Electronics Weekly articles from August 2006

Electronics Weekly archives from August 2006

Isle of Man sees 900MHz UMTS.
August 2, 2006... A trial of 3G UMTS mobile technology at 900MHz, to investigate how coverage can be extended using the lower frequency band, has been launched on the Isle of Man. O2, Manx Telecom, Lucent Technologies and Qualcomm are involved in the trial...

Digital radio firm opens Hong Kong R&D centre with eye on mobile TV.
August 2, 2006... By Melanie Reynolds melanie.reynolds@rbi.co.uk Digital radio specialist RadioScape is opening a development centre in Hong Kong which will work with its London-based staff on developing radio-based technologies including mobile TV. "We...

Joint venture begins sampling 50nm 4Gbit NAND flash.
August 2, 2006... Micron Technology and Intel are sampling 4Gbit NAND flash devices made on a 50nm process. The joint venture business, called IM Flash Technologies, will move into volume production in 2007. "Our entry into the NAND flash business has...

Wireless chip firm achieves ZigBee compliance.
August 2, 2006... UK wireless IC developer Jennic has won ZigBee compliance for its chips, modules, stacks and development kit as a platform for the low power wireless standard. The company said its products have been tested by T?V Rheinland Group and were...

US distributor eyes Europe following DT acquisition bid.
August 2, 2006... By Richard Wilson richard.wilson@rbi.co.uk US distributor Nu Horizons is planning to expand its business in the UK and across Europe. Following its agreement in June to acquire UK-based DT Electronics, the specialist semiconductor...

Lead combined with elements in ceramic is exempt.
August 2, 2006... Dear Dr RoHS We are dealing with microwave ovens and would like to ask you one thing. Our maker insists that the lead in the high voltage diode is exempt from the RoHS directive. They judged this matter according to the sentence "Lead in...

MoD comms project runs over schedule.
August 2, 2006... Bowman, the UK military's ?2.4bn communications upgrade, continues to worry the MoD two years after the battlefield comms system went into service. Despite the comms system being successfully used in Iraq, a National Audit Office (NAO)...

DTI releases draft WEEE legislation for comment.
August 2, 2006... By Steve Bush steve.bush@rbi.co.uk The DTI has released a draft of the Government's forthcoming WEEE legislation for comment. "The consultation marks the final phase of the Government's process for implementing the WEEE Directive," said...

Products.
August 2, 2006... Antenna firm Sarantel saw its shares slide after it said demand has been well below expectations. The firm announced that revenues for the year to September will be "substantially" below market expectations. Its largest US customer, US...

LED firm incorporates seven segment character in display.
August 2, 2006... Glasgow-based Design LED Products can now incorporate a seven segment display into their sub-2mm, flexible display products. "Manufactured using printed light guides with embedded LED, they are scaleable to any size and can include other...

Revolution not evolution, says satellite comms firm.
August 2, 2006... Radical changes are required to keep ahead in the satellite comms market, according to operator Inmarsat. "At every stage you have to do something revolutionary rather than evolutionary, otherwise you can't maintain leadership of the...

Nimble telecoms newcomer causes merger activity.
August 2, 2006... By Melanie Reynolds melanie.reynolds@rbi.co.uk The rapid emergence of China's Huawei in the global telecoms market has been the main impetus behind the rash of recent mergers and acquisitions in the industry, according to telecoms analysts....

Inventory movements restrict profits as Zetex sees analogue business grow.
August 2, 2006... Zetex is seeing its mixed-signal and analogue chip business grow, but the effects of inventory movements pegged back profits in the first six months of the year. "We are positioning operations for a return to growth in a challenging...

Freescale CEO throws down network quality challenge to hasten 3G roll-out.
August 2, 2006... By David Manners Reporting from Orlando, Florida The quality of the wireless networks has held up the move to 3G, according to Michel Mayer, chairman and CEO of Freescale Semiconductor. "The reason for the slow roll-out of 3G is because of...

Micro packaging society signs up to industry team.
August 2, 2006... The International Microelectronics Packaging Society (IMAPS) has become a member of the UK Electronics Alliance (UKEA). The UKEA was set up in 2005 to implement plans of the Electronics Leadership Council, including the administration of...

Mixed-signal start-up moves into incubator.
August 2, 2006... RF and mixed-signal fabless chip start-up Mirics Semiconductor has moved into Cre8Ventures' offices in Fleet. "Moving into the Cre8Ventures incubator office was a natural move when the time came for us to consolidate our activities onto a...

Low power mesh radio standard to dominate wireless.
August 2, 2006... By David Manners Reporting from Orlando, Florida ZigBee has the potential for a much larger product range than Bluetooth and WiFi because of the breadth of applications it can address. "WiFi and Bluetooth are niche compared to ZigBee,"...

Manufacturer increases staff as waveguide demand jumps.
August 2, 2006... Growing demand for waveguide products has led Link Microtek to expand staff numbers and manufacturing space at its Basingstoke facility. The firm said sales for waveguide products has been booming in the commercial-comms and military...

News.
August 2, 2006... Power surge The complexities facing power supply designers has seen a move to use embedded processors which offer customers added functionality and a better commercial product. Nick Palmer plugs in Just a few years ago a power supply was...

Engineering at university in need of overhaul, says RAE.
August 2, 2006... The Government has been urged to act on recommendations made in a report by the Royal Academy of Engineering (RAE) to address the standard of education for university engineering undergraduates. Dr Ashok Kumar, MP, said that 'Educating...

Features.
August 2, 2006... Aug 17-18: Advanced FPGA Implementation - Bournemouth www.doulos.com Sep 5-7: Electronics Principles for the Non-Specialist - Surrey www.ee.surrey.ac.uk/CE Sep 6-7: Software Development for Safety-Related Systems - Leatherhead...

Thin films of strained silicon stuck to flexible substrates.
August 2, 2006... By Steve Bush steve.bush@rbi.co.uk Researchers at the University of Wisconsin-Madison have found a way to produce thin films of strained mono-crystal silicon, then attach them to flexible substrates. "We first grow epitaxially layers that...

Microscale string resonators have highest Q.
August 2, 2006... Researchers at New York's Cornell University have used a novel construction technique to make micro-scale string resonators with what is believed to be the highest ever room-temperature Q amongst similarly sized devices. Natural tensile...

Products.
August 2, 2006... Cree has added a 2A 600V silicon carbide Schottky rectifier to its range, which also includes 1, 4, 6, 10, and 20A diodes. Being a Schottky, the CSD02060A has virtually zero recovery time and a low forward drop (1.6V at 25 [deg]C, 2.0 at...

Products.
August 2, 2006... It has been a busy week at Cornell University. As well as the microstring, it has also produced a rendering technique for blond hair. Apparently because of the way the hairs scatter light, dark hair has a 'sheen' and blond hair 'glows'. "The...

News.
August 16, 2006... Dear Dr RoHS My Far Eastern battery supplier will not discuss RoHS compliance documents and tells me batteries are not covered by RoHS. Are batteries covered by RoHS? Name and company supplied Dr RoHS replies Your supplier is...

In search of precision.
August 16, 2006... High input impedance and a wide input range are two highly desirable features in a precision analogue to digital converter, and the LTC2449 delta sigma ADC has both. With just a few external components, the LTC2449 forms an exceptional...

News.
August 16, 2006... Telent was left without a buyer last week when US investment group Fortress Investment withdrew its ?346m offer for the former Marconi telecoms services business after Telent failed to win shareholder approval for the deal. The stumbling block...

Frontier Silicon seeks DAB/mobile TV engineers.
August 16, 2006... DAB digital radio specialist Frontier Silicon is looking for another 25 embedded software engineers to join its design team in Cambridge working on DAB and mobile TV. "The business is growing quite well in the areas of digital radio and...

Magnetic sensors to take hard disks past 1Tbit/in2.
August 16, 2006... Steve Bush steve.bush@rbi.co.uk Hard disk drives could be dramatically enhanced with storage densities beyond one terabit per square inch as a result of magnetic sensor research being carried out at the Hitachi Cambridge Laboratory in...

News.
August 16, 2006... China has emerged as one of the strongest growing markets for test and measure systems, according to National Instruments. "Although we do not publish the figures for our regions separately, the Chinese business is seeing aggressive double...

News.
August 16, 2006... National Instruments has refined its approach to FPGA design and prototying applications with the latest version of its LabVIEW graphical system design platform for test and embedded system development. Called LabVIEW 8.20, the software-based...

News.
August 16, 2006... By Alex Mayhew-Smith reporting from Austin, Texas As ICs become increasingly complex testing is becoming harder using established techniques, according to Dr James Truchard, CEO of National Instruments. "You have to do a lot more at the...

News.
August 16, 2006... National Instruments is taking advantage of PCI Express high speed PC bus technology to produce test and measurement devices for increasingly high performance applications. Previously the domain of specialist high speed test equipment with...

News.
August 16, 2006... Apple has highlighted the significance of its move to Intel processors by claiming its latest Intel dual-core processor-based desktop computer, the Mac Pro, is up to twice as fast as the previous Power Mac G5 Quad. This completes the...

News.
August 16, 2006... By David Manners david.manners@rbi.co.uk Si-Light, the optical communications spin-off from Surrey University, has received another ?150,000 of funding, and is established as a separate company owning silicon IP. "It's not an investment...

News.
August 16, 2006... Professor David Rhodes chief executive of Filtronic has said that he will retire from the company he founded in September. He took on the role when John Roulston left the group in January this year. According to the company, Rhodes will...

Schaffner seeks buyer for electro-emulation arm after sale of specialist EMC test systems business.
August 16, 2006... Schaffner is still looking for a buyer for its non-core electro-emulation business following the sale of its test systems business in a management buyout led by the present head of the division, Johannes Schmid. The sale of the specialist...

Qimonda IPO was about strategy not raising cash.
August 16, 2006... By David Manners reporting from New York Qimonda blamed the market environment for its disappointing launch on the New York Stock Exchange (NYSE) last week. However, the firm insisted that the IPO for the memory chip division was not to...

News.
August 16, 2006... Last Valley View published July 12 issue p18 use same mugshot Valley View Are the engineers leaving Silicon Valley? Richard Irving, a director at venture capital firm Pond Venture Partners investigates the growing interest in...

WiMAX looks to a brighter future as US operator makes network decision.
August 16, 2006... By Richard Wilson richard.wilson@rbi.co.uk Suppliers of WiMAX silicon and systems could soon see the market for the broadband wireless technology start to develop, says market watcher Strategy Analytics. "Now that certification of WiMAX...

Features.
August 16, 2006... Most touchscreens today are resistive. Two thin layers of clear plastic such as PET film, printed with a pattern of conductive, transparent indium tin oxide (ITO) on their inside surfaces are separated by tiny spacers and fixed on top of an LCD...

Features.
August 16, 2006... The first mobile phone to have an OLED (organic light-emitting diode) as its main display appeared a few months ago. This was the BenQ-Siemens S88, with a 2in. active matrix colour OLED. Samsung is also making phones with full colour OLEDs,...

News.
August 16, 2006... 16aug06boyd.jpg Derek Boyd, CEO, National Microelectronics Institute Is it unreasonable to expect talented design engineers to be talented entrepreneurs as well? Talented design engineers can certainly be talented entrepreneurs,...

News.
August 16, 2006... Nokia has highlighted the growing importance of music downloads in the mobile market with its acquisition of digital music software and services firm Loudeye for $60m. It is an interesting move in the mobile market with the world's largest...

LCD snaps VGA images at 30Hz.
August 16, 2006... Samsung claims to have developed the first 3in. (75mm) VGA (640x480) LCD that directly meets the 30Hz interface standard used for digital still cameras. "Digital camera makers use an interface known as ITU-R601, an international standard...

3D graphics processor launch takes ARM into new markets.
August 16, 2006... By Richard Wilson richard.wilson@rbi.co.uk ARM will launch its first 3D graphics processor next year, a move which will see the low power processor firm moving into new markets. The first ARM-branded 3D graphics processor to result from the...

DAB digital radio beats analogue.
August 16, 2006... Sales of portable DAB digital radios outstripped those of analogue radios for the first time last year, according to regulator Ofcom's report on the 2005 comms market. DAB accounted for 54 per cent of portable radios sold in 2005, up from...

Emergency crews to benefit from underground radio development.
August 16, 2006... An "underground radio" developed by the Los Alamos National Laboratory is to be commercialised for use by emergency rescue crews and the mining industry. US firm Vital Alert Technologies has signed licensing agreements with the Lab to...

Light sensing development kit for phototransistors.
August 16, 2006... By Steve Bush Vishay Intertechnology has announced a light sensing development kit for its recently introduced CdS cell-replacing ambient light sensing phototransistor. The kit includes two boards: a sensor board with the customer's...

Stacking cuts current limits in multi-junction solar cells.
August 16, 2006... Belgian semiconductor research organisation IMEC is proposing mechanical-stacking to sidestep multi-junction solar cell drawbacks. "Stacking is compatible with high efficiencies and allows extracting the power from separately connected bottom...

News.
August 16, 2006... By Steve Bush steve.bush@rbi.co.uk Researchers at the University of Cambridge have grown single-wall carbon nanotubes (SWCNTs) at the CMOS-compatible temperature of 350?C. "Thus far the growth of nanotubes has been carried out at very high...

News.
August 30, 2006... NEC, Matsushita and Texas Instruments (TI) have invested $103m in a new company called Adcore-Tech to design and license hardware and software technology for next generation (3G/3.5G) handsets. It is expected that Adcore-Tech handsets will...

News.
August 30, 2006... Filtronic could enter the ranks of the top ten gallium arsenide (GaAs) manufacturers this year, according to a report from analysts Strategy Analytics, which expects further consolidation in the GaAs business. "We expect Filtronic to climb...

News.
August 30, 2006... Power supply company HiTek Power has expanded its team with two managerial staff and five engineers, which is intended to improve cost-effectiveness and new product introductions. Alongside the two managers, HiTek has also taken on three...

News.
August 30, 2006... Sep 6-7: Instrumentation Scotland, Aberdeen. www.instrumentation.co.uk Sep 7: WiMAX Focus Amsterdam. www.meridianconferences.com/WiMAX_Focus_Amsterdam_2006.htm Sep 14: System level design, design for reuse and legacy IP, seminar by National...

News.
August 30, 2006... A chip architecture which is claimed can speed up speech recognition by ten times over general purpose PC processors has been developed by Carnegie-Mellon University (CMU). "Whether running an enterprise-class voice call-in centre or...

News.
August 30, 2006... Abacus Embedded Systems Group (ESG) is helping a team in the Mongol Rally, an 8,000 mile trip from Hyde Park, London to Ulanbataar in Mongolia. The Pandarama team is taking two Pandas that it got from eBay for about ?10 each on the trip...

News.
August 30, 2006... Dear Editor, For almost as many years as I have been in the industry (some 28 now), I have been reading dire reports about the skills shortage in this or that area. In the mean time the world has not come to an end and Britain has not...

Features.
August 30, 2006... Many electronic systems require DC power rails outside the standard 3.3, 5, 12, 24 and 48V ratings, or combinations of outputs not available from standard off-the-shelf products. And variants of products can also have differing requirements....

Features.
August 30, 2006... Once upon a time a prototype was a model of the real thing. Now, as prototype engineers, we are expected to produce prototypes that not only look just like the real thing, but function like them too. Nowhere is this truer than in the...

Shifting flat panel display data for improved images.
August 30, 2006... With flat panel displays increasingly important in a range of products, the need to increase colour depth and resolution of the LCD panels creates a formidable challenge for display designers: how to move increasingly large amounts of data from...

Capacitive touch switch works without extra conductive layers.
August 30, 2006... By Steve Bush steve.bush@rbi.co.uk Sweden-based Integritouch has developed a capacitive touch switch technique for displays that requires no additional conductive layers. "It uses the existing ITO [conductor] layers," said the firm's...

Azzurri snaps up GD Technik to bring UK in line with Europe.
August 30, 2006... Azzurri Technology's move to acquire fellow semiconductor distributor GD Technik was prompted by a desire to expand the firm's UK business in line with recent expansions in Germany and France. "We have successfully expanded our business in...

Firms risk RoHS fines to avoid cost of compliance.
August 30, 2006... By Richard Wilson richard.wilson@rbi.co.uk Some companies seem to be prepared to risk breaking the law in order to avoid the additional expensive of ensuring their products are compliant with the RoHS Directive. While many OEMs have...

News.
August 30, 2006... SETsquared, the high-tech collaboration between the universities of Bath, Southampton, Surrey and Southampton, is to hold another investment seminar next Monday (September 4th) with companies expected to include XMOS, the microprocessor...

Domestic demand boosts orders to give UK manufacturers a bullish July.
August 30, 2006... UK manufacturers had a sunny July with the level of orders across industry as a whole as high as it has been for 20 months, according to the latest CBI survey figures. "The improvement this month appears to be driven by domestic demand, as...

News.
August 30, 2006... Shares in Radstone Technology rose 17 per cent to just under 300p when it was announced by computer systems provider Eurotech that it has made two approaches to acquire the firm, both of which were rejected. Eurotech said in a statement that it...

News.
August 30, 2006... Axiom Manufacturing Services has received certification from the IPC for RoHS lead free electronics assembly. Axiom is the first company in the European Union to receive the certification and was also one of the first CEMs to receive an RoHS...

Broadband firm plans second facility.
August 30, 2006... Cambridge Broadband is considering replicating an assembly and configuration centre the company recently opened in the UK but this time for the South East Asian market. "We could outsource this work but it gives us flexibility and fast...

News.
August 30, 2006... WLAN handset uses unlicensed spectrum Philips and Samsung have jointly developed an unlicensed mobile access WLAN handset. It uses Philips' Nexperia technology for unlicensed mobile access to provide GPRS and EDGE mobile services on...

OLED firm joins campaign for interior lighting market.
August 30, 2006... By Steve Bush steve.bush@rbi.co.uk Osram has joined the race to develop OLEDs for the mass market of general lighting applications. "In a few years we will see first OLED lighting products which will penetrate the lighting market more and...

Samsung debuts 70in. LCD panel at conference.
August 30, 2006... Samsung unveiled a 70in. LCD TV panel last week at the International Meeting on Information Displays (IMID 2006) in Korea. Currently, the largest LCD TV screen size is 65in., said the firm. "Our 70in. LCD is not only significantly...

Lithium batteries reduce fire hazard in mobile devices, claim researchers.
August 30, 2006... Battery technology being developed at Tel Aviv University for fast charge/discharge batteries is claimed to address fire hazards recently associated with lithium-based batteries. Researchers at Tel Aviv University, claim they have developed...

News.
August 30, 2006... NEC, Matsushita and Texas Instruments (TI) have invested $103m in a firm to design and license hardware and software technology for next generation handsets. The firm - Adcore-Tech, based in Japan's Yokosuka research park - is expected to...

Analyst tips Filtronic to enter GaAs manufacturers' top ten.
August 30, 2006... By David Manners david.manners@rbi.co.uk Filtronic could enter the the top ten gallium arsenide (GaAs) manufacturers this year, according to a report from analyst Strategy Analytics, which expects further consolidation in the GaAs business....

Customer-designed demand drives power firm recruitment.
August 30, 2006... Power supply company HiTek Power has expanded its team with two managerial staff and five engineers, which is intended to improve cost-effectiveness and new product introductions. Alongside the two managers, HiTek has also taken on three...

News.
August 30, 2006... Sep 6-7: Instrumentation Scotland, Aberdeen. www.instrumentation.co.uk Sep 7: WiMAX Focus Amsterdam. www.meridianconferences.com/WiMAX_Focus_Amsterdam_2006.htm Sep 14: System level design, design for reuse and legacy IP, seminar by National...

Aerospace firm takes ARC core licence for satellites.
August 30, 2006... Honeywell has taken a licence for the configurable ARC 725D core. The US aerospace firm will incorporate the processor into a satellite application and according to Derek Meyer, senior v-p of sales and marketing at ARC, the firm's...

Video firms seek to open up Internet protocol TV market.
August 30, 2006... By Richard Wilson richard.wilson@rbi.co.uk Semiconductor firms are working with Internet software specialists to open up the market for Internet protocol TV (IPTV) systems. With 22Mbit/s broadband download speeds, video firms see the...

Judge waits on FTC decision in Rambus case.
August 30, 2006... The legal tide appears to have turned against Rambus with the judge in its latest lawsuit shelving the case pending a decision by the US Federal Trade Commission (FTC). Last month the FTC decided Rambus had been deceptive in its behaviour...

News.
August 30, 2006... A chip architecture claimed to speed up speech recognition by ten times over general purpose PC processors has been developed by Carnegie-Mellon University (CMU). "Whether running an enterprise-class voice call-in centre or decoding...

News.
August 30, 2006... Abacus Embedded Systems Group (pictured above) is helping a team in the Mongol Rally, an 8,000 mile trip from London's Hyde Park to Ulanbataar in Mongolia. The Pandarama team is taking two Pandas that it got from eBay for about ?10 each on the...

DAVID CLEEVELY CHAIRMAN OF CRN.(Company overview)
August 30, 2006... David Cleevely is chairman of the Communications Research Network (CRN), originally founded in 2004 by the Cambridge-MIT Institute. It is now a limited company. Can the UK continue to compete in the global telecoms market? How? The UK is...