Electronics Weekly articles from April 2007

Electronics Weekly archives from April 2007

Features.
April 4, 2007... Tools are one of the biggest items on the shopping list of any semiconductor start-up, and so flexibility from EDA firms on payment terms and tools access would seem to make sense, assuming they would like these new customers to be there for...

Features.
April 4, 2007... Today's technology nodes, at 90nm, 65nm, and below, enable a tremendous amount of functionality on a single chip. To create the high-performance and low-power requirements of consumer-centric, high-volume, convergence devices, designers use...

News.
April 4, 2007... Intel is to start producing its Penryn family of microprocessors using a 45nm Hi-k process technology in the second half of this year. Dual and quad-core processors are planned with the quad core having 820 million transistors.

News.
April 4, 2007... By David Manners david.manners@rbi.co.uk Infineon has signed a memorandum of understanding with the Hindustan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company to help create a 'Fab City' in India which will involve the building of ten fabs. ...

News.
April 4, 2007... By Richard Wilson European mobile phone firms are looking at techniques for designing mini solar panels into handsets to extend standby times to a week or more. Specific unnamed handset firms have projects in place looking at how to...

News.
April 4, 2007... Microprocessor start-up XMOS Semiconductor has joined the National Microelectronics Institute (NMI) as its hundredth member. Noel Hurley (left), v-p of marketing at XMOS said: "The work the NMI does is of great value to high-tech start-ups such...

News.
April 4, 2007... Over a quarter of the mobile phones shipped next year will be single chip handsets, according to flash specialist Spansion, which is the largest supplier of flash memory to the wireless handset market. "A large portion of the market will...

News.
April 4, 2007... In keeping with its usual practice, TSMC has come up with a process on the half-node at 55nm. The process is a 90 per cent linear-shrink process from 65nm including I/O and analogue circuits. It offers the same speed as the 65nm process...

News.
April 4, 2007... Flat-panel speaker firm NXT saw its shares gain when Japanese licensee Authentic launched the latest generation Distributed Mode Actuator, which transforms suitable panels into loudspeakers through direct excitation. The firm's shares gained...

News.
April 4, 2007... IQE has won two 12-month research contracts worth some $2.4m to the company in 2007. One contract will develop strontium titanium oxide on silicon epi-wafers. The second contract is to develop advanced material structures for increased...

News.
April 4, 2007... An Irish technology firm has set up the world's first GSM mobile phone service for merchant ships that will also allow shipping containers to be tracked around the world. Altobridge in Dublin has teamed up with private investment company...

News.
April 4, 2007... By Nick Flaherty editorial@electronicsweekly.com Bath-based Software Radio Technology has raised [pounds sterling]5m for its next generation TETRA mobile radio and marine systems. SRT, formed from the buyout of a Securicor...

News.
April 4, 2007... National Semiconductor has announced its first dual precision op amp specifically MIL-STD-38535 QML level V-qualified for space applications. Input-referred voltage noise is 35nV/VHz. Open loop gain is >100dB. The rail-to-rail output...

News.
April 4, 2007... By Gail Purvis editorial@electronicsweekly.com Research into quaternary gallium arsenide GaAs/AlGaAs and InGaAs/InGaAsP compounds is being carried out at the recently opened James Watt Nanofabrication Centre at Glasgow University. ...

News.
April 4, 2007... Professor David Payne, director of the Optoelectronics Research Centre (ORC) at the University of Southampton has said the resilience and flexibility of EPSRC funding since a fire at the facility in 2005 allowed the centre to keep functioning....

News.
April 4, 2007... The UK's research council for engineering and physical sciences, the EPSRC, has confirmed that although Gordon Brown's recent Budget announcement was to be welcomed, cuts of [pounds sterling]29m to its own budget would not be reversed. A...

News.
April 4, 2007... A science think-tank has warned the Government that the UK may be falling behind other countries in the development of nanotechnology expertise. From being in a strong position just two years ago the UK is falling behind in the development...

News.
April 4, 2007... Early interest in white LEDs from lighting manufactures is turning into solid business. "My market is going ballistic at the moment," Ian Bryant, business development manager at Berkshire-based Carclo, told EW. "The white light market is...

News.
April 4, 2007... STMicroelectronics is working with China's Academy of Sciences to develop microprocessors, based on a core developed in China by the Institute of Computing Technology (ICT). ST's connection with the ICT started in 2004 when work on the...

News.
April 4, 2007... By Steve Bush steve.bush@rbi.co.uk Cambridge-based fabless microcontroller firm Cyan has appointed Kenn Lamb as CEO. Former CEO Paul Johnson, who rescued the firm with Chris Davis after its 2002 liquidation, becomes president and...

News.
April 4, 2007... Apr 17-19: Rapra Technology conference on REACH legislation, Brussels. www.polymerconferences.com Apr 25-26: UKDOF07, Manchester. www.ukdesignforum.org/UKDF-Events/ May 1-2: Design for EMC course in York....

News.
April 4, 2007... The announcement that Philips is to pull out of its 20 year partnership with the Taiwan government in TSMC marks the end of the most successful joint venture in the history of the semiconductor industry. In 1986, the Taiwan authorities were...

News.
April 4, 2007... Keith Attwood is CEO of sensor and chip manufacturer E2v Technologies Are you finding the skills you need in the UK? On the whole yes, but recruiting the right skilled staff is always difficult. We have a whole series of specialisms...

News.
April 4, 2007... Tony Blair had a one hour tour around Zetex Semiconductor's Oldham headquarters last week with the firm's CEO Hans Rohrer. Blair was shown the complete manufacturing process, from initial design concept, through to silicon chip manufacture...

News.
April 4, 2007... Firms apply to Ofcom for DAB multiplex licence 4 Digital Group and National Grid Wireless have applied to Ofcom for the DAB national radio multiplex licence. The licence will allow the broadcast of a number of radio services as well as the...

News.
April 4, 2007... Hitachi adds white LED display to 5.7in range Hitachi Display Products Group has released an addition to its range of 5.7in display modules. The transmissive F-STN monochrome display incorporates a white LED backlight and 320x240 QVGA...

News.
April 4, 2007... General Electric and Konica Minolta (KM) have formed a strategic alliance to speed up commercialisation of OLED lighting. "The goal is to bring OLED lighting to market within the next three years," said KM. Luminairs based on sheets of...

News.
April 4, 2007... 04apr07Manchester.jpg Professor Aimin Song of the University of Manchester has won a prestigious award from the Royal Society for his work on high-speed organic electronics. His innovation is to make transistors and diodes by...

News.
April 4, 2007... US wireless broadband firm signs Mexican deal Xg Technology, the Florida company which reckons its broadband wireless technology, called xMax, could cover the US for a network cost of $15m, has announced a joint venture deal to build a...

News.
April 4, 2007... Margate-based Simtek EMS says it can offer companies competitive conventional PCB assemblies, after acquiring a Mascot laser guided assembly station from Robotas Technologies. The firm said the Mascot can be programmed from CAD and needs...

News.
April 4, 2007... Freescale has licensed its low end 32bit PowerPC cores to IPextreme to sell to automotive and industrial chip designers to take on the ARM core in embedded applications. This is the first time that the PowerPC architecture has been offered...

News.
April 4, 2007... Spansion has put NOR and NAND flash together on the same die and expects to incorporate its four-bit-per-cell technology, called Quadbit, into the NOR/NAND combination next year. "It's got the ability of NOR to execute very fast," said...

News.
April 4, 2007... Cost reduction is opening up opportunities for new entrants in the market for portable ultrasound systems used in medical diagnosis, according to chip supplier Analog Devices. Ultrasound equipment used in hospitals has traditionally been...

News.
April 4, 2007... A renewable energy consultancy in Scotland is to market Qinetiq's ZephIR wind speed measurement system. Consultancy Natural Power will market the system to the renewable energy industry. The system measures the Doppler shift of laser...

Features.
April 4, 2007... Californian firm Calypto Design Systems has introduced a clock gating tool for power reduction. Dubbed PowerPro CG, it "dramatically reduces power consumption by applying sequential analysis techniques at the RTL to identify...

Features.
April 4, 2007... Temento Systems of France is to introduce a bus trace analyser for on-chip AMBA and ARM processor-based verification. The tool, part of DiaLite Platform Edition Revision 4.7, is aimed at synthesisable processors embedded in FPGAs. "Because...

Synopsys adds spice to AMS verification suite.(Features)
April 4, 2007... design DATE (Design, Automation, and Test in Europe) is an annual conference and exhibition, this year to be held in Nice, France between April 16-20. The event brings together designers and design automation users, researchers and...

Features.
April 4, 2007... By Steve Bush steve.bush@rbi.co.uk Synopsys will be promoting Discovery AMS 2007 at DATE, the latest version of its analogue and mixed-signal (AMS) verification suite for complex system-on-chip (SoC) designs. It has three new...

Technology.
April 4, 2007... MontaVista Software of California has cut the size of and improved real-time support in its embedded Linux operating system. Called Pro 5, "it has 3Mbyte flash memory requirement", product director Patrick MacCartee told EW. "Version 4.0...

Technology.
April 4, 2007... Carbon nanotubes improve polymer oled efficiency Researchers at the US Oak Ridge National Laboratory have early evidence that carbon nanotubes improve the electroluminescence efficiency of polymer OLEDs by a factor of four and reduced the...

Technology.
April 4, 2007... fuel cell powered by de-fizzed soft drinks An enzyme-based sugar-powered fuel cell has been made by St Louis University in Missouri. It has run from glucose, de-fizzed soft drinks (the fizz weakens the cells), and tree sap, but table sugar...

Technology.
April 4, 2007... Nanoscale bumps reduce friction in mems Bumps can reduce friction in MEMS, claims the University of Arkansas. "Our approach was simple, we engineered nanoscale bumps to reduce the contact area between surfaces," said researcher Min Zou....

Technology.
April 4, 2007... By Richard Wilson richard.wilson@rbi.co.uk Texas Instruments has introduced a DC-DC boost converter which will start to operate with an input voltage as low as 300mV under load conditions. When in full operation the step-up converter...

Technology.
April 4, 2007... By Steve Bush steve.bush@rbi.co.uk Lumileds is back in the white LED efficiency race, following a year when Cree and Seoul Semiconductor seemed to pull out a solid lead. Dubbed Rebel, and available in all standard LED colours, the...

News.
April 11, 2007... The Government has pulled the plug on the Globalwatch service, which paid for international technology fact-finding missions for British delegates. The service was shut down because of "rationalisation", according to a spokesman at Pera,...

News.
April 11, 2007... By Steve Bush steve.bush@rbi.co.uk Cambridge fabless chip firm DisplayLink has signed deals with the consumer electronics giants Samsung and Toshiba and is looking for more staff. The company's products allow video monitors to be...

News.
April 11, 2007... A Georgia Tech research team led by Joe Perry, shown here with scientist Vincent Chen, has produced three-dimensional polymer lines as thin as 65nm using two-photon absorbing molecules. See news page 5

News.
April 11, 2007... By David Manners david.manners@rbi.co.uk SMIC, the unprofitable mainland China silicon foundry, is looking to private equity as a way to raise money and investors to realise their investments. SMIC was seen as a way of...

News.
April 11, 2007... IPTV subscribers will increase to an expected 103 million worldwide in 2011, according to analyst iSuppli. Last year, there were just 3.9 million subscribing to IPTV but the analyst said a battle is heating between cable and traidtional...

News.
April 11, 2007... Distribution firm Abacus saw its shares fall over 24 per cent to 140p. The company said at the end of March that its interim sales were in line with expectations and results would be reported on May 30. The firm did say that bookings in the...

News.
April 11, 2007... Toumaz Technology has delivered first chips to be used in trials of a new type of disposable medical sensor technology. The Sensium chips incorporate a low power wireless transceiver including RF and baseband functionality, a reconfigurable...

News.
April 11, 2007... Premier Farnell has set up a subsidiary in Greater China, called Premier Electronics. Athena Wang (pictured left) was recruited as MD of the business, which was launched with the opening of a new warehouse and distribution centre in WaiGaoQia....

News.
April 11, 2007... ClearSpeed Technology is aiming to raise [pounds sterling]20m in a share placing after reporting turnover more than tripled to [pounds sterling]1.9m in 2006 but a pre-tax loss of [pounds sterling]11m. The firm is looking to raise the extra...

News.
April 11, 2007... Richard Irving, a partner at venture capital firm Pond Venture Partners, reckons chip start-ups need to focus on high growth markets with high margin profits to win over the men with the money Over the past 40 years, literally thousands of...

News.
April 11, 2007... Cornell University in New York has found a way to measure the resonant frequency of nanoscale cantilevers using an atomic force microscope (AFM). The researchers initially tap the cantilever with the AFM probe tip, then measure subsequent...

News.
April 11, 2007... The India-Infineon deal to set up a ten fab, 'Fab City', looks a very good one both for India and for Infineon. The Indian government recently announced a support scheme for semiconductor manufacturing under which the government pays up to...

News.
April 11, 2007... David Wall is managing director of RFI/EMI shielding components firm Kemtron How do you balance manufacturing your own products and stocking other companies' products? The mixture of own manufactured products and bought in product is...

News.
April 11, 2007... Mirics Semiconductor is taking its universal broadcast receiver technology to the Japanese mobile TV market with the help of Electronics Link Japan. "Japan is a key market for Mirics, representing huge potential for mobile TV growth," said...

News.
April 11, 2007... By Richard Wilson richard.wilson@rbi.co.uk Executives at Freescale Semiconductor have painted a positive picture for the future of the firm's Scottish manufacturing facility. This represents the strongest commitment to the East...

News.
April 11, 2007... The export of Scottish manufactured electrical and instrumentation goods grew 2.5 per cent in the fourth quarter of 2006. "Over the year, electrical and instrument engineering and metal products were the main industries contributing to the...

News.
April 11, 2007... TSMC will run its first production 45nm wafers at the end of September, with bi-monthly CyberShuttle runs for wafer-sharing starting in 2008. "Volume production is scheduled for the first half of next year. Multiple customers are on board...

News.
April 11, 2007... By Steve Bush Texas-based Luminary Micro has announced motion control reference design kits for its ARM Cortex-M3 microcontroller. Microprocessor-control of motors is ever more popular as energy efficiency becomes more important and...

News.
April 11, 2007... The Elektra Electronics Industry Awards is looking for student engineers to enter its Young Engineer of the Year Award. Sponsored by Rapid Electronics, the Young Engineer of the Year Award is open to undergraduate and post-graduate students...

News.
April 11, 2007... The latest company to jump into the fast-growing single-chip mobile phone sector is Broadcom with a 65nm part which combines Wi-Fi, Bluetooth, and FM receiver technologies onto a single silicon die. The single chip phone is growing 14 times...

News.
April 11, 2007... Flexible solar device charger development is heating up with South African firm Flexopower releasing its Solar Uno and a European project under way. Flexopower is using a-Si and a-SiGe triple-junction photovoltaic technology for its...

News.
April 11, 2007... Maxwell Technologies is looking to push more of its Boostcap ultracapacitor products in China with the opening of a sales office. Maxwell's senior v-p Alain Riedo said: "We see virtually unlimited opportunities for our products in the Asian...

News.
April 11, 2007... By Steve Bush steve.bush@rbi.co.uk Three-dimensional polymer structures with features as small as 65nm can be made without conventional lithography, by directly writing with a laser into a polymerisable liquid, claims Georgia Tech. ...

News.
April 11, 2007... By Richard Wilson richard.wilson@rbi.co.uk Scandanavian firm Thin Film Electronics is the latest European company to line up for commercial production of printed electronic ICs. The non-volatile polymer memory specialist is working...

News.
April 11, 2007... Tim McKenna-Gorham Remploy Electronics has appointed Tim McKenna-Gorham as sales and marketing co-ordinator. He has over 30 years sales, marketing and management experience. Satoshi Inoue Cogiscan has hired Satoshi Inoue as Japan...

Features.
April 11, 2007... The incorporation of satellite navigation capability into mobile handsets introduces a new set of challenges, not least the issue of how to fit yet another antenna and associated radio front end into a compact and functional handset design...

Features.
April 11, 2007... Like all emerging technologies, the mobile gaming industry faces some obstacles. Unlike the PC and console markets where there are a few key platforms for developers to target, the mobile world has massive fragmentation and a lack of...

Features.
April 11, 2007... Message from the sponsor Gleichmann Electronics says: "We sponsor this category because of the synergy with our own business and philosophy which says that innovation and technical excellence are integral to a total solution. We are happy...

Technology.
April 11, 2007... By Steve Bush Cambridge-based fabless chip firm Cyan Technology has its forthcoming 32-bit processor operating in hardware. "We now have it running on an FPGA in the lab and have the total tool chain - compiler, everything," company...

Technology.
April 11, 2007... Liquid can be manipulated by light alone, claims a team from the University of Chicago and the University of Bordeaux. "In previous work, people figured out that you can move individual particles with lasers," said researcher Robert Schroll of...

Technology.
April 11, 2007... By Steve Bush steve.bush@rbi.co.uk Using structures made of aligned multi-walled carbon nanotubes, researchers from the US Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute and Finland's University of Oulu have shown nanotubes can dissipate chip heat...

News.
April 18, 2007... Three-dimensional solar cells which can capture nearly all of the light which strikes them have been developed by the Georgia Tech Research Institute in the US. The 3D solar cells should improve the efficiency of photovoltaic systems,...

News.
April 18, 2007... By David Manners david.manners@rbi.co.uk Custom designed DSPs will be a better hardware platform for software defined radio (SDR) than reconfigurable logic, according to Professor Christer Svensson, of Linkoping University in Sweden....

News.
April 18, 2007... Nanolamps have been created from light-emitting nanofibres by researchers at Cornell University with possible applications being in flexible electronic products. The nanolamps are claimed to be one of the smallest organic light-emitting...

News.
April 18, 2007... By Melanie Reynolds Three-dimensional solar cells which can capture nearly all of the light which strikes them have been developed by the Georgia Tech Research Institute in the US. 3D solar cells should improve the efficiency of...

News.
April 18, 2007... By David Manners david.manners@rbi.co.uk Matsushita is planning to make extensive use of technology from Elixent, the Bristol-based start-up which it acquired last summer. "We'll be using it for AV [audio/visual] coding and...

News.
April 18, 2007... Spansion and Qimonda are to combine their research on package development. The companies will create multi-chip packages (MCPs) for various devices including DRAM and flash memory. Qimonda will provide Spansion with pseudo SRAM (PSRAM) and...

News.
April 18, 2007... Wolfson Microelectronics saw its shares drop slightly, by 3.3 per cent to 294.75p. The firm's Q1 results are due on April 25. The EW Index gained to reach 111 points, the highest level since January 2002. E2v Technologies saw its shares...

News.
April 18, 2007... By Alex Mayhew-Smith alex.mayhew-smith@rbi.co.uk UK contract electronics manufacturer ACW Technology has opened its own volume facility in Zhuhai, China to get to a market that it previously could not reach. The firm already has...

News.
April 18, 2007... By Melanie Reynolds melanie.reynolds@rbi.co.uk Fuel cell batteries which use sugar as a source of energy could be ready for commercialisation in three to five years, according to researchers at St Louis University in the US. ...