Electronics Weekly articles from April 2005

Electronics Weekly archives from April 2005

Ofcom cool over interference problems in 2.4GHz band.
April 6, 2005... Comms watchdog, Ofcom has played down the level of overcrowding in the unlicensed 2.4GHz band of the spectrum. But the industry regulator is considering tighter control of this frequency band as the continuing uptake of 2.4GHz technologies such...

Awards entries for Elektra 05.
April 6, 2005... Elektra 05, the European Electronics Industry Awards is currently accepting entries for each of its 13 business and technology categories. From awards for manufacturer, start-up and distributor of the year to training, project team, design...

Exclusive EW survey reveals salary levels for engineers in electronics.
April 6, 2005... Average salary levels in the electronics industry have risen to [pounds sterling]36,080, according to an exclusive industry survey conducted by Electronics Weekly. Almost a third of the 1,400 readers questioned in the survey, which was carried...

Institutions to ballot members on name as Government backs IEE and IIE merger.
April 6, 2005... Plans to merge the electronics and electrical engineering industrys two largest institutions have won Government backing. The DTI has oindicated its willingnesso to back an application by professional engineering institutes the IEE and IIE to...

[pounds sterling]20m Government funding to provide access to micro- and nanotechnology.
April 6, 2005... Giving UK industry access to advanced micro- and nanotechnologies is the aim of a [pounds sterling]20m round of funding announced last week as part of the Governments [pounds sterling]90m micro-nanotechnology (MNT) programme. oThis new round of...

Marconi tests lead-free for lifetime reliability.
April 6, 2005... Concerned about long-term reliability in lead-free telecoms equipment, Marconi has initiated an accelerated life testing programme. oWe are investing quite a bit in this,o Alex Robinson, who heads the firms RoHS and WEEE Directive project, told...

AMD processor runs multi OS.
April 6, 2005... AMD has described.elements of its extended 64-bit microprocessor technology which it has called oPacifica virtualisation technologyo. It is designed to allow the processor platform to run multiple operating systems and as a result one processor...

Scottish IP in Infineon kit.
April 6, 2005... Neural network intellectual property (IP) from Scottish firm Axeon is included in an automotive Powertrain development kit supplied by Infineon Technologies. The kit is based around Infineons Tricore processor and includes an Asic implementing...

Successful economy is good for science, says CBI boss.
April 6, 2005... The UK economy has an unprecedented opportunity for expansion founded on the knowledge-based industries, according to Sir Digby Jones, director-general of the CBI. oIts what we do with science which makes the difference,o Jones told EW, owe...

Welsh incubator views telescope technology.
April 6, 2005... Wales-based high-tech business incubator Optic Technium will host a national centre for large optics manufacturing technology which is used in space telescopes. Due to start in 2007, it follows a DTI study and subsequent Research Councils...

Preaching to the converted.
April 6, 2005... The design of mobile phone basestations has transformed the performance specifications of high speed, high resolution analogue-to-digital converters (ADCs) which are often used in the data path of transceiver stages. These ADCs typically use a...

UK explores route for rural wireless broadband access.
April 6, 2005... A project which will investigate the possibility of providing wireless broadband access (WBA) to rural communities by using higher power signals than are currently allowed in licence-exempt spectrum has kicked off. oThe purpose of this project...

The salary pyramid: where do you stand?
April 6, 2005... Salary surveys are odd things, almost like that horror movie which demands your attention even though you know you might be scared by what you see. There is a strange fascination with seeing where your wage fits in with the average. If you come...

Chip design institute names director following funding approval.
April 6, 2005... The Institute for System Level Integration (ISLI) in Livingston has appointed Tony Harker from Cypress Semiconductor as director and CEO. Harker, who has spent time at National Semiconductor and Fujitsu during a 20-year career, most recently...

Internet access inequality to become election issue.
April 6, 2005... The Government has said that inequalities in access to Internet-based comms services will be an issue in the forthcoming General Election. The DTI has produced a seven-point plan to close what it sees as a divide between high-tech haves and...

IBM to offer workshops for multi-core Cell processor.
April 6, 2005... IBMs plans to commercialise the Cell microprocessor will include workshops to familiarise users with its architecture. Announced in February at the International Solid State Circuits Conference, Cell (pictured left) is a multi-core processor...

MTL acquires industrial display manufacturer.
April 6, 2005... MTL Instruments has acquired a rugged industrial displays and keyboards manufacturer. German firm GECMAs hermetically sealed flat screen displays are used in hazardous areas, such as the chemical and petrochemical plants and pharmaceutical...

Network processor targets DSL markets.
April 6, 2005... Agere Systems is claiming to reduce development costs with its latest network processor aimed at the distributed processing requirements of the broadband access DSL telecoms linecard market. The firm claims the device will reduce the amount of...

UK firms top Europe on DTI wealth creation scoreboard.
April 6, 2005... UK firms are getting better at wealth creation and are ahead of many companies in the rest of Europe. The Governments annual measure of business success, the Value Added Scoreboard, measured a 15 per cent increase in wealth creation in 2005....

Management buy-out at Amplicon hints at expansion in PC business.
April 6, 2005... Amplicon Liveline has changed ownership in a management buy-out led by three senior managers at the Brighton-based manufacturer and distributor. According to managing director and leader of the buyout team, Tony Gorbold, there are no immediate...

Lighting firm develops 190 lumen LEDs for use in vehicle stop lights and indicators.
April 6, 2005... Single LED stop lights and indicators in cars have become possible with the release of a range of AlInGaP Luxeon III emitters from Californian firm Lumileds Lighting. oThe LEDs pump out record-breaking typical lumens per package of 110 for...

Wolfson and Cirrus Logic settle patent litigation.
April 6, 2005... Wolfson Microelectronics and US chip firm Cirrus Logic have settled all outstanding litigation in their long-running patent case. It dates back to October 2003 when Cirrus Logic brought a suit in the US District Court in San Diego against...

UK leads way in fibre optic designs, says Omron boss.
April 6, 2005... Design-in activity in UK-based fibre optic system development firms is running at a very strong level, according to the head of one component supplier. Market changes in the last five years have seen the UK emerge as one of the strongest areas...

Harting adds to European team.
April 6, 2005... Harting Integrated Solutions has appointed Alex Howe as production manager and Jamie Stranks as European technical co-ordinator to support increasing European business for its specialist backplane manufacturing activity in Northampton. The...

One third of European firms unprepared for lead-free problems.
April 13, 2005... Almost a third of European electronics firms have yet to tackle lead-free issues, according to a report by the EU-funded European Lead-Free Soldering Network (Elfnet). oThis clearly shows the need for urgent action by those who are falling...

PCB manufacturer moves to show the way in next generation ink-jet printing.
April 13, 2005... PCB manufacturer Circatex is making an early move to establish the next generation of technology for PCB production through ink-jet printing techniques. The firm is in discussion with leading printing technology firms to establish a joint...

Zoologists track butterflies with harmonic radar.
April 13, 2005... Despite appearances to the contrary, butterflies dont flutter about aimlessly [degrees] they fly directly to their feeding sites. Scientists at the Rothamsted Research centre in Hertfordshire are using harmonic radar technology to monitor...

Brand protection project probes tagging methods.
April 13, 2005... ITI Tech Media is to put [pounds sterling]5m into tagging-based brand-protection research over the next two years, with some of the cash going on IT infrastructure, tag reader and tag writer intellectual property (IP). Sponsored by the Scottish...

Europe still strong on design as Asia grabs manufacturing.
April 13, 2005... The design market in Europe remains as strong as ever despite the migration of electronics manufacturing to lower labour cost Asia, according to the CEO of Tundra Semiconductor. oRight now Europe represents about 20 per cent of our revenue,o...

Nichia in fight over LED patents.
April 13, 2005... Nichia, the firm that invented practical white LED, is in legal battles with ten Taiwanese and four Korean companies over infringements of Nichia LED patents, as Far-Eastern suppliers fight over lucrative markets including phone display...

AEA Technology CEO quits after profits warning.
April 13, 2005... AEA Technology is facing crisis following the departure of its chief executive Peter Watson, a reduction in headcount, a move to dispose of its battery business and a profits warning. The company was privatised by the Tories in 1996 from the...

Opto storage firm deliberates over stock market flotation.
April 13, 2005... Infinite Data Storage, the Dunfermline-based developer of optical storage products, has confirmed it is considering a stock market flotation. oI can confirm its certainly something we are looking at,o said CEO Jim Leslie. oWe are seriously...

OLEDs set to become display of choice for mobile phones.
April 13, 2005... Organic light-emitting diodes (OLEDs) are increasingly being used as an alternative to LCDs in mobile phone displays and the OLED panel market expanded by 63 per cent last year to hit $408m. According to market watcher iSuppli, the market will...

Wireless processing firm CEO aims to 'impose solution' and focuses on WiMax.
April 13, 2005... Wireless processing specialist PicoChip Designs has appointed former Cadence and IBM v-p Guillaume dEyssautier as CEO. DEyssautier said he wanted to create an environment that would make it as easy as possible for customers to adopt PicoChips...

MPs dismiss need for big fibre-to-home investment.
April 13, 2005... Very high speed communications based on fibre-to-the-home systems is not likely to be seen in the UK for a number of years. The telecoms industry agrees with a DTI Select Committee report which stated last week that there is no reason to invest...

ARM cuts out up-front fee for processor.
April 13, 2005... Fabless chip companies can now access the ARM7TDMI processor with no up-front licensing fee, deferring costs until design is almost complete. oTraditionally customers have not had access to the IP until weve closed the licensing deal,o said...

New boost for RFID standard.
April 13, 2005... The proposed global standard for RFID transceiver design has received a boost with the second introduction in a week of silicon to support it. Impinjs GrandPrix RFID chipset joins the UCODE from Philips Semiconductor in conforming to the...

Intel stays silent on data flash strategy.
April 13, 2005... Intel is not giving any date for producing a flash memory for mass storage applications, despite saying for ten months that it intends to enter the market. oWe want to be number one in the total flash market. We need a product to compete with...

UK proposals invited for nanoelectronics scheme.
April 13, 2005... UK researchers are being invited to participate in a European funding initiative to improve their understanding of the physics of electronic devices at the nanoscale. The four themes cover effects associated with quantum transport; molecular...

World is more in tune on safety standards.
April 13, 2005... Safety standards for electrical equipment are beginning to see some harmonisation around the world, according to UK firm Seaward Electronic. Faced with tough competition and innovation from other companies, the manufacturer of test equipment...

Diving glider sets world record to gather ocean data.
April 13, 2005... This ocean-diving glider, built by researchers at the University of Washington, is one of two that recently travelled a quarter of the way across the Pacific Ocean in 191 days, setting a world record in the process. Temperature, salinity and...

ADC family will be interchangeable.
April 13, 2005... National Semiconductor is offering 36 interchangeable ADCs with guaranteed performance between 50ksample/s to 1Msample/s. The family includes all combinations of three speed ranges, three bit lengths, two channels counts and two packages. A...

MPs ease pressure on BT over loop business.
April 13, 2005... Despite criticism from UK telecoms association UKCTA, forcing BT to separate its local loop business should be overy much a last resorto, according to the House of Commons Trade and Industry Select Committee. In its strategic review of the...

Micron goes global with Digi-Key.
April 13, 2005... Micron Technology has named Digi-Key worldwide distributor for its DRAM and flash memory products. Chief operating officer at Digi-Key, Mark Larson: oThe addition of Microns DRAM memory products further fortifies our memory product offering.o...

Acal aims to overtake market growth in UK.
April 13, 2005... Acal is aiming to outpace the market in sales growth this year following a reorganisation of its component and systems distribution businesses. According to Tony Laughton, Acals CEO: oWe anticipate that the UK market will grow by between three...

National signs Farnell to get parts to users in good time.
April 13, 2005... National Semiconductor has partnered with Farnell InOne to speed up product launches. Under the agreement the catalogue and online distributor will increase its stockholding of National Semiconductor parts by 40 per cent, to ensure availability...

Dax lands mil aero deal.
April 13, 2005... Souriau UK has signed a mil aero connector deal with Dax International, independent connector distributor for the aerospace and defence industries. Souriau director Peter Herbert said he is confident of winning major business in this market....

Memec sets up UK customer service division.
April 13, 2005... Semiconductor distributor Memec has launched a UK sales division to provide enhanced sales support and customer service for small to medium business customers, including original equipment manufacturers. Memec Express UK adds to the firms...

Passive sales to rise in second half.
April 13, 2005... Broadline distributors are witnessing increased sales in passive components as they battle to win market share in the traditionally high volume business. Avnet Time claims that a reorganisation of its European operation late last year is...

Sequoia plays its part in Gizmondo design.
April 13, 2005... Sequoia Technology is benefiting from its success in winning the design-in of the Sirf GPS chipset in Gizmondo, the handheld games machine with built-in GPS, and sales are ramping up. The Reading-based wireless chipset specialist worked on the...

The realities of RoHS compliance.
April 13, 2005... What do franchised distribution, the independent channel and a chip counterfeiter have in common? The answer is the rapidly approaching RoHS Directive, which looks set to transform their respective businesses in some way. The franchised...

Perks of the job.
April 13, 2005... Sometimes it seems everyone is getting a better deal than you. Unfortunately, sometimes they are. When it comes to a contributory pension you can feel particularly hard done by if you have not got one, as 73 per cent of respondents in EWs...

Programmer integrates debugger for PowerPC and ColdFire MPUs.
April 13, 2005... Computer Solutions (Comsol) is offering a combined programmer and debugger for PowerPC and ColdFire processors. Developed by P&E Micro, the unit aims to fulfil two different tasks, said Chris Stephens, managing director at Comsol: oTheyve...

Fingerprint ID for USB flash.
April 13, 2005... With data security in mind, SanDisk has introduced a USB flash drive with fingerprint authentication. The Cruzer Profile is 60x24x14mm and separates into two cable-connected parts for use. oProfile authenticates users when a finger is swiped...

OLED display efficiency improved by electrode.
April 13, 2005... Colorado-based start-up Coled claims to have an electrode modification which increases the efficiency of OLED displays. oWe have a self-assembly system which acts as an energy-adjusting barrier layer between organic and inorganic at the...

Researchers sift through amino acid chains for semiconductor materials.
April 13, 2005... Synthetic chemistry techniques more commonly employed in drug discovery have been used by researchers in Israel to identify organic molecules for electronic applications. The molecules are chains of amino acids called peptides, the building...

Algorithm judges velocity of object.
April 13, 2005... A University of Florida researcher is developing a method to determine the speed of an object using computer algorithms and standard cameras rather than radar or lasers. oIf it can view the object moving, thats all it needs. The computer...

Microcontroller with 16-bit ADC.
April 20, 2005... Aimed at battery-powered signal measurement and display, Texas Instruments has announced the MSP430F42x0 range of microcontrollers which include a 16-bit S? ADC, and a charge-pump and drivers for LCDs. Applications are foreseen in single-chip...

Nano won't k.o. silicon, says Moore.
April 20, 2005... Nanotechnology will not replace silicon in the near future, according to Gordon Moore, co-founder of Intel and author of the law that underpins semiconductor development. oIm a sceptic on that [nanotech replacing silicon]. IC technology is the...

Performance and costs still adding up for chip industry.
April 20, 2005... Increasing device density and performance, married with reducing chip cost and power dissipation, are still possible in the semiconductor industry, according to Paolo Gargini, director of technology strategy at Intel, and chairman of the...

Murata claims smallest choke.
April 20, 2005... Murata claims its DLP0NS common-mode choke chips are the smallest yet at 0.85x0.65x0.45mm. They are aimed at noise suppression in high-speed differential data lines including USB2.0, IEEE1394, LVDS, DVI and HDMI within compact mobile equipments...

Anders opens custom display design facility.
April 20, 2005... Anders Electronics has opened a design facility in London to produce custom display systems for its European customers. The design teams activities will cover the distributors ranges of conventional and low-temperature polysilicon colour TFT...

US firm claims viable alternative to Nafion in methanol fuel cells.
April 20, 2005... A Californian firm is claiming to have the first viable alternative for costly Nafion in methanol fuel cells. oThis is the first hydrocarbon fuel cell membrane that is a drop-in replacement for fluorocarbon membranes such as Du Ponts Nafion in...

Wireless basestation designers opt for Rapid I/O serial data protocol to speed development time.
April 20, 2005... European wireless basestation developers are adopting board-level data switching based on the serial Rapid I/O high-speed data interface standard, according to US comms semiconductor supplier IDT. A move from proprietary data interfaces to...

Dutch lithography equipment manufacturer foresees slow recovery for semiconductor industry through 2005.
April 20, 2005... ASML, the Dutch lithography equipment manufacturer, does not expect to see any sudden boom in the chip industry for the rest of the year. oThe current slow improvement in semiconductor fab capacity utilisation makes a sharp recovery of the...

Joint venture LCD business reports $160m quarter loss.
April 20, 2005... LG.Philips LCD, the joint venture between Philips and LG Electronics, has reported a $160m operating loss for the quarter to the end of March. The second largest LCD maker in the world is facing an oversupplied market with prices in the first...

Heading here.
April 20, 2005... Radstone Technology, the ruggedised computer firm, will announce initial products from its new multiprocessing software environment in mid May. The technology has been developed at the firms advanced engineering design centre in Massachusetts...

Zetex acquires Munich-based fabless chip firm.
April 20, 2005... UK analogue chip firm Zetex has completed the acquisition of the Munich fabless mixed signal chip company Mikron. Zetex has paid ?6.5m for the firm, which will be renamed Zetex Mikron. The deal was first mentioned in February when Zetex...

Cambridge power chip firm wins award.
April 20, 2005... Fabless power IC firm CamSemi has been recognised as one of the most promising companies operating in the Cambridge region by a local newspaper. According to company CEO David Baillie (pictured): oThe Cambridge region is increasingly being...

Pressac de-lists for sale as firm reports losses for 2004.
April 20, 2005... Components firm Pressac has been forced to de-list from the London Stock Exchange and will be broken up to avoid entering administration. The company has debts of around [pounds sterling]45m and said othe board believes the lenders will not be...

Technology animates mobile phone makers.
April 20, 2005... There are lots of new, very innovative, displays,o says Marcel Fuhren, senior director of advanced technology at Philips Mobile Display Systems. oBut the active matrix LCD will be dominant for some time to come, because it is leveraging the...

Sunlight will not hit OLEDs says CDT.
April 20, 2005... Sunlight viewability will not hold back OLEDs in the phone market, said OLED firm CDT following recent assertions by Samsung and Sony-Ericsson. oCompared with LCDs, they are no worse and no better in bright sunlight. Pioneer has five OLED phone...

Heading here.
April 20, 2005... Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute is making use of waste photons. A researcher measures a quad-LED fixture in an integrating sphere. Scientists at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute in New York have found a way to extract more light from white...

Project gives a nod to PDA hands-free.
April 20, 2005... A UK project aimed at enabling people to use their mobile phones and PDAs when their hands are full of shopping has reached its halfway point. The Audioclouds project has developed the elements for an 'eyes-free' interface that uses...

Wireless chip market set to grow 35%.
April 20, 2005... The market for wireless networking chipsets is expected to show an average annual growth rate of 23 per cent in dollars and 35 per cent in unit shipments between 2004 and 2008, according to Arizona analysts IC Insights. The 802.11 chipset...

MED to announce manufacturing deal as volume supply set for end of year.
April 20, 2005... Micro-Emissive Displays (MED) will announce its volume manufacturing partner in the next couple of months, and expects to supply displays in volume to two customers by the end of the year. One is Japanese digital camera firm NHJ, which markets...

Customers frustrated at lack of details on lead-free.
April 20, 2005... Many component suppliers are still confusing and frustrating customers with a lack of information on the availability and use of lead-free alternative products. According to Gary Nevison, Premier Farnells head of product market strategy, the...

EDA company releases tool for high frequency.
April 20, 2005... EDA vendor Applied Wave Research has released a signal integrity (SI) tool for high frequency designs. The AWR SI 2005 design suite enables the design and analysis of complex interconnects, and supports multiple electromagnetic simulation and...

Intense wins [pounds sterling]2.5m for laser device production.
April 20, 2005... Intense, the Scottish photonics company, has secured [pounds sterling]2.5m of venture capital backing to take its laser modules and integrated optoelectronic devices into a full-scale production. The money comes from Noble Venture Finance, and...

Europractice scheme makes design IP accessible for smaller European firms.
April 20, 2005... A scheme for giving smaller European firms access to IP on more practical financial terms has been launched by Europractice, the multi-project wafer service. Two vendors are signed up to the IP@Prototype programme, Cambridge Consultants, which...

Danes find no mobile phone tumour links.
April 20, 2005... A study by the Danish Cancer Society has concluded there is no evidence of a link between the use of mobile phones and an increase in the risk of developing brain tumours. The researchers interviewed 427 Danes with either glioma or meningioma...

Pelikon and Kodak to reveal phosphor key.
April 20, 2005... Cambridge-based electroluminescent (EL) display firm Pelikon has teamed up with Kodak UK to discover how phosphors work. oKodak and Pelikon are working together to elucidate the light emission mechanism which is poorly understood despite...

Shirt has antenna to detect GSM signals.
April 20, 2005... Clothes that glow when they sense the presence of a switched-on mobile phone have been developed by Richard Etter, a research assistant at Fraunhofer Institute. The AwareFashion shirt is fitted with a detachable pocket which contains an...

Watch fuel cells go, says consultant.
April 20, 2005... There will be a osignificant numbero of commercial launches of ethanol-based fuel cells in the next year, both as standalone products and provided built-in to devices, according to financial services and consulting firm Deloitte. However, the...