Electronics Weekly articles from February 2008

Electronics Weekly archives from February 2008

Features.
February 6, 2008... Feb 16-17: Systems Engineering Fast-Track - Oxford www.conted.ox.ac.uk/electronics Feb 18-20: Altera NIOS II SoPC - Bournemouth www.doulos.com Feb 22: Lead Free Hands On Solder Course - Leeds ...

Features.
February 6, 2008... RF and microwave IC design including some of the latest developments in gallium arsenide (GaAs) Mosfet technology is the focus of an IET seminar later this month hosted by Liam Devlin, director of RF integration at Cambridge-based electronics...

Features.
February 6, 2008... 06feb08APCdisplays.jpg 06feb08APCdisplays2.jpg In both commercial and industrial contexts, it is difficult to ignore the impact that flaty panel displays are having on the market. So what are the technology trends which are driving the...

Features.
February 6, 2008... Newbury-based Pacer has seen first fruits of a major expansion of its opto component and displays businesses. The component supplier has a number of design projects in progress and it is seeing an expansion of its US business. Along with a...

Features.
February 6, 2008... Devices ranging from indicator LEDs to display panels support critical human-machine interface (HMI) functions, enabling users to access features and understand the status of all kinds of devices. As such, they tiptoe along the knife-edge...

News.
February 6, 2008... Wireless charging start-up Splashpower has finally launched its technology for mobile phones and MP3 players. Since 2001 the company has been working on providing a way to charge equipment without having to plug it in but this is the first...

News.
February 6, 2008... Qimonda, Infineon's DRAM subsidiary, is to get E165m of regional aid from the State of Saxony to upgrade its existing DRAM plant there and build a new one. The investment will, according to EC competition commissioner, Neelie Kroes:...

News.
February 6, 2008... The inquiry into engineering by the Innovation, Universities and Skills Committee (see EW 21/01/08, page 1) has set a deadline of March 15 for written submissions. The inquiry will look at engineering skills and the electronics industry in...

News.
February 6, 2008... Price wars have cost the semiconductor industry $23bn in lost revenues over the last two years, $18bn in 2007 alone, it was said at IFS2008, the annual forecast seminar run in London last week by Future Horizons. "Because of price wars...

News.
February 6, 2008... NXP Semiconductors has teamed up with mobile Linux design company Purple Labs to create a 3G Linux reference design for a low cost multimedia phone which operators will buy for less than $100. To date mobile Linux developments have largely...

News.
February 6, 2008... Renesas Technology is to support Icera Semiconductor's Wireless Wide Area Network (WWAN) mini-card which delivers HSDPA and HSUPA connectivity to mobile devices. Icera's WWAN mini-card, called Espresso, incorporates an Icera Livanto chip...

News.
February 6, 2008... GPS silicon start-up Air Semiconductor is planning to increase the size of its Swindon-based engineering teams by over 60 per cent before the end of the year. This follows last month's announcement which saw the fabless chip company give...

News.
February 6, 2008... Mimobots, character-based USB memory sticks, are coming to the UK. They are available with 1Gbyte to 4Gbytes of storage space and come loaded with content such as wallpapers, desktop icons, trailers and soundbites. Prices range from [pounds...

News.
February 6, 2008... Harvard University and its medical school have built the smallest complete nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR) system, claims the team. Described at the International Solid-State Circuits Conference (ISSCC) in San Francisco, the NMR weighs 2kg...

News.
February 6, 2008... Bedford-based contract manufacturer Briton EMS has opened its new building in Caxton Park. The Mayor of Bedford Frank Branston opened the facility, which with SMT equipment in place increases the firm's capacity.

News.
February 6, 2008... Kemet is to close two of its European production facilities as part of a worldwide cost-cutting programme by the capacitor supplier.The closure of a plant at Towcester will affect 80 staff. More jobs will go in Italy where the capacitor...

News.
February 6, 2008... Shares in Amino Technologies gained over 17 per cent to reach 57.5p in a week that saw tech shares overall bouncing back. The IPTV set-top box firm released full year results which saw revenue growth of 27 per cent to push the firm into pre-tax...

News.
February 6, 2008... Simon Payne is CEO of boundary scan test firm XJTAG We hear you reckon the UK needs to sort out its electronics events. Why? The UK has a vibrant and innovative electronics industry but we lack a single international electronics event...

News.
February 6, 2008... Pressure is increasing on the remaining small- and medium-sized contract electronics manufacturers throughout Europe. Nick Fairhead, sales director at Bedford-based MRP Electronics, said price pressure on OEMs is filtering down the supply...

News.
February 6, 2008... US researchers have developed a quick-drying polymer for chip making and packaging. "With this material, chip manufacturers will be able to trim several steps from their production and packaging processes, and in turn realise a cost...

News.
February 6, 2008... Two innovation centres are to open in south Devon this year to attract start-ups in electronics. The centres, in Ivybridge and Torquay, will be run by the Torbay Innovation Centre. Ivybridge will open in April with 16 units while the...

Technology.
February 6, 2008... With Crusty diag - 06feb08issccAntenna Researchers at Cal Tech Pasadena have built an active 1.5x1.5mm near-field phased array antenna, with secure communication by spatial encryption in mind. The 61GHz radiator consists of an on-chip...

Technology.
February 6, 2008... Held once a year in San Francisco, the IEEE International Solid-State Circuits Conference (ISSCC) is the world's show case for the best in circuit design for integrated circuits. Electronics Weekly picks some of the more interesting offerings...

Technology.
February 6, 2008... 06feb08issccSensor.bmp Seiko is working on an infra-red video camera for consumer applications. To avoid cryogenic cooling, the firm has gone for a thermal detector rather sensing infra-red photons. Each 167x167[micro]m pixel has...

Technology.
February 6, 2008... The University of Twente in the Netherlands announced an ultra-low power 10bit 1Msample/s ADC - operating at 1.9[micro]W - or 4.4fJ/conversion step. Low losses are achieved using a successive approximation topology with a charge...

Technology.
February 6, 2008... Texas Instruments revealed details of a quad-band GSM phone, including RF and baseband (BB), on a single 24mm[super]2 90nm pure digital CMOS chip. Infineon has done something similar, describing its six metal 0.13[micro]m CMOS RF/BB - mounted...

Technology.
February 6, 2008... SanDisk and Toshiba disclosed details of a 56nm 16Gbit 3bit/cell NAND flash. On a 142.5mm[super2] chip 0.0075[micro]m[super2]/bit is achieved. Saifun Semiconductors' ISSCC flash was 4bit/cell 8Gbit NROM on a 155mm[super2] die, offering...

Technology.
February 6, 2008... With Crusty diag 06feb08isccThermo Belgian research organisation IMEC described a thermo-electric power conditioner consuming only 1.4[micro]A at ISSCC, aimed at tiny radio sensor nodes requiring between 50 and 100[micro]W. The boost...

News.
February 20, 2008... US firm Montalvo Systems is claiming that it has designed a microprocessor to rival the microprocessors from Intel and AMD. Montalvo's chip is based on asymmetrical multicores so the chip will run software written for the x86 instruction...

News.
February 20, 2008... Hosted by the University of Wales, Newport, students have spent three weeks on an EU programme creating clothing that merged textiles with electronics. From Sweden, Finland, Spain, England and Wales, the designers incorporated communication...

News.
February 20, 2008... Surrey Satellite Technology is on course to be a $100m company by 2010. "We have got most of the contracts already in the bag," business development manager Phil Davis told EW. Started at Surrey University in 1985, the firm initially...

News.
February 20, 2008... By David Manners david.manners@electronicsweekly.com Actel is bringing out a 99 cent flash-based programmable logic chip next month in a move which emphasises the emerging importance of the $1 price point in many consumer applications...

News.
February 20, 2008... STMicroelectronics has a system-on-chip device which it is hoping will drive near field communications (NFC) into mobile phones. NFC is a short-range wireless comms technology which can be implemented in a mobile phone to carry out secure...

News.
February 20, 2008... Mobile phone users are keen to have mobile TV on their handsets but are being disappointed by the quality and reliability of existing services, according to recent surveys. A survey commissioned by Tellabs shows a 36 per cent increase in...

News.
February 20, 2008... Zetex Semiconductors has won the Greater China Business Award 2008 for the North West of England region. The company was presented with the award at a dinner at the City of Manchester Stadium to welcome in the Chinese New Year.

News.
February 20, 2008... The University of Oxford claims to be able to deliver separate reflective and transmissive modes from an LCD simply by altering switching waveforms. "This invention is a very smart driving technique. You can operate this LCD in a very fast...

News.
February 20, 2008... Cambridge-based OptiSynx' molecular oscillator (EW 13/02/08) could offer the accuracy of caesium atomic clocks at the price of cheaper rubidium clocks, and eventually be small enough to fit in portable equipment.

News.
February 20, 2008... Abacus CEO Martin Kent says the component distribution market may be tough right now, but there is no reason to be pessimistic about the future. "We have more than five thousand customers in the UK and I believe there are opportunities for...

News.
February 20, 2008... Material and fuel prices As predicted in last month's column, oil prices have fallen back slightly to $90 a barrel, a level which is likely to stick for the short term in view of the recent unrest in Nigeria and Algeria, both key...

News.
February 20, 2008... By David Manners david.manners@electronicsweekly.com Nokia and Qualcomm are getting together to sort out their epic legal battles over 3G technology but, it seems, Qualcomm has lost the battle to establish itself as the dominant...

News.
February 20, 2008... Qualcomm has said that a number of network operators are committed to trialing HSPA+ technology this year. The mobile chip firm said that operators including Hutchison 3G, Telecom Italia, Telefonica and Telstra will trial the broadband...

News.
February 20, 2008... Design services company Partner Electronics has moved into the Silverstone Innovation Centre to accommodate the firm's expansion. The company said it has seen increased activity for the past three months, including a deal with global...

News.
February 20, 2008... David Baillie is CEO of CamSemi We hear you are up for an award. What for? Our first family of mixed signal controller products, which was launched in October 2007, has been short-listed in the power IC category for one of EDN's...

News.
February 20, 2008... Future Electronics has doubled its market share in France by buying local component distributor PN Electronics (PNE). This is the latest move in a period of consolidation in the European distribution market and follows on the heels of...

News.
February 20, 2008... Broadcom is not intending a move to 45nm in the next year or so as it will be too expensive, according to Scott MacGregor, CEO of Broadcom. However, the strategy risks putting the company behind Intel and Panasonic which both launched 45nm...

News.
February 20, 2008... Windows in the new [pounds sterling]55m Mountbatten building at the Optoelectronics Research Centre in Southampton feature a fractal pattern inspired by research on optical nanotechnology. The building replaces those destroyed in a fire in...

News.
February 20, 2008... Chip makers are aiming to turn mobile phones into high-definition camcorders with a next generation of media processors. Texas Instruments, Nvidia and Broadcom have launched chipsets that can handle 720p video encoding for high quality...

News.
February 20, 2008... Nujira claims its high-efficiency RF power amplifier technology can cut power consumption in digital TV and mobile TV handsets. According to CEO Tim Haynes, the planned switchover to digital TV broadcast in Europe has the potential to...

News.
February 20, 2008... Texas Instruments has shown a working prototype of its handheld projector for integrating into mobile phones at the Mobile World Congress in Barcelona. The system is based on the Picoprojector digital light processor chip, which has been...

News.
February 20, 2008... Chinese telecoms equipment maker ZTE has launched its first basestation with a 3G Software-Defined Radio (SDR) system based on the microTCA standard. The company is better known for its handsets yet already has a customer in Turkey. It is...

News.
February 20, 2008... Camera modules for mobile phones are moving into the mainstream as 3Mpixel becomes the sweet spot and features such as autofocus become increasingly important and modules reduce in size. VGA resolution modules are also making their way into...

Features.
February 20, 2008... While successful wireless standards such as IEEE802.11x, GSM and Bluetooth, have been relatively easy to sell, bringing standardisation into the realms of more straightforward, low data rate, communications is significantly tougher. Within this...

Features.
February 20, 2008... 20feb08LIME1.jpg Figure 1: Frequency band allocations for cellular and WiMAX standards 20feb08LIME2 Figure 2: Block diagram of reconfigurable multi-standard wireless transceiver system 20feb08LIME3 Figure 3: Lime...

Technology.
February 20, 2008... 20feb08Swim.JPG Professor Ross Sanders (left) and Dr Roozbeh Naemi assessing the glide technique of a swimmer The University of Edinburgh and Sheffield Hallam University have created software that helps swimmers go faster. "It...

News.
February 20, 2008... UK Electronics manufacturing has been in a state of steady decline for the last decade or so. This trend seems to have continued in the face of a number of Government and cross-industry strategies aimed at restating the importance of a...

Technology.
February 20, 2008... pic is page 7 of 20feb08LTC4151.pdf 12bit high-side current measurement from 7 to 80V Linear Technology has integrated an 80V high-side current sensor, two voltage sensors, and an ADC. "This product is the first high-side power...

Technology.
February 20, 2008... 20feb08Pyreos - not arrived yet Edinburgh-based Siemens' spin-out Pyreos is to make pyroelectic detectors using standard semiconductor techniques. "Current sensors are produced from a slurry of PZT [lead zirconate titanate] which is...

News.
February 27, 2008... 3DLABS Semiconductor will be demonstrating its Windows CE board support package for its programmable media processor at Embedded World in Nuremberg nest week. The DMS-02 programmable media processing array is based on a dual ARM...

Supplements.
February 27, 2008... 27feb08DISTnicol.jpg Managing a complex supply chain By Greg Nicol Distribution customers needs in terms of logistical supply are today more diverse than ever before. The key, therefore, to structuring an operation that addresses...

Supplements.
February 27, 2008... Consolidation in Electronic Components Markets? by Adam Fletcher Afdec chairman Adam Fletcher reviews recent consolidations in the electronic components markets and the possibility of more in 2008 and their potential impact on the UK...

Supplements.
February 27, 2008... 27feb08DISTavnet.jpg How to support Local Design & Global Production? Production transfer and business migration are inevitable results of the globalisation in the worldwide electronics industry. While the electronics industry in...

Supplements.
February 27, 2008... 27feb08DISTFarnell1.jpg Freescale Flexis Series 27feb08DISTFarnell2 Efficiency powers up the distributor's agenda By Jamie Furness, global technology & development manager at Farnell The prevalence of electronics in...

Supplements.
February 27, 2008... 27feb08DISTNu.jpg Acquisitions - what's in it for everyone? By Phil Gee In a market that should be about customer choice, the customer is finding himself with fewer and fewer choices. Recent mergers and acquisitions in the...

Supplements.
February 27, 2008... 27feb08DISTIgross.jpg 27feb08DISTIstahl.jpg Logistics is a global matter Christiane Gross as divisional director and Dr. Jasmin Stahl as the director of logistics sales and management are the new women behind Rutronik's logistics...

Features.
February 27, 2008... Satellite navigation in phones is really starting to take off. The first mainstream sat nav phone in Europe, the Nokia N95, has shown up some of the problem with the technology with large downloads of maps and long times to find a location. ...

News.
February 27, 2008... Per-Olof Loof is CEO of Kemet, the capacitor manufacturer and supplier You manufacture products all over the world. Apart from variable labour and shipping costs are there any other differences connected to these regions? In addition...

News.
February 27, 2008... 27feb08newsMullard Universities are to design and build a seismic monitoring network which will be dropped onto the moon in 2013 as part part of a re-energised UK space programme. The Mullard Space Science Laboratory in Surrey is...

News.
February 27, 2008... Georgia Tech has made a generator from fibres which could be woven. "The fibre-based nanogenerator would be a simple and economical way to harvest energy from physical movement," said Professor Zhong Lin Wang. "If we can combine many of...

News.
February 27, 2008... Toshiba may have told the market that it will no longer manufacture and market HD DVD players and recorders, but there may be other battles before the rival Blu-ray format can claim total victory. Toshiba's decision effectively ends the...

News.(Company overview)
February 27, 2008... Curtiss-Wright Controls has acquired the business and assets of Pentland Systems, the Livingston-based supplier of rugged signal acquisition systems. Of particular interest for Curtiss-Wright will be the Scottish company's expertise in...

News.
February 27, 2008... MIPS Technologies is to offer 65nm HDMI video interface intellectual property (IP), partially developed with NXP. "This is the first 65nm intellectual property for HDMI," MIPS business development manager Mark Tyndall told EW. "Very close...

News.
February 27, 2008... Hospital bedside terminal supplier Jaotech has teamed up with US healthcare infotainment company 5Plus3 Digital to supply systems for 10,000 hospital beds in the US. Surrey-based Jaotech is a two year-old start-up which designs and...

News.
February 27, 2008... ACW Technology has been selected by Thales UK to supply fully tested printed circuit board assemblies for a target locator system, the surveillance system and range finder (SSARF), for the UK's front line forces. At its facility in Tonypandy,...

News.
February 27, 2008... Prices are plummeting, demand is erratic, output is soaring, so the industry is piling on new production capacity. That's the semiconductor industry. Toshiba and SanDisk have inked a preliminary deal to get their next joint venture fab...

News.
February 27, 2008... Zetex delivers the best returns of any high technology company in the world today, according to Hans Rohrer, Zetex' CEO. "Our dividend is 6.5 per cent and, at out current share price [36p], we're the highest yielding technology company in...

News.
February 27, 2008... XMOS Semiconductor will use the CoSy compiler development system from ACE Associated Compiler Experts in the development of the tool suite for its XCore software defined silicon processor. An event driven, multi-threaded processor, XCore is...

News.
February 27, 2008... Current customs and import controls are failing to tackle the rising numbers of counterfeit components entering eth UK, says industry body Intellect. "It is important is recognition of the threat posed by counterfeit components to the UK...

News.
February 27, 2008... RF Micro Devices is bidding to encourage the development of multi-band and multi-mode 3G handsets with a RF transmitter system which supports all major WCDMA frequency bands. The company is offering a dual-path, multi-band power amplifier...

News.
February 27, 2008... Reputed to be the equivalent of focusing all light falling on the Earth onto a grain of sand, the University of Michigan laser produces 300TW for 30fs and will focus down to 1.3[micro]m. "The beam measures 20 billion trillion W/cm2," said the...

News.
February 27, 2008... 2007 was not a brilliant year for the European components distribution which was 1.9 per cent down and ended with a 6 per cent fall in the fourth quarter. But according to the semiconductor distributor and manufacturer association (DMASS),...

News.
February 27, 2008... Peratech aims to commercialise smart textile technology through a licensing deal for its Eleksen smart clothing, textile sensor business with a recently formed spin-out called QIO Systems. Peratech purchased the Eleksen wearables business...

News.
February 27, 2008... Silicon Labs has developed an 8051 microcontroller with integrated DC-DC converter that runs at full speed at down to 0.9V so will run from a single cell battery. The part is aimed at portable consumer, personal medical and industrial...

Technology.
February 27, 2008... 27feb083Dlabs - not 2 DMS-02 EVM is 3DLabs' reference design for a multimedia player. Although not yet equipped with a GPS receiver, the unit is pictured with its internal floating point array rendering accurate building models over a...

Technology.
February 27, 2008... 27feb08VectorFields ... .....2, 3 Signature Diamond speakers from B&W West Sussex loudspeaker company B&W has used Opera electromagnetic software from Oxfordshire's Vector Fields to design its drivers. "The Opera software...