https://www.faststreamtech.com/knowledge/ Engineering writing on silicon, radio, edge AI, connected products and system integration from Faststream Technologies. en-GB Thu, 13 Aug 2026 09:00:00 +0000 https://www.faststreamtech.com/knowledge/imaging-is-the-inspection-problem/ https://www.faststreamtech.com/knowledge/imaging-is-the-inspection-problem/ Engineering Insight Thu, 20 Aug 2026 09:00:00 +0000 Machine-vision accuracy is won in the lighting, optics and exposure, not the model. Why a defect with no contrast cannot be detected, and why imaging is designed before the model. https://www.faststreamtech.com/knowledge/the-false-call-problem-in-aoi/ https://www.faststreamtech.com/knowledge/the-false-call-problem-in-aoi/ Engineering Insight Thu, 20 Aug 2026 09:00:00 +0000 Automated optical inspection is judged on trust. Why flagging every cosmetic deviation loses the operator, and how fully learning a good joint drives the false-call rate down. https://www.faststreamtech.com/knowledge/line-scan-versus-area-scan/ https://www.faststreamtech.com/knowledge/line-scan-versus-area-scan/ Engineering Insight Thu, 20 Aug 2026 09:00:00 +0000 Continuous web needs a line-scan camera locked to an encoder; discrete parts suit area-scan. When each is right, and what each demands of the system. https://www.faststreamtech.com/knowledge/anomaly-detection-when-defects-are-rare/ https://www.faststreamtech.com/knowledge/anomaly-detection-when-defects-are-rare/ Engineering Insight Thu, 20 Aug 2026 09:00:00 +0000 The defects that matter most are the hardest to train for. How anomaly detection — learning normal from plentiful good parts — catches rare, safety-critical faults a classifier cannot. https://www.faststreamtech.com/knowledge/signal-integrity-off-chip/ https://www.faststreamtech.com/knowledge/signal-integrity-off-chip/ Engineering Insight Thu, 20 Aug 2026 09:00:00 +0000 A high-speed link degrades the moment it crosses a package and board — loss, reflections, jitter. How equalisation reopens the eye over a real channel, not an ideal one. https://www.faststreamtech.com/knowledge/coverage-not-passing-tests/ https://www.faststreamtech.com/knowledge/coverage-not-passing-tests/ Engineering Insight Thu, 20 Aug 2026 09:00:00 +0000 Verified means the untested space is shown empty, not that the regression is green. Functional coverage, constrained-random stimulus, and when only formal can close a property. https://www.faststreamtech.com/knowledge/positioning-where-gps-fails/ https://www.faststreamtech.com/knowledge/positioning-where-gps-fails/ Engineering Insight Thu, 20 Aug 2026 09:00:00 +0000 Satellite positioning fails in tunnels, canyons and indoors. How fusing GNSS with inertial and motion sensors holds an accurate position through the gaps — dead reckoning, multipath rejection, dynamic trust. https://www.faststreamtech.com/knowledge/spectrum-options-for-private-5g/ https://www.faststreamtech.com/knowledge/spectrum-options-for-private-5g/ Engineering Insight Thu, 20 Aug 2026 09:00:00 +0000 Licensed, shared or unlicensed; low, mid or millimetre-wave — the spectrum you can use sets the coverage, capacity and cost of a private 5G network. Why the regulatory regime is the first design input. https://www.faststreamtech.com/knowledge/hearing-failure-in-vibration/ https://www.faststreamtech.com/knowledge/hearing-failure-in-vibration/ Engineering Insight Thu, 20 Aug 2026 09:00:00 +0000 Predictive maintenance reads early failure in vibration. The signatures a bearing, imbalance or gear defect leaves, why the sensing chain decides if they survive, and separating degradation from normal running. https://www.faststreamtech.com/knowledge/designing-for-years-on-one-battery/ https://www.faststreamtech.com/knowledge/designing-for-years-on-one-battery/ Engineering Insight Thu, 20 Aug 2026 09:00:00 +0000 Battery life in a field device is set by sleep current and location, not the radio. How to build an energy budget, hunt quiescent draw to microamps, and prove multi-year life without a multi-year test. https://www.faststreamtech.com/knowledge/connectivity-for-fleet-management/ https://www.faststreamtech.com/knowledge/connectivity-for-fleet-management/ Engineering Insight Thu, 20 Aug 2026 09:00:00 +0000 Fleet telematics is not the dashboard — it is keeping data flowing and correct across the coverage a vehicle loses: tunnels, remote routes, borders. Bearers, store-and-forward, dead-reckoning and roaming. https://www.faststreamtech.com/knowledge/detecting-driver-fatigue/ https://www.faststreamtech.com/knowledge/detecting-driver-fatigue/ Engineering Insight Thu, 20 Aug 2026 09:00:00 +0000 Detecting driver fatigue from eye closure, head pose, gaze and steering — why it runs in the cab, works in darkness, tells fatigue from distraction, and lives or dies on its false-alarm rate. https://www.faststreamtech.com/knowledge/reading-a-vehicle-can-obd/ https://www.faststreamtech.com/knowledge/reading-a-vehicle-can-obd/ Engineering Insight Thu, 20 Aug 2026 09:00:00 +0000 Tapping a vehicle's buses safely over OBD-II or CAN, decoding signals that differ by make, detecting events on the device, and shipping only what matters — without disturbing the bus or opening a security hole. https://www.faststreamtech.com/knowledge/bluetooth-channel-sounding/ https://www.faststreamtech.com/knowledge/bluetooth-channel-sounding/ Engineering Insight Thu, 20 Aug 2026 09:00:00 +0000 Signal strength was never a distance sensor. Channel Sounding, added in Core 6.0, measures true physical distance to centimetre scale with phase-based ranging and round-trip time — accurate, and hard to spoof. https://www.faststreamtech.com/knowledge/bluetooth-qualification-explained/ https://www.faststreamtech.com/knowledge/bluetooth-qualification-explained/ Engineering Insight Thu, 20 Aug 2026 09:00:00 +0000 You cannot ship a product using the Bluetooth marks until it is qualified and listed. You inherit most of it from a pre-qualified module; the effort is proportional to what you add — a profile, new RF, or a Core feature like Channel Sounding. https://www.faststreamtech.com/knowledge/lidar-rail-intrusion-detection/ https://www.faststreamtech.com/knowledge/lidar-rail-intrusion-detection/ Engineering Insight Thu, 20 Aug 2026 09:00:00 +0000 A LiDAR returns millions of points; a safety system has to return one bit. Ground-plane calibration, dynamic rail detection, classification by size and density, tracking, and a train alert bounded by response time. https://www.faststreamtech.com/knowledge/routing-congestion-and-pnr-failures/ https://www.faststreamtech.com/knowledge/routing-congestion-and-pnr-failures/ Engineering Insight Thu, 20 Aug 2026 09:00:00 +0000 A block can meet timing on paper and still be unroutable. When routing fails, the cause sits in floorplan and placement — not the router. https://www.faststreamtech.com/knowledge/vcd-evcd-activity-management/ https://www.faststreamtech.com/knowledge/vcd-evcd-activity-management/ Engineering Insight Thu, 20 Aug 2026 09:00:00 +0000 Value Change Dump and its extended form are the currency of power analysis — but a full-chip dump reaches hundreds of GB. What you dump decides whether numbers arrive on time. https://www.faststreamtech.com/knowledge/passive-intermodulation/ https://www.faststreamtech.com/knowledge/passive-intermodulation/ Engineering Insight Thu, 13 Aug 2026 09:00:00 +0000 Two carriers meet a corroded joint, the joint behaves like a diode, and the site desensitises. Nothing in the electronics has failed. https://www.faststreamtech.com/knowledge/drone-video-link-latency/ https://www.faststreamtech.com/knowledge/drone-video-link-latency/ Engineering Insight Thu, 13 Aug 2026 09:00:00 +0000 A radio quoted at twenty milliseconds can sit inside a system that takes four hundred. Glass to glass is the only figure that matters. https://www.faststreamtech.com/knowledge/camera-optics-for-inspection/ https://www.faststreamtech.com/knowledge/camera-optics-for-inspection/ Application Note Thu, 13 Aug 2026 09:00:00 +0000 Most inspection systems that fail were decided at the lens, not at the model. Resolution runs backwards from the defect. https://www.faststreamtech.com/knowledge/rfid-nfc-uwb-compared/ https://www.faststreamtech.com/knowledge/rfid-nfc-uwb-compared/ Engineering Insight Thu, 13 Aug 2026 09:00:00 +0000 Three technologies answering three different questions. Choosing on the wrong axis is the expensive error here. https://www.faststreamtech.com/knowledge/uwb-ranging-explained/ https://www.faststreamtech.com/knowledge/uwb-ranging-explained/ Application Note Thu, 13 Aug 2026 09:00:00 +0000 Thirty centimetres per nanosecond, so sub-metre accuracy is a sub-three-nanosecond timing problem. Everything hard follows from that. https://www.faststreamtech.com/knowledge/nr-cell-ssb-beams/ https://www.faststreamtech.com/knowledge/nr-cell-ssb-beams/ Engineering Insight Thu, 13 Aug 2026 09:00:00 +0000 A cell is now a synchronisation block and an identity, not a transmitter — which is why moving across a building need not generate a handover. https://www.faststreamtech.com/knowledge/radio-cascading-daisy-chain/ https://www.faststreamtech.com/knowledge/radio-cascading-daisy-chain/ Reference Architecture Thu, 13 Aug 2026 09:00:00 +0000 Bandwidth, timing accumulation and failure domain each bound the chain. The tightest one wins, and it is usually bandwidth. https://www.faststreamtech.com/knowledge/upf-placement-and-convergence/ https://www.faststreamtech.com/knowledge/upf-placement-and-convergence/ Reference Architecture Thu, 13 Aug 2026 09:00:00 +0000 Central, edge or cell site — the placement sets the latency floor. It is also the anchor where 5G and Wi-Fi converge on one session. https://www.faststreamtech.com/knowledge/evm-what-it-measures/ https://www.faststreamtech.com/knowledge/evm-what-it-measures/ Engineering Insight Thu, 13 Aug 2026 09:00:00 +0000 Six mechanisms degrade a constellation, they add in power, and the largest dominates — so decompose before optimising. https://www.faststreamtech.com/knowledge/linearisation-in-5g/ https://www.faststreamtech.com/knowledge/linearisation-in-5g/ Application Note Thu, 13 Aug 2026 09:00:00 +0000 CFR and DPD exist because OFDM peaks sit where amplifiers are least efficient. That efficiency is a recurring operating cost. https://www.faststreamtech.com/knowledge/mocn-moran-neutral-host/ https://www.faststreamtech.com/knowledge/mocn-moran-neutral-host/ Reference Architecture Thu, 13 Aug 2026 09:00:00 +0000 What each model shares, the broadcast identity limit that caps tenants, and why sharing fails on operations rather than radio. https://www.faststreamtech.com/knowledge/n3iwf-non-3gpp-access/ https://www.faststreamtech.com/knowledge/n3iwf-non-3gpp-access/ Application Note Thu, 13 Aug 2026 09:00:00 +0000 Reaching the 5G core over a network the operator does not own — and where that is cheaper than building coverage. https://www.faststreamtech.com/knowledge/anchor-bands-en-dc/ https://www.faststreamtech.com/knowledge/anchor-bands-en-dc/ Engineering Insight Thu, 13 Aug 2026 09:00:00 +0000 In non-standalone deployment 5G coverage cannot exceed the LTE anchor, which explains much of what users actually experience. https://www.faststreamtech.com/knowledge/cellular-for-smart-metering/ https://www.faststreamtech.com/knowledge/cellular-for-smart-metering/ Application Note Thu, 13 Aug 2026 09:00:00 +0000 Decided by coverage in the worst basement in the estate, not by throughput — and by whether the network still exists in year twelve. https://www.faststreamtech.com/knowledge/connected-point-of-sale/ https://www.faststreamtech.com/knowledge/connected-point-of-sale/ Application Note Thu, 13 Aug 2026 09:00:00 +0000 A payment terminal is a security product that happens to take payments. Tamper response and certification govern the schedule. https://www.faststreamtech.com/knowledge/item-level-tracking-high-value-logistics/ https://www.faststreamtech.com/knowledge/item-level-tracking-high-value-logistics/ Reference Architecture Thu, 13 Aug 2026 09:00:00 +0000 Density, custody handovers and tamper evidence — and why DECT NR+, with no operator and no base station, changes the arithmetic. https://www.faststreamtech.com/knowledge/fpga-to-asic-business-case/ https://www.faststreamtech.com/knowledge/fpga-to-asic-business-case/ Engineering Insight Thu, 13 Aug 2026 09:00:00 +0000 The volume arithmetic, the thresholds, the hidden costs estimates miss, and the cases where the honest answer is no. https://www.faststreamtech.com/knowledge/vision-plc-mes-integration/ https://www.faststreamtech.com/knowledge/vision-plc-mes-integration/ Reference Architecture Thu, 13 Aug 2026 09:00:00 +0000 Trigger and encoder, verdict timing, part tracking, reject actuation, the fault protocol and traceability. https://www.faststreamtech.com/knowledge/cellular-ntn-fallback-tracking/ https://www.faststreamtech.com/knowledge/cellular-ntn-fallback-tracking/ Technology Thu, 13 Aug 2026 09:00:00 +0000 How coverage continuity is architected, what escalation policy should look like, and what a satellite message actually costs. https://www.faststreamtech.com/knowledge/choosing-a-wireless-link/ https://www.faststreamtech.com/knowledge/choosing-a-wireless-link/ Reference Thu, 13 Aug 2026 09:00:00 +0000 NFC, RFID, BLE, UWB, LoRaWAN, cellular and satellite compared on range, accuracy, battery life and infrastructure. https://www.faststreamtech.com/knowledge/process-node-selection/ https://www.faststreamtech.com/knowledge/process-node-selection/ Engineering Insight Thu, 13 Aug 2026 09:00:00 +0000 Why 180 nm is frequently the right answer, and when an advanced node genuinely earns its mask cost. https://www.faststreamtech.com/knowledge/designing-ota-before-you-ship/ https://www.faststreamtech.com/knowledge/designing-ota-before-you-ship/ Application Note Thu, 13 Aug 2026 09:00:00 +0000 Partition layout, bootloader design, signing and staged rollout — decisions that cannot be retrofitted into a deployed fleet. https://www.faststreamtech.com/knowledge/what-a-feasibility-study-produces/ https://www.faststreamtech.com/knowledge/what-a-feasibility-study-produces/ Application Note Thu, 13 Aug 2026 09:00:00 +0000 Two to six weeks, real parts, real conditions — and a written answer that is sometimes that it will not work as posed.