This week we cover a variety of exciting announcements from key industry players on the topics of Amazon Sidewalk, Bluetooth Low Energy, machine learning, AI, and semiconductors. While the COVID-19 crisis continues to foster uncertainty, we can report on a few positive news items from the past few days. 

Chipset Makers Contribute to Amazon Sidewalk

Amazon announced this week new details about its "Sidewalk" network, which it describes it as a network that "uses Bluetooth Low Energy (BLE), the 900 MHz spectrum, and other frequencies to simplify new device setup, extend the low-bandwidth working range of devices, and help devices stay online and up-to-date even if they are outside the range of home Wi-Fi." Amazon Sidewalk, which is scheduled to launch later in 2020, will feature technology from companies including Nordic Semiconductor (BLE solutions), Semtech (LoRa devices), Texas Instruments, and Silicon Labs (EFR Wireless Gecko Series). "Silicon Labs and Amazon are teaming up to help OEMs create amazing new user experiences with secure, private, easy to set up Sidewalk IoT devices," said Jake Alamat, VP of IoT Home and Consumer Products at Silicon Labs, in a release.

A Bright Future for ML and AI

The future is looking bright for engineers and companies focused on machine learning (ML) and artificial intelligence (AI) services. According to ABI Research, the IoT ML and AI market will likely hit $1.09 billion in 2020 and soar to $10.6 billion by 2026. For instance, demand for pattern recognition, collaborative robots, and computer vision applications in the industrial sector could drive innovation for years to come.

Semiconductor Equipment Billings Up

North America semiconductor equipment billings reached $2.65 billion in August 2020, according to a new SEMI report. Despite the COVID-19 crisis, the August billing figure is 32.5% higher than August 2019, and it is 3% higher than July 2020 figure. SEMI statistics show that billings have increased steadily over the past six months, from $2.2 billion in March 2020 to $2.65 billion in August 2020.  

A Zero-Emission Aircraft by 2035?

Airbus announced Monday that it aims to launch the world's zero-emission commercial aircraft by 2035. The company said it using hydrogen as the main power source. “I strongly believe that the use of hydrogen — both in synthetic fuels and as a primary power source for commercial aircraft — has the potential to significantly reduce aviation's climate impact," Guillaume Faury, Airbus CEO, said in a release. Other proposed innovations included a turbofan design (range = 2,200 nautical miles), a turboprop design powered by hydrogen, and "blended-wing" design with a wide fuselage.

Altair Acquires Ellexus

Altair continues to focus on high-power computing (HPC) solutions. Last week, we reported about Altair's acquisition of Univa, a developer of workload management software solutions based in Chicago. A few days later, Altair announced the acquisition of Ellexus, which is a Cambridge, UK-based developer of input/output (I/O) analysis tools. "Altair’s growing leadership in HPC is exciting and exactly where I want to be to help grow the business and stretch technology to its limits," Dr. Rosemary Francis, Ellexus founder and CEO, said in a release.

Updates on Amazon Sidewalk, Semico News, ML/AI, and More

Read our regular Electronics News Byte for details about the Amazon Sidewalk, the semiconductor industry, and the other subjects mentioned in this post. And don’t forget to read Elektor’s E-Zine for new electronics projects, helpful engineering tutorials, and interviews with industry thought leaders.