EP&T Podcast

Semiconductors are three times more likely to switch suppliers because of supply instability than product performance issues. Manufacturers are placing increasing emphasis on supply reliability, technical support responsiveness and delivery predictability as chip complexity continues to grow, reports Chris Ambrosio, executive director of market analysis consulting at TechInsights.

As demand accelerates for advanced packaging, HBM, chiplets and next-generation manufacturing technologies, suppliers face growing pressure to:

For this podcast episode, EP&T sits down with Abby Rampal, founder and CEO of solid-state AI in Toronto. He will share his thoughts on why artificial intelligence alone may not be enough for engineering the physical world. Rampal will introduce Physics Enhanced Digital Twins (PeDT)—a next-generation approach that embeds the laws of physics directly into AI models.

This isn’t incremental improvement—it’s a fundamental shift. By grounding AI in physical reality, engineers can:

Sensors are becoming the backbone of today’s intelligent electronic systems — enabling everything from wearable health monitoring and industrial automation to smarter consumer and IoT devices. But as sensing technologies become more advanced, developers are also facing growing challenges around AI training, data collection, and system integration at the edge.

For this podcast episode, we speak with Abbas Ataya, senior director of software and systems at TDK U.S.A. Corporation. He will share some information on the company’s new SensorGPT platform, which is helping accelerate the development of next-generation AI-powered sensing applications.

Guest Bio

EP&T’s guest for this podcast is Dr. Scott Genin, Vice President of Materials Discovery at OTI Lumionics, which is a Toronto-based developer of advanced materials and manufacturing processes for OLED displays and lighting. The company specializes in creating materials for under-display cameras and sensors.

Genin provides insights - in practical terms, what his team has achieved with the Iterative Qubit Coupled Cluster – otherwise known as the iQCC algorithm, and why does this milestone matter to the electronics industry right now? Genin’s team reports a 90x performance improvement over established methods like DMRG. Listen now, as he...

As AI-driven robots move from labs to the real world, trust is essential and failure is not an option. Building robotics systems that are safe, deterministic and secure enough for real-world deployment has become the defining hurdle for robotics.

EP&T sits down with Winston Leung, senior strategic alliances manager at QNX Software Systems (a division of BlackBerry Ltd.) to discuss robotics move towards a software-defined future.

Podcast Guests: 

Udson Mendes, Team leader in quantum technologies at CMC Microsystems in Sherbrooke QC.

Janne Lehtinen, chief scientific officer and co-founder of SemiQon Technologies in Finland.

In an agreement to advance silicon-based quantum processor technology, SemiQon has collaborated with CMC this spring. Under the terms of the deal, SemiQon will supply CMC with prototypes of its semiconductor-based quantum processor chips for research purposes. CMC scientists are collaborating with SemiQon to accelerate the development of processors for more powerful quantum computers suitable for the next generation of quantum computing.

Our podcast co...

In this podcast episode, Chris provides some insights to this Toronto-based artificial intelligence semiconductor start-up. The firm is currently developing a powerful new AI chip that eliminates the data movement bottleneck that costs energy and performance in traditional architectures. While elaborating on the real-world applications of Untether AI's technology, Chris explains how his firm’s energy-efficient chip design translates into tangible benefits for designers. He also touches on the role Untether plays in shaping the future of AI-driven electronic devices, and how he anticipates the industry evolving in the coming years.

Chris Walker is an innovative and gr...

Podcast Guest: Qaiser Habib, director of engineering and Toronto site lead at Snowflake.

In this podcast episode, Habib shares his thoughts on why Toronto is poised to be a central hub for data innovation, along with emerging application trends that Canadian businesses can expect to see. He also touches on how Canadian businesses can benefit from embracing the data economy.

From a software engineering perspective, Habib speaks about the role of engineering in Canada and how it will evolve over the next five years, as well as strategies to build and scale high-performing engineering teams...

Founded in 1984, CMC Microsystems Corp. is a not-for-profit organization that operates by helping researchers and industry across Canada’s National Design Network. The group’s work involves lending assistance in the development of innovations in microsystems and nanotechnologies.

In conversation with EP&T Editor Stephen Law, Gord Harling touches on a number of projects and initiatives currently underway at CMC. Those include:

As most are aware, supply chain issues and semiconductor shortages have been all over the news in the past two years, with many automotive manufacturers announcing line stoppages and losses in revenue as a result. But, just how serious did things get? What has been the impact of the shortages so far?

To help us delve into this subject further, Avnet Silica recently analysed the public financial records for the major semiconductor and automotive manufacturers to reveal how low semiconductor stock levels dropped during the COVID-19 pandemic, and the effect this has had on the automotive production l...

In order to be successful, electronic part makers of all sizes need to excel in many different and often complex, areas of their business. Today’s challenges, ranging from global logistics to product compliance, challenges can be very daunting to designers because the industry moves so quickly and supply chains are increasingly global in nature.

Missy Hall of Digi-Key Electronics explains some of the important elements to remaining competitive in the component supplier space these days. Hall also shares her area of expertise with listeners – as this episode put its focus on the many challenges tech companies and...

Embedded systems is fundamental to every electronic design, as well as the consumer end-user experience, yet they often get overlooked in most discussions around security.

In conversation with EP&T, Toronto-based Rob Wood of NCC Group explains why embedded systems do not get enough attention in cybersecurity coverage, at least not as much as applications. Wood leans on his career experience in embedded devices, having worked at both BlackBerry and Motorola Mobility in roles focused on embedded software development, product firmware / hardware security, and supply chain security.

Wood underscores the importance of ensuring that anyone...

Frustrated with the complications and time constraints of prototyping a printed circuit board through traditional means, Voltera CEO & co-founder Alroy Almeida got the brainchild to build a printer that could do it on his desktop. Today, Voltera supplies major OEMs and CEMs, as well as leading educational institutions with its V-One pcb printer product.

Headquartered in the Kitchener/Waterloo region of Ontario, Voltera provides these cool tools to product developers, researchers and educators from all over the world. The pcb printers can take an idea in your head to a pcb board in your hands in minutes.  

Founded in 1984, CMC Microsystems is a not-for-profit organization that operates by helping researchers and industry across Canada's National Design Network. The group’s work involves lending assistance in the development of innovations in microsystems and nanotechnologies. Our guest is Gord Harling, an R&D veteran with telcom and semiconductor firms in Canada, he also has more than two decades of experience working in conjunction with tech start-ups.

Harling provides our listeners with a deeper dive on CMC Microsystems and the role it plays in Canada’s tech development ecosystem.

With billions of new IoT devices coming online, there is a growing need for security at the network edge. IoT security provider Sequitur Labs is monitoring progress in this area and provides updates on recent advancements that are strengthening IoT security.

Today's more sophisticated hacks are occurring in edge devices, targeting different stages of their lifecycle, using over-the-air firmware updates as back doors, etc. These attacks can be exploited to take down specific network areas or entire systems.

Podcast guest: Philip Attfield, CEO, Sequitur Labs Inc.