Electronics Weekly articles from December 2004

Electronics Weekly archives from December 2004

O2 Airwave confident of winning fire ; and rescue services comms contract.
December 1, 2004... O2 Airwave is confident of winning the Firelink contract to provide a national communications network for the fire and rescue services. "We've been shortlisted and are optimistic of winning the fire and ambulance services contract," said Peter...

A question of expectation.
December 1, 2004... EW asked our panel of executives from electronics distribution: "What phrase best describes your expectations for the year ahead? And if you had to name an end market with the greatest potential which would it be?" Fred Knowles v-p...

A question of inventory.
December 1, 2004... Electronics Weekly asked some of the top executives in the electronics distibution industry: "Is the handling of inventory still the biggest problem in the supply chain?" Their answers contain a few surprises Wim Roelandts president and...

Government puts skills shortage top of plans to boost electronics.
December 1, 2004... The DTI will this month unveil plans to tackle the shortage of engineering skills in the UK workforce, identified as a key weakness of the country's electronics industry. Gary Kibblewhite, chairman of Afdec and a member of the DTI's Electronics...

Govt refuses to take 'leap of faith' on Galileo.
December 1, 2004... Further information about Galileo, the European satellite system, is needed before the Government commits itself to the next stage of the project according to the House of Commons transport committee. The EC is urging members to sign up for the...

Google launches Scholar search.
December 1, 2004... Google has launched a version of the all-conquering web search engine that collects its results from academic books and research papers. Google Scholar, which has been released as a beta test, ranks papers in order of number of citations, and...

Intel technology remotely fault-finds computers.
December 1, 2004... Computer makers will be able to remotely fault-find PCs in consumers' homes, if they adopt Intel's upcoming Active Management Technology (AMT). Although it is primarily aimed at IT departments, AMT could help firms such as Dell cut the cost of...

RF systems firm seeks acquisitions for growth.
December 1, 2004... Satellite and basestation components firm Intelek is looking for growth through acquisitions. The firm's chief executive Ian Brodie said the firm was researching options for acquisitions in the satellite communications market. He said any deal...

Walters Microsystems sees UK and China facilities working together.
December 1, 2004... High Wycombe-based manufacturer Walters Microsystems is investing in its own production facility in China which it will operate in tandem with its existing UK plant. Through a partnership with a local firm Walters will own a 50 per cent stake...

Industry must find new architectures as the 'nano-scale hell of physics is upon us'.
December 1, 2004... The days of happy scaling are in danger, and the nano-scale hell of physics is upon us, the MEDEA+ annual review meeting was told by Professor Hugo de Man, co-founder of IMEC. "Leakage is a threatening enemy," said de Man, "Moore's law for...

EU not spending enough on IT development.
December 1, 2004... The EU's expenditure on developing IT technologies is insufficient, said Arthur van der Poel, chairman of MEDEA+, the pan-European microelectronics R&D programme. He pointed out that the p1bn spent on promoting innovation in the ICT...

R&S to widen scope in plan for sales growth.
December 1, 2004... Wireless test firm Rohde & Schwarz has not ruled out its first entry into the oscilloscope market as it draws up plans to double sales in the next five years. A supplier of RF, video and wireless test systems, the firm has seen its business...

Circatex gives away lead-free alternatives sample packs.
December 1, 2004... PCB firm Circatex is providing lead-free evaluation packs for existing and potential customers looking for alternatives to tin-lead PCB finishes. "There will not be a one size fits all alternative," said the firm, to tin-lead hot-air solder...

SystemVerilog faster with parsing software.
December 1, 2004... Parsing software for the SystemVerilog language has been developed by Verific Design Automation. Licensing this would save a year or more of development time to add SystemVerilog support to existing products, claimed Verific. "We have noticed...

Transducer gives drugs.
December 1, 2004... Ultrasound transducers and macromachines are being used by The Technology Partnership in a medical drug delivery system. TTP's electronic nebuliser delivers drugs without a gas propellant. "The heart of the technology is the piezoelectric...

Asia seen as a 'sales opportunity' that has potential to be direct competition.
December 1, 2004... Asia is currently more of a customer than a competitor, but competition is on the way, a London forum organised by headhunters Renoir Christian Timbers was told. "We see Asia mostly as a sales opportunity," said Doug Dunn, chairman and CEO of...

MEDEA+ forum highlights plight of shelved research projects.
December 1, 2004... The hazards of pursuing leading-edge microelectronics research projects at a time of fast-shifting technology were highlighted at the MEDEA+ forum. Several heavily funded projects have been shelved, because more economic technologies came...

Pb-free law ; will increase cost of PCB manufacture.
December 1, 2004... Switching to lead-free will add around ten per cent to the cost of PCB production, according to Stevenage-based Printed Systems. The contract manufacturer figured out the extra costs after adding a lead-free wave solder machine to its...

Nokia seeks ten-fold increase for data rates in Tetra digital radio.
December 1, 2004... Enhanced data rates for Tetra digital radio will be the next step for the technology, with a target of rates ten times faster than currently possible. "In our opinion high speed data will be vital," said Matti Peltola, v-p of professional...

Report is good news for skills shortage.
December 1, 2004... Melanie Reynolds looks at the implications of the Tomlinson Report he Tomlinson Report, which proposes reforms of the education system for 14-19 year olds, should mean a boost for vocational qualifications which can only improve the skills...

Sarantel plans expansion as growth soars.
December 1, 2004... Antenna specialist Sarantel is expecting 500 per cent growth in the coming year after achieving the same level of growth this year. The firm's founder and chief technical officer Oliver Leisten told EW that the firm's production facility in...

Spin-out wins 'seven figure' sum for substrate engineering project.
December 1, 2004... University of Warwick semiconductor spin-out AdvanceSis has pulled in a "seven-figure investment", according to company MD Dr Robin Godfrey. Funding will be used to develop substrate engineering technology developed at Warwick. "The company is...

Transistor work shows up on car windows.
December 1, 2004... Japanese scientists have developed transparent, thin-film transistors that can be processed onto flexible substrates at room temperature. The work could lead to flexible drive circuitry for OLEDs, or transparent circuits to enable displays on...

A question of going lead-free.
December 1, 2004... EW asked our panel of execs: "Are you confident that the industry will move painlessly towards lead-free manufacturing?" Bob Davis managing director Deltron I don't think that the industry will move painlessly through RoSH and WEEE because...

Acal merges its distribution arms.
December 1, 2004... Acal has consolidated its distribution business by merging its two operating divisions which will combine its semiconductor and electromechancial component franchises in the one business. Acal Technology will include the firm's other UK...

Steady growth ; for distribution.
December 1, 2004... The component distribution market can expect two or three years of predictable growth, according to industry trade body Afdec. Latest figures for the UK component market predict that distribution sales will grow by 6.6 per cent this year and...

Nanotube mix makes sensors.
December 1, 2004... Researchers at Nanomix in California are using carbon nanotubes mixed with polymers to make sensors. "Because the single-walled carbon nanotubes in our sensors are only one molecular layer thick, every atom is at the surface," said the firm....

Stable bonds of oxygen/platinum.
December 1, 2004... Researchers at Nanomix in California are using carbon nanotubes mixed with polymers to make sensors. "Because the single-walled carbon nanotubes in our sensors are only one molecular layer thick, every atom is at the surface," said the firm....

UK technique measures pH using probes.
December 1, 2004... An Oxford professor has developed a technique for measuring pH, the negative log10 of the hydrogen ion concentration in a solution, one of the most commonly used analytical measurements in science. Probes using the technology do not require...

Li-ion batteries put a tiger in tank of eight wheel car.
December 1, 2004... After last week's Panasonic car that ran on two AA batteries, here is 2.4 tonne Eliica which runs on a huge battery of Li-ion cells. Developed by the Electric Vehicle Laboratory of Keio University in Japan, the car, which has eight wheels each...

NPL's optical atomic clock timed as 'most accurate in the world'.
December 1, 2004... The UK's National Physical Laboratory has produced the most accurate optical atomic clock yet. "It is a factor of three better than the rest of the world," NPL scientist Professor Patrick Gill told EW, "but it is still about a factor of three...

Infra-red LED dispenses with lens.
December 1, 2004... Osram Opto Semiconductors has come up with a novel package for infra-red LED die. It does not need a lens to produce a beam, and is dubbed MIDLED for moulded interconnect devices LED. "The integrated die-cast reflector focuses most of the...

EMC ruling has 'glaring omission'.
December 8, 2004... The European Commission's automotive EMC directive, recently amended to cover recent developments, does not go far enough, according to a test specialist. "It gives a lot more clarity to people manufacturing cars," said Andy Kotas, product...

Plastic Logic in Siemens link-up.
December 8, 2004... Plastic Logic has signed an agreement with Siemens Communications to jointly develop flexible displays for mobile devices. The companies have not released any financial details or given information about the type of displays or devices...

University Chair for Web inventor.
December 8, 2004... World Wide Web inventor Sir Tim Berners-Lee has become a professor at the University of Southampton. He will take up a Chair of Computer Science at the University's school of electronics and computer science alongside his current appointments...

US start-up culture highlights European investment failings.
December 8, 2004... UK and European start-up firms are suffering from a lack of investment when compared to the US. Moreover, start-ups in Europe are limited by a lack of management expertise, claim investment firms. "US start-ups are typically ten times higher...

'Leakage not a problem' says Philips.
December 8, 2004... Leakage is not a big problem for Philips Semiconductors because the firm scales for cost rather than performance, claims chief technology officer Theo Claasen. "We can maintain the price erosion, but performance doesn't scale, and power scales...

Comms chip firm enters USB flash memory drive market.
December 8, 2004... CML Microsystems is planning a raft of product introductions and is entering new market sectors. The comms chip firm is planning five products in the second half of its financial year. "In the past the most products we have had in the space of...

European interest in MEMS is driving growth at Semefab.
December 8, 2004... Scottish semiconductor manufacturer Semefab is benefiting from pan-European interest in its MEMS (micro electromechanical system) products which now represents its fastest growing business. Two of the firm's largest customers are in Germany and...

Medical electronics conference puts diagnosis to the fore.
December 8, 2004... Next year will see the launch of a new medical electronics event which will look at applying component technologies to increase the efficiency and accuracy of medical diagnosis. The Medictronic conference will take place between June 29 and...

Altera tackles leakage with power tools for 90nm FPGAs.
December 8, 2004... In an effort to combat high levels of leakage current, Altera is developing power analysis tools to support 90nm FPGAs. While I/O and dynamic power have increased linearly, static power - driven by leakage current - has risen dramatically with...

Cell players give hint of processor for PlayStation3.
December 8, 2004... Sony, IBM and Toshiba have released a few details of their Cell processor, likely to be the power inside the third generation PlayStation. In has a PowerPC-like Power architecture control processor with co-processors to give the chip its...

Government issues guidance for R&D tax credit scheme.
December 8, 2004... The Government has issued extended guidance for companies wanting to take advantage of the R&D tax credit scheme. In his pre-Budget report Gordon Brown said the guidance was intended to tackle "the perceived complexity of the credit [scheme]"....

UK start-up wins cash for power LEDs.
December 8, 2004... Welsh optoelectronics start-up Enfis is lining up the launch of a range of high power LEDs following its completion of a [pounds sterling]900,000 venture funding round. Enfis, which is based at the Technium 2 development in Swansea, said it...

Hybrid satellite techniques are key to mobile phone location.
December 8, 2004... A hybrid technology approach is going to be needed to enable mobile phone location to work everywhere and be accurate, according to speakers at the European Emergency Number Association 112 conference. Assisted-GPS (A-GPS) satellite-based...

Test system adapts to Pb-free.
December 8, 2004... Irish test firm Optical Metrology Innovations has raised the spec of its packaging test system to cope with automotive/military temperature ranges and lead-free processing. The firm's Omistrain product measures deformation and warping of...

Strained silicon-on-insulator 300mm wafer is manufactured.
December 8, 2004... French wafer technology firm Soitec and ASM, the Amsterdam-based substrate equipment company, claim to have produced the industry's first 'industrially manufactured' 300mm strained silicon-on-insulator (sSOI) wafers. "The samples take this...

Sub-contracting manufacturers will account for 40% chip sales by 2007.
December 8, 2004... Top five EMS Top five ODMs companies 2003 2003 ****$bn********$bn Flextronics****13.82****Quanta****8.44 Solectron****11.03****Compal Electronics****4.68 Sanmina-SCI****10.79****BenQ Corporation****3.14 Foxconn****10.60****Lite-On...

Philips weighs up the options for broadband mobile video display.
December 8, 2004... Philips is trying two routes to solve the dilemma of how to display video on mobile handsets, seen as the killer application for broadband mobile services. One route is the roll-up or fold-up display, the other is installing a mini-projector in...

Changing the face of engineering is too slow.
December 8, 2004... Five years after the Government identified the need to change the image of engineering as a career in this country little seems to have changed. Society at large retains a view of engineering which is rooted firmly in the so-called heavy...

Yorkshire group goes training.
December 8, 2004... Electronics Yorkshire, the not-for-profit organisation supporting companies in the region, has opened a training centre and network resource office located within TWI's premises in Sheffield. Membership will give local firms access to training,...

Research to feed technology.
December 8, 2004... The University of Cambridge is building a centre that will create a unique umbrella of photonics and electronics with expertise from materials to components to systems. It promises to be quite remarkable, says Harry Yeates onsider the...

Cement sets pulses racing.
December 8, 2004... To study the inside of cement structures as they solidify and age, a researcher from Elizabethtown College in Pennsylvania has turned to time domain reflectrometry. "A fast electrical pulse is bounced off the sensor, producing a reflected...

Sensor network gone to the frogs.
December 8, 2004... US researchers have used a wireless distributed sensor network to simulate the ebb and flow of croaks among groups of frogs. They used 15-20 sensors equipped with a microphone and a buzzer, and set the alpha node buzzing at an arbitrary...

Fujitsu, IBM write server standards.
December 8, 2004... Fujitsu and IBM have agreed to collaborate on autonomic computing standards. Initial areas of collaboration are expected to include existing or new efforts related to the Web Services Distributed Management Event Format, standardisation of a...

Five band mobile phone antenna tunes in as Antenova conjures up bandwidth.
December 8, 2004... Cambridge-based Antenova has produced a five-band antenna for mobile phones. "We already have a quad-band antenna and managed to get some more bandwidth with a little trick," company chief scientist Professor Simon Kingsley told EW. "In fact,...

Display consortium proves roll-up can function.
December 8, 2004... This is a demonstration active-matrix flexible display built using a backplane from Cambridge-based Plastic Logic and an electrophoretic display from Massachusetts firm E Ink. The companies have signed a non-exclusive agreement to design and...

Sensor company joins nanoscale design software consortium.
December 8, 2004... Essex-based e2v Technologies has joined a consortium set up by molecular simulation and modelling specialist Accelrys to help develop software tools for the design of nanoscale materials and devices. Brian Allen, a technology strategist at e2v,...

IBM develops world's smallest SRAM with 248nm lithography.
December 8, 2004... IBM has built what it claims is the world's smallest six-transistor SRAM cell. "The smallest previously reported SRAM cell was more than twice the size and had a worse static noise margin," researcher Dr David Fried told EW. Static noise...

Acal reports decline in profits.
December 15, 2004... Distributor Acal has reported a slight decline in pre-tax profits in the six months to the end of September. The firm said it has seen a "continuation of the demanding market conditions encountered last year". Pre-tax profit was [pounds...

Automotive focus for TES.
December 15, 2004... TES, the recently created design and contract manufacturing business bought out of Thales, will focus on the automotive and telecoms markets. Nick Walker, head of global sales and marketing at TES, told EW: "We can design to automotive...

Distribution figures point to sales growth.
December 15, 2004... The component distribution market can look forward to a couple of years of stable growth, writes Richard Wilson f the latest figures from the component distribution market are anything to go by then suppliers can look forward to a year or...

Indigenous flexible fab along lines of Japanese.
December 15, 2004... The UK's chip industry would be well-served by investing, perhaps in collaboration with Europe, in developing a version of Japan's HALCA (highly agile line concept advancement) minifab chip production technology. A report for the DTI's...

NMOS and PMOS degradation.
December 15, 2004... US researchers have developed a single model that describes the degradation of both NMOS and PMOS transistors. The degradation is caused by silicon-hydrogen bonds breaking, but the rate at which this happens is different for both types, and...

Science minister tells EW the way to fight back.
December 15, 2004... The electronics industry lives or dies by its innovation and technology. The business climate has been difficult in recent years, with some industry specialists even asking themselves if UK electronics has a future. I believe that the answer is...

Two years of apathy: time for action...
December 15, 2004... It is a year since the Government accepted "the need for a coherent approach which integrates hardware design, software, digital content, telecoms, IT services and manufacturing more than ever before". Nothing happened. It is a year since the...

DTI report into UK electronics finds an 'invisible, fragmented' industry.
December 15, 2004... Electronics in the UK is an "invisible, fragmented" industry that lacks coherent representation and is failing to take advantage of "almost endless opportunities", despite great confidence in its technical capability. That is the view of the...

Sensor firm reports 11% sales increase since flotation.
December 15, 2004... In the firm's first reported results since floating this summer, e2v Technologies increased sales 11 per cent to [pounds sterling]47.2m and had a pre-tax loss of [pounds sterling]2.6m. The firm's chief executive Keith Attwood said the results...

Celoxica adds system level design software for image processing.
December 15, 2004... Celoxica is extending its tools for electronic system level (ESL) design, with software targeting image and video processing. A tool called PixelStreams contains a library of IP blocks aimed at image manipulation, including functions such as...

Piezoelectric lock control.
December 15, 2004... Marlow-based Servocell has produced a piezoelectric lock mechanism that can be addressed using the Dallas one-wire bus. The latch could be used for security in buildings, lockers, machine guards and filing cabinets, said the firm. Each lock...

Electronics firms offered training for European WEEE and RoHS Directives.
December 15, 2004... Electrical and electronic companies in the West Midlands are being offered free training and business support in advance of the European WEEE and RoHS Directives. The initiative from Black Country Learning and Skills Council (LSC), which is...

Analogue mobile radio grows into new markets.
December 15, 2004... Analogue PMR (professional mobile radio) is still going strong and its use is growing despite the increased adoption of digital PMR, such as Tetra, according to radio comms specialist Tait Europe. "The belief held amongst a few in the mobile...

GSPK to merge divisions in strategic move.
December 15, 2004... Manufacturing and design services company GSPK is lining up a merger of two of its operating divisions. In what has been described as a long term strategic move, Steve Lloyd, MD of Knaresborough-based GSPK Design has taken on a similar role at...

Philips to show off its nano-scale technology.
December 15, 2004... Philips is to demonstrate its nano-scale process technology at next week's IEEE International Electron Devices Meeting (IEDM) in San Francisco with 17 papers. "There is no point in having the most advanced semiconductor processes in the world...

Bookham adds Abingdon to list of cost cutting closures in UK.
December 15, 2004... Bookham has announced the closure of its former headquarter offices at Abingdon as part of cost reductions which have already seen the closure of its UK-based gallium arsenide (GaAs) wafer fab this year. Job losses are expected as a result of...

Avnet plans re-investment in passives.
December 15, 2004... Broadline distributor Avnet is planning a major investment in its passives and electromechanical components division to reverse a period of weakness. According to Axel Hartstang, European president of Avnet Electronics Marketing, the company...

Licensing firm cuts 50 staff.
December 15, 2004... BTG is hoping to save [pounds sterling]5m with the redundancy of 50 staff following the completion of a review of its business activities. "The measures we are taking are essential to better align our costs with our current revenues, and...

Industry figures optimistic of return to growth after inventory difficulties.
December 15, 2004... There is growing industry optimism of a positive fourth quarter after a year in which expectations have soared, slumped, and are now rising again. Intel, the first company to warn of mid-year inventory problems, has now said Q4 will be very...

Engineering apprentices scheme targets over-25s.
December 15, 2004... A [pounds sterling]2m pilot scheme to promote adult apprenticeships in the engineering and science sector has been launched by science and engineering skills council SEMTA with the Learning and Skills Council (LSC). The scheme will provide up...

Standards bodies work on powerline problems.
December 15, 2004... Powerline telecommunications (PLT) is forging ahead in the US and the rest of Europe with the standards bodies working on settling the specifications. "They're trying to set the standards now because people want to send broadband down power...

Fabric keyboard is highlight of Eleksen's consumer strategy.
December 15, 2004... Force-sensing fabric firm Eleksen will show a fabric keyboard and joystick at the beginning of next year. The firm's keyboard is aimed at mobile phones, PDAs and laptops and will have Bluetooth connectivity, while the joystick is targeted at...

Recovery heralds increased confidence in mergers and acquisitions, says distributor.
December 15, 2004... There is now more confidence in the market for mergers and acquisitions, says Christopher Sawyer, CEO at distributor Deltron Electronics. The firm, which recently acquired Bournemouth-based distributor Quiller Electronics, is evaluating similar...

Wireless comms at 1Gbit/s.
December 15, 2004... Siemens has claimed a world first for its transmission of a 1Gbit/s data rate over a 5GHz wireless link. To achieve this rate, which is 20 times faster than today's 50Mbit/s wireless LANs, researchers at the firm's R&D lab in Munich used an...

Transistor developed in Cambridge is 'world's fastest' lateral insulated IGBT.
December 15, 2004... University of Cambridge spin-out Cambridge Semiconductor has developed a transistor which it claims is "the world's fastest, high voltage lateral insulated gate bipolar transistor (LIGBT)", beating power Mosfets in 600V switching speed. The...