Clive "Max" Maxfield

#MaxCoolBeans: Ecobee: How NOT to Design a GUI (Part 2) www.clivemaxfield.com/coolbeans/ec... Consistency, visibility, and common sense matter in user interfaces—unfortunately, the folks at ecobee seem to have missed that memo.

Taming Multi-Switch Bounce in Software, Part 2 Here’s a scalable, elegant software shift-register technique for debouncing multiple noisy switches.

Taming Multi-Switch Bounce in Software, Part 2 www.designnews.com/gadget-freak... Here’s a scalable, elegant software shift-register technique for debouncing multiple noisy switches.

Bumblebees Can’t Fly, and Humans Can’t Exist (I have Proof) I’m feeling more than a little existential at the moment. Unfortunately, I don’t think there’s a cream for that. I was going to say, “Don’t worry, it’s not catching.” However, the more I think abou…

You might want to take a look at a column I just posted: Bumblebees Can’t Fly, and Humans Can’t Exist (I have Proof) -- If bumblebees supposedly can’t fly, then modern biology suggests something even stranger—humans probably shouldn’t exist either.
www.eejournal.com/article/bumb...

Bumblebees Can’t Fly, and Humans Can’t Exist (I have Proof) I’m feeling more than a little existential at the moment. Unfortunately, I don’t think there’s a cream for that. I was going to say, “Don’t worry, it’s not catching.” However, the more I think abou…

Bumblebees Can’t Fly, and Humans Can’t Exist (I have Proof) www.eejournal.com/article/bumb... A whimsical dive into modern biology shows that life isn’t built from tidy blueprints but from tangled networks of genes, proteins, and control loops.

Mad Max Meets Furiosa AI I recall seeing the very first Mad Max movie in 1979. In this torrid tale, a dystopian near-future Australia is facing a breakdown of civil order. Max (no relation) is a police officer who turns in…

Mad Max Meets Furiosa AI www.eejournal.com/article/mad-... FuriosaAI’s renegade RNGD chip upends the AI inferencing game. The company’s tensor-native architecture provides cost-and-power-efficient performance that challenges conventional GPUs.

Well, Fork Me with a Dining Philosophers Problem (or The Best Way to Debug Embedded Systems) There are many difficult-to-answer questions. For example: At what point does ‘a few’ become ‘several’ When does ‘soon’ become ‘never’? How long will this take? (How long ha…

Well, Fork Me with a Dining Philosophers Problem (or The Best Way to Debug Embedded Systems) www.eejournal.com/article/well... Percepio’s Detect quietly watches your embedded system and springs into action when something misbehaves.

#MaxCoolBeans: Ecobee: How NOT to Design a GUI (Part 1) www.clivemaxfield.com/coolbeans/ec... How a perfectly good Bosch HVAC system was undermined by preventable mistakes, and a thermostat interface that defies logic.

Powering Kilowatt-Plus Processors A futurist is a person who studies, analyzes, and makes informed predictions about the future, especially regarding trends in technology, society, business, culture, economics, or science. For exam…

Powering Kilowatt-Plus Processors www.eejournal.com/article/powe... Ferric Corporation’s new integrated voltage-regulator (IVR) chiplets deliver exceptionally high-density power right under (or inside) kilowatt-plus AI and HPC processors.

Taming Multi-Switch Bounce in Software, Part 1 Why simple button-reading logic breaks down, and what happens when switches bounce and mislead your code.

Taming Multi-Switch Bounce in Software, Part 1 www.designnews.com/gadget-freak... Why simple button-reading logic breaks down, and what happens when switches bounce and mislead your code.

Physical AI at Foundry Scale When conversations turn to semiconductor foundries, they typically begin with leading-edge process nodes and the race toward ever-smaller geometries. However, although nanometer bragging rights dom…

Physical AI at Foundry Scale www.eejournal.com/article/phys... The convergence of MIPS’ RISC-V-based Physical AI vision with GlobalFoundries’ foundry-scale integration is creating an exciting new industrial pathway for real-world AI that can sense, think, act, and communicate at the edge.

#MaxCoolBeans: Hurray for the Circuit Board Medics! www.clivemaxfield.com/coolbeans/hu... Because sometimes the best replacement part… is the one you already have!

I Doff My Cap to the New Hailo RPi AI HAT+ 2 As usual, my head is aswirl (like “awash,” but a tad less rambunctious) with cogitations and ruminations about all the once-impossible things I’ve been exposed to recently. I feel like the White Qu…

I Doff My Cap to the New Hailo RPi AI HAT+ 2 www.eejournal.com/article/i-do... A game-changing Raspberry Pi add-on that unleashes local generative AI and vision-model horsepower with 40 TOPS of neural compute and 8 GB of dedicated memory, letting you run advanced AI on your Pi without the cloud.

Dipping Our Toes Deeper into the AI+AR Computing Waters I’ve said this until I’m blue in the face, but no one seems to want to listen: As I discussed in one of my “What the FAQ” columns (see What the FAQ are VR, MR, AR, DR, AV, and HR?), augmented reali…

Dipping Our Toes Deeper into the AI+AR Computing Waters www.eejournal.com/article/dipp... Swave Photonics’ groundbreaking nano-pixel holographic display technology is creating wonderfully realistic, lightweight AI+AR smart glasses that could usher in a new era of immersive spatial computing.

Beyond the Spherical Chicken: Rewriting Maxwell for Modern Machines This is going to be a story in three parts. If we’re lucky, they’ll be related, but I’m not making any promises. Let’s start by discussing one of the things I know nothing about. Yes, I know this i…

Beyond the Spherical Chicken: Rewriting Maxwell for Modern Machines www.eejournal.com/article/beyo... Nullspace EM is a modern full-wave 3D solver that preserves full accuracy while running dramatically faster and enabling AI-driven design workflows.

Chiplets Get Physical: The Days of Mix-and-Match Silicon Draw Nigh Things continue to gain traction in “chiplet space” (where no one can hear you scream). In fact, before I forget, Chiplet Summit 2026 takes place in just a couple of weeks as I pen these words. The…

Chiplets Get Physical: The Days of Mix-and-Match Silicon Draw Nigh www.eejournal.com/article/chip... Cadence is pushing chiplet technology forward with its Physical AI Chiplet Platform and ecosystem to help bridge today’s multi-die designs toward an open, interoperable future.

Agentic AI Framework for Edge Applications As usual, things are moving so fast in AI space (where no one can hear you scream) that I no longer know whether I’m coming or going or doing something else entirely. For example, I’d barely manage…

Agentic AI Framework for Edge Applications www.eejournal.com/article/agen... NXP’s new eIQ Agentic AI Framework extends edge-AI beyond generative capabilities by orchestrating multiple AI models and actions entirely on-device, empowering real-world systems to sense, decide, and act autonomously

Building an Outrageously Awesome DIY Retro Game Console A cartridge-based console project that blends Arduino fundamentals, retro gaming nostalgia, and modern maker tools.

Building an Outrageously Awesome DIY Retro Game Console www.designnews.com/gadget-freak... A cartridge-based console project that blends Arduino fundamentals, retro gaming nostalgia, and modern maker tools.

#MaxCoolBeans: Everything You Ever Wanted to Know About Gyroscopic Precession (But Were Too Afraid to Ask) www.clivemaxfield.com/coolbeans/ev... Most of the materials you read and see about gyroscopic precession explain WHAT happens, not WHY it happens.

This Is Going to Be the Best FPGA Conference in the USA Ever! (Said Max, Excitedly) Just in case it has escaped your attention, I want to make sure you are aware of the forthcoming FPGA Horizons US East Conference and Exhibition, which will take place April 29-30, 2026. If you wan…

This Is Going to Be the Best FPGA Conference in the USA Ever! (Said Max, Excitedly) www.eejournal.com/article/this... The FPGA Horizons US East 2026 Conference & Exhibition promises outstanding speakers, practical FPGA insights, and an energizing community of designers and innovators.

AI-Powered PCB Layout Tool Delivers a Working SBC I cannot believe how fast things are progressing in AI-powered Electronic Design Automation (EDA) space (where no one can hear you scream). AI-enabled EDA tools are popping up like mushrooms for a …

AI-Powered PCB Layout Tool Delivers a Working SBC www.eejournal.com/article/ai-p... Quilter.ai’s AI-powered PCB layout tool has automatically produced a complete, working single-board computer (SBC).

Want to Invest in Humanoid Robots (Or Have Your Humanoid Robots Invested In)? As usual, I find (what I laughingly call) my mind to be well and truly boggled. When I was a young lad, AI-powered autonomous humanoid robots were the stuff of science fiction. Although I longed fo…

Want to Invest in Humanoid Robots (Or Have Your Humanoid Robots Invested In)? www.eejournal.com/article/want... Humanoid Global is a publicly traded investment firm uniquely focused on accelerating the rise of humanoid robots by investing across the entire embodied-AI ecosystem.

#MaxCoolBeans: Science Fiction Meets Sneaky Surveillance Pricing www.clivemaxfield.com/coolbeans/sc... Long foretold by science-fiction writers, surveillance-driven technologies now decide not just what we see—but what we pay.

Making Materials Smart with Nanoscale Sensors Suppose you were creating a sensor intended to measure one phenomenon we’ll call A, and you spent years ensuring that its readings weren’t affected by another phenomenon we’ll call B. Now suppose y…

Making Materials Smart with Nanoscale Sensors www.eejournal.com/article/maki... Digid is redefining sensing with its patented nanoscale force and temperature sensors—micron-scale devices printed directly onto tools and materials to enable ultra-fast, EMI-immune measurement.

How Optical Switches Can Cut AI Hyperscale Data Center Power by 40% I’m about to wax eloquent on a new generation of optical switches that are poised to revolutionize the communication capacity and performance of data centers—especially the AI and hyperscale flavor…

How Optical Switches Can Cut AI Hyperscale Data Center Power by 40% -- Omnitron Sensors has overcomes the stability, scalability, and manufacturability limits of today’s optical circuit switches.
www.eejournal.com/article/how-...

#MaxCoolBeans: I Just Met the Fixable-Upgradable Laptop of My Dreams www.clivemaxfield.com/coolbeans/i-... The last thing I need at the moment is yet another project, but I’m sorely tempted by the Framework Laptop 12 DIY Edition.

Monetizing Stranded Megawatts in AI Data Centers I must admit that my head is “all over the place” today. I’m trying to juggle too many things at once, and the problem is that I can’t juggle. Well, that’s not strictly true. I can juggle 10 fine p…

Monetizing Stranded Megawatts in AI Data Centers www.eejournal.com/article/mone... Hammerhead AI is a software platform that unlocks underutilized power capacity inside data centers by dynamically orchestrating delay-tolerant AI workloads.

No Need to Delay—You Can Create Chiplet-Based Designs Today! Chiplets are ready for prime time now (but only if the interconnect foundation is solid)!

No Need to Delay—You Can Create Chiplet-Based Designs Today! www.designnews.com/semiconducto... Chiplets are ready for prime time now (but only if the interconnect foundation is solid)!

Efficient Computer’s Efficient Computer is 100X More Energy Efficient than Other General-Purpose Processors I remember the heady days of the 1970s, when new and exciting 8-bit processor architectures were sprouting like metaphorical mushrooms. I’m sure that, like me, you are thinking of little beauties l…

Efficient Computer’s Efficient Computer is 100X More Energy Efficient than Other General-Purpose Processors www.eejournal.com/article/effi... Is 99% of your energy going into NOT performing computation? The Electron E1 may be the answer to your problems.

#MaxCoolBeans: An Innovative Way to Get Your Balls in a Twist www.clivemaxfield.com/coolbeans/an... After watching these videos, it’s hard to argue with the sentiment “There should be a Nobel Prize for engineering, not just in physics and chemistry.”

The Soldering Setup of My Dreams From beginner basics to blisteringly brilliant gear, here's everything you need to start soldering.

The Soldering Setup of My Dreams www.designnews.com/components-s... From beginner basics to blisteringly brilliant gear, here's everything you need to start soldering.