G is shaping up to be a different kind of upgrade. The industry’s focus is shifting from how fast a network can move data to what new services and experiences it can deliver, with artificial intelligence enabling this shift.

You don’t have to be Superman (or even just use phone booths as changing stations) to find this author’s recent research results disturbing. I was recently looking for some information about neon lamps when I came across a series of websites with content which, courtesy of my blissful naïveté, I found rather jarring. I merged a collection of screen shots into one image for your ease of perusal (Figure 1). Figure 1 Warning: this collection of screen shots may be angst-inducing.

Optical image stabilization (OIS) has become one of the most high-valued features in the smartphone business. Over the past decade, the content we consume shifted from primarily text-based to image-driven before video content—long and short, horizontal then vertical—began to dominate what average joes, influencers, and businesses alike are creating. Let’s take a quick look at the marketing industry, a major force in video-driven social platforms and websites.