Issue link: https://iconnect007.uberflip.com/i/1028393
10 DESIGN007 MAGAZINE I SEPTEMBER 2018 Andy Shaughnessy is managing editor of Design007 Magazine. He has been covering PCB design for 18 years. He can be reached by clicking here. into the IRS and manipulated world finance markets. We've also seen the effect that bots can have on social media platforms like Face- book and Twitter, automating posts, manipu- lating the ranking algorithms, and (potentially) affecting a presidential election. It's all rela- tive: If the bots are helping your organization, they're helpful tools, not a reason to distrust everything you see on social media. The Neural Information Processing Systems Foundation (NIPS) understands the benefits and dangers of AI, offering workshops with titles like Machine Deception and Security in Machine Learning, as well as AI for Social Good. There are pros and cons to every new technology, and we've barely begun to see the potential for AI. This month, we asked our expert contribu- tors to discuss AI and what it might mean to PCB design and the rest of the electronics industry. Technical Editor Dan Feinberg has been reporting on AI for years, and he offers a look at where AI is now in terms of con- sumer products, and some of the hurdles that AI faces in the upcoming years. David White of Cadence Design Systems has been involved with AI since his college days, and he shares his thoughts on Cadence's work with AI and what it could mean to EDA tools. And Men- tor's Paul Musto explains how the company plans to harness the power of AI, and why old- school PCB designers shouldn't feel threatened by AI-driven EDA tools. We have Part 2 of Tom Hausherr's collection of standard PCB components, and an article by Chang Fee Yee of Keysight Technologies on reducing crosstalk in multi-board interconnect. And Simberian's Yuriy Shlepnev brings us an article on localizing interconnect structures at speeds above 10 Gbps. We also have columns from our regular contributors Barry Olney of iCD, consultant Vern Solberg, and consultant Tim Haag. It's a great time to be in this industry. Show season is upon us, and I hope to see you at SMTA International in October. In the mean- time, if you're not already a subscriber, click here. While you're at it, subscribe to our news- letters, too. See you next month. DESIGN007 A team of researchers at Washington University in St. Louis is the first to successfully record environmental data using a wireless photonic sensor resonator with a whispering-gallery-mode (WGM) architecture. In the grand world of the Internet of Things (IoT), there are vast numbers of spatially distributed wireless sensors predominately based on electronics. These devices often are hampered by electromagnetic interference, such as disturbed audio or visual signals caused by a low- flying airplane and a kitchen grinder causing unwanted noise on a radio. But optical sen- sors are "immune to electromagnetic interference and can provide a signifi- cant advantage in harsh environments," said Lan Yang, the Edwin H. & Florence G. Skinner Professor of Electrical & Systems Engineering. Yang's sensor belongs to a category called whispering gallery mode resonators, so named because they work like the famous whispering gallery in St. Paul's Cathedral in London. Yang and her colleagues had to address stability issues, which were handled by the customized operation systems app they developed, and miniaturization of bulky laboratory measurement systems. "We developed a smartphone app to control the sens- ing system over WiFi," Yang said. "By connecting the sen- sor system to the internet, we can realize real-time remote control of the system." (Source: Washington University in St. Louis) Enabling 'Internet of Photonic Things' With Miniature Sensors