News & Analysis
Top 10 disruptive startup tech plays
Peter Clarke
1/23/2013 10:20 AM EST
LONDON – If past is prologue, then a look at the disruptive technology moves of 2012 may give us some sense of what the new year will bring.
Personally, I've always always been as interested in the smaller companies that are starting out on their journeys as I am in the semiconductor industry majors. As consolidation takes place at the top of the industry, there has been a constant flow of nimble startups, hoping to become the stars of the future.
Predicting winners and losers is difficult. However, one potential pointer comes from you, dear readers, in the form of the interest you've expressed in our articles on startups. Accordingly, here are the following "top 10" articles, presented in reverse order from #10 to #2 based on the number of times they were viewed in 2012. But first, we'll tease with the #1 story:
Former Apple, Facebook and Google engineers form IoT firm
The Internet of Things was certainly a hot topic in 2012 and when you add to the mix young, ambitious, entrepreneurial engineers that have left three of the best-known technology companies to do their own thing the story gets even better.
In May we were contacted by year-old startup called Electric Imp Inc. (Sunnyvale, Calif.) which had developed a Wi-Fi node in the physical format of memory card that it wanted to make a standard technique for assigning IP addresses and linking to the Internet to establish a Wi-Fi-mediated Internet of Things (IoT). The CEO Hugo Fiennes, prior to significant career designing iPhones at Apple, had been a young engineering entrepreneur back in the U.K. in November 2000 and had been featured in EE Times.
For our story on Electric Imp, see Former Apple, Google, Facebook engineers launch IoT startup.

From left to right: Electric Imp founders Peter Hartley, Hugo Fiennes (holding card) and Kevin Fox.
Related links and articles:
www.electricimp.com
ARM CEO talks IoT, platforms, the future of Europe
Personally, I've always always been as interested in the smaller companies that are starting out on their journeys as I am in the semiconductor industry majors. As consolidation takes place at the top of the industry, there has been a constant flow of nimble startups, hoping to become the stars of the future.
Predicting winners and losers is difficult. However, one potential pointer comes from you, dear readers, in the form of the interest you've expressed in our articles on startups. Accordingly, here are the following "top 10" articles, presented in reverse order from #10 to #2 based on the number of times they were viewed in 2012. But first, we'll tease with the #1 story:
Former Apple, Facebook and Google engineers form IoT firm
The Internet of Things was certainly a hot topic in 2012 and when you add to the mix young, ambitious, entrepreneurial engineers that have left three of the best-known technology companies to do their own thing the story gets even better.
In May we were contacted by year-old startup called Electric Imp Inc. (Sunnyvale, Calif.) which had developed a Wi-Fi node in the physical format of memory card that it wanted to make a standard technique for assigning IP addresses and linking to the Internet to establish a Wi-Fi-mediated Internet of Things (IoT). The CEO Hugo Fiennes, prior to significant career designing iPhones at Apple, had been a young engineering entrepreneur back in the U.K. in November 2000 and had been featured in EE Times.
For our story on Electric Imp, see Former Apple, Google, Facebook engineers launch IoT startup.

From left to right: Electric Imp founders Peter Hartley, Hugo Fiennes (holding card) and Kevin Fox.
Related links and articles:
www.electricimp.com
ARM CEO talks IoT, platforms, the future of Europe
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daustins
1/25/2013 11:37 AM EST
I am an Anglophile and have been all my life. Still, is it necessary to call a Brit or anyone by a title? Americans do not have nobility or royalty, de jure. Call him, or any other ennobled Brit, by his last name, or first, if you're familiar. As I said, I'm an Anglophile but we don't use fancy titles for Rothchilds and anyone in the Almanach de Gotha.
No reason for an American to fawn over someone, even a cousin.
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R. S. Moore
1/25/2013 11:42 AM EST
But he is brave Sir Robin.
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TJones
1/25/2013 12:36 PM EST
My name is Inigo Montoya. You killed my father. Prepare to die.
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trm1945
1/25/2013 12:53 PM EST
Hello there, what's your name?
"My name is Pedro."
Pedro. That's Mexican, isn't it?
No, ees Swees. Theese way we don offend no buddy."
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hari.tadepalli
1/25/2013 1:00 PM EST
Appreciate these techonology development insights. But, . . ., one quarter column worth of reading material in each click? My 1920 x 1080 laptop screen can fit at least six of these slides in a screenful. I understand the need for sponsors and advertisements; but with all the formatted content on this page, inclidng the ad, occupy less than 50% of my screen, with two large white margins left open on either side. For reading convenience, please consider posting at least two of these slides on each page.
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RAJEEV.KRISHNAMOORTHY_#1
1/25/2013 1:15 PM EST
I completely agree with the comment about the irritating format. I frequently stop reading articles because I get turned off. In this case, I stopped after just a couple of slides.
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William Miller
1/28/2013 2:59 AM EST
Agree. Slides are not convenient for reading..
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jjgray
1/28/2013 6:39 AM EST
Agree! These articles always prick my interest and then prick my bubble as I recognise the tedious "1 of 10" format.
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TJones
1/25/2013 2:20 PM EST
I, on the other hand, enjoy clicking once for each word in the article.
This is especially effective on slower browsers, where the densely-populated and expertly-coded EET web page takes torturous seconds to load and I stop reading the article, but am _sure_ to read the advertisements, v e r y s l o w l y.
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alex7ko
1/27/2013 7:57 AM EST
I used to click "Print" when reading such multi-page articles as this.
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hari.tadepalli
2/5/2013 2:22 AM EST
Thanks for the suggestion. I missed the tip. Yes, clicking print takes you to an ad-free version with all the 10 slides on the same page. Some websites don't allow this, but works in EETimes.
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joyhaa
1/30/2013 3:15 PM EST
at least there should be a quick jump-to list for the 10 items.
also, on item 7 for servergy.com, I think they're using Freescale silicon, not sure why IBM was mentioned there.
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John_Galt
2/5/2013 10:51 AM EST
I read the Cyclos white paper with great interest. The resonant concept is simple but it may be too simple. The white paper focuses heavily on clock tree power and skew - to be sure these are vitally important aspects of IC design - but so is jitter. In certain applications jitter can be a show-stopper and my engineering sense tells me that a parallel resonant tuned clock tree (being of high impedance) would be very susceptible to jitter generated from crosstalk.
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selinz
2/12/2013 2:13 PM EST
Perhaps a drop-down menu (similar to those used in product reviews) that enable jumping to an arbitrary page would make the format less irritating.
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