Electronics Weekly articles from January 2004

Electronics Weekly archives from January 2004

iFire claims largest flat panel screen using electroluminescent technology.
January 14, 2004... Toronto-based iFire Technology has made a 86cm (34in.) flat panel TV screen using its proprietary thick film dielectric electroluminescent (TDEL) technology. The colour prototype has a native 1280x768 (HDTV) resolution, "and is the largest...

Selling for engineers.
January 14, 2004... Marketing wins out over engineering whichever way you look at it, so it's time the engineers redressed the balance and enlightened their employers. GEOFF VARRALL looks at how engineers can improve their selling skills ompany spending on...

MPEG committee recognises a face.
January 14, 2004... The MPEG (Moving Picture Experts Group) committee has adopted face recognition technology jointly developed by NEC and Samsung for MPEG-7, which provides tools to describe content for multimedia retrieval. The NEC-Samsung technology, MPEG-7...

Fujitsu's 35[micro]m solder bumps.
January 14, 2004... Fujitsu has created 35[micro]m pitch solder bumps for flip-chips. The technique is based on photo-lithograph and plating, with improved photo-resist and process control to cut the problem of un-even bump plating and adds a bump leveling step....

Marconi chief gets [pounds sterling]10m-a-year share package following US sale.
January 14, 2004... Marconi's chief executive Mike Parton is to receive a share option package worth around [pounds sterling]10m a year following the sale of a US business unit. The sale of the firm's North American access business unit for around [pounds...

Connector market sees growth.
January 14, 2004... The worldwide connector market recorded its fourth consecutive double-digit percentage gain in orders, according to the latest figures from market watcher, the Bishop Report. November saw a 29 per cent increase in orders. August was up 16.5...

UCLA scientists develop low-energy monitor robot.
January 14, 2004... Researchers at the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA), are developing a low-energy autonomous monitoring system, and have deployed it in the tree tops of a forest in Washington State. Part of UCLA's Networked Infomechanical Systems...

Will it be a Happy New Year for technology?
January 14, 2004... Electronics Weekly threw away its crystal ball this year and instead STEVE BUSH and HARRY YEATES asked industry experts what is likely to happen in displays, multimedia DAB and RF CMOS in the next 12 months. Displays "This is the year...

Researchers integrate carbon nanotubes in silicon circuits and point way to a nose.
January 14, 2004... Researchers at the University of California, Berkeley, and Stanford University have made a silicon integrated circuit including carbon nanotubes and could make an electronic nose. "Until our work, no group has publicly reported success in...

Voice recognition start-up controls portables.
January 14, 2004... Equivox, a new company set up to exploit the voice recognition expertise of Reading signal processing specialist Domain Dynamics, which recently went into administration, is on the point of launching a voice control interface for mobile...

Firms poised to fill NAND supply gap.
January 14, 2004... Unnamed entrants to the NAND flash market will ease the current shortage by the third quarter, according to M-Systems, although leading suppliers Toshiba and Samsung are predicting shortages lasting into 2005. "I expect to see a balance of...

SRAM market on the mend driven by mobiles - report.
January 14, 2004... The SRAM market is finally recovering, says analyst iSuppli, with both revenues and units picking up to reinforce expectations that the market will grow by over 25 per cent in 2004. SRAM units increased 13.4 per cent in Q3 on Q2 and revenues...

Video module smaller than credit card.
January 14, 2004... A video camera module smaller than a credit card, and capable of being networked over GSM or a wireless LAN, is being developed by Cambridge electronics systems consultancy, Applied Concepts. The device, which can include up to 512Mbyte of...

Watkiss employee scoops LCD prize.
January 14, 2004... The winner of an Eddie LCD development system supplied by Intelligent Display Solutions is Henry Macnair-Smith who is in software development at Watkiss Automation in Sandy, Bedfordshire. Watkiss designs and manufactures print finishing...

Toshiba develops tiny hard disk drive with multi-gigabyte data storage.
January 14, 2004... Toshiba has developed what it claims is the world's smallest hard disk drive - at 22mm (0.85in.). "The miniature drive, just the size of a [pounds sterling]1 coin, is the first hard drive to achieve multi-gigabyte data storage at a sub-one-inch...

Students to benefit from Sun initiative.
January 14, 2004... Scottish university students are to benefit from a [pounds sterling]5.6m university-industry knowledge transfer programme funded by Sun Microsystems and the Edinburgh and Lothian branch of Scottish Enterprise. SUNStart, a 75-student, three-year...

Customers wait on talk of buyer for failed display firm.
January 14, 2004... Failed Scottish display maker MicroVue has customers waiting as it goes into liquidation, and unnamed parties are interested in acquiring the firm or its assets. "There are manufactures waiting for product," Greg Truman, MD of CRL Opto which...

Economist pushes benefits of radio spectrum trading.
January 14, 2004... Allowing UK radio spectrum to be bought, sold, and have the use to which it is put changed "has... the capability to unleash an awful lot of creative activity," according to Professor Martin Cave, an economist at the University of Warwick...

Masterclasses bring factory back from edge.
January 14, 2004... The Welsh facility of US analytical instrument manufacturer PerkinElmer has achieved a healthy order book two years after facing closure. The firm, which employs 86 staff, was given two leading edge drug discovery products to make - called...

Staff's children design calender.
January 14, 2004... International Rectifier has printed a 2004 desktop calendar featuring designs created by children of employees at the company's manufacturing facility in Newport, Wales. The calendar celebrates the firm's recent ISO 14001 environmental...

Start-ups 'no comment' on future plans.
January 14, 2004... Two early stage start-ups have become apparent to Electronics Weekly, neither ready to discuss their plans in detail yet. Level 5 Networks is a "fabless semiconductor and software company focused on Ethernet connectivity", it said. Based in...

Comms IC market drives soaring foundry growth.
January 14, 2004... The foundry business grew over 30 per cent last year and will grow over 40 per cent this year, mainly driven by the communications IC market, according to US analysts IC Insights. In 2003, the pure-play foundry IC market increased 31 per cent,...

House of Lords backs [pounds sterling]100m plan idea.
January 14, 2004... that the Government had, in the words of the Institute of Electrical Engineers (IEE), "failed to grasp the importance of system-on-chip (SoC) design to the UK". It said existing microelectronics research and development is too fragmented in the...

TeraView wins [pounds sterling]6m funding to develop its prototypes.
January 14, 2004... TeraView, the Cambridge firm developing terahertz imaging technology, has secured [pounds sterling]6m in second round funding. The money, which follows a first round totalling [pounds sterling]3.75m, will be used to complete the development of...

UK makes splash in concept car.
January 14, 2004... Splashpower, the Cambridge firm developing a wireless charger for mobile devices, has demonstrated its technology in a concept car, in conjunction with a Bluetooth-based hands-free system from automotive systems developer Visteon. Phones are...

Govt opens 5.8GHz band in effort to increase broadband availability.
January 14, 2004... Government plans will make the 5.8GHz band C spectrum available to a wider range of fixed wireless access users including community, health and educational users. The aim, said the Department of Trade and Industry, is to increase the...

Researchers' high-k work leads to gate insulators.
January 14, 2004... Researchers in Germany and Austria have found that high-k dielectric materials based on strontium can be grown directly on a silicon substrate, and show promise for use as gate insulators in future process generations. As process geometries...

Nokia sees Q4 handset sales surge.
January 14, 2004... The mobile phone industry received a New Year lift when the leading handset supplier Nokia said it anticipated better than expected sales and profits for the fourth quarter of 2003. "The strong seasonal development exceeded even our own...

DTI funds flexible firms' plan for industry body.
January 14, 2004... UK flexible display and flexible electronics firms are forming an industry body. Flexynet, as it is called, has been awarded [pounds sterling]100,000 funding by the DTI to get it off the ground. "Flexynet is a group of OEM and SME companies,"...

Spin transistor is a gain for sensors.
January 14, 2004... Researchers at Oxford University's Clarendon Laboratory have developed a spin transistor which exhibits a gain of greater than unity. Since the discovery of the GMR effect at the end of the 1980s, sensors with acute sensitivity to magnetic...

Researchers confirm Nel antiferromagnetic theory.
January 21, 2004... An antiferromagnetic molecule has confirmed a fifty year-old magnetic theory and could make a quantum computing bit. First made in Moldova by Grigore Timco, the molecule has a ring of eight chromium atoms, with alternating atoms polarised spin...

Design for the future.
January 21, 2004... Component obsolescence eventualities in upgraded and future products are most efficiently tackled at the design stage, second servicing and use of FPGAs can help, but practical hurdles still remain, writes RICHARD WILSON omponent...

Managing to succeed.
January 21, 2004... Obsolescence and equipment design is a multi-faceted process that needs good management, says MIKE TRENCHARD is our experience at the Component Obsolescence Group (COG) that design techniques for tackling potential component obsolescence...

Low budget design left Beagle bark lost in space.
January 21, 2004... The stringent limit placed on the mass of Beagle-2, the Mars lander was the key factor dictating design decisions that led to it not carrying equipment such as a full-time beacon. The lack of such kit, and use instead of predetermined transmit...

Zilog returns in good shape to tackle new opportunities.
January 21, 2004... Zilog, the 30 year old company which produced the Z80, has emerged after significant business restructuring. "Two years ago Zilog had $300m of debt and was focused on communications, based on Tensilica cores for VOIP [voice over IP]. We wasted...

Pace denies R&D move to India as UK team shrinks.
January 21, 2004... Pace Micro Technology has denied it is shifting its R&D efforts overseas despite a reduction in UK R&D staff in the last year and a current outsourcing programme employing 25 engineers in India. The firm's recently appointed worldwide director...

LEDs debut in car headlights.
January 21, 2004... LEDs are to be used in headlights for the first time as daytime running lamps in the Audi A8 W12. "This development opens up a whole new era in lighting technology. By the year 2010, these light sources will have won their place in dipped...

Photonic crystal fibre converts solid state laser to broadband light source.
January 21, 2004... BlazePhotonics has unveiled a photonic crystal fibre that converts a pulsed solid state laser into a broadband light source. Input light at a nominal 1,060nm is converted to a spectrum extending from green to infra-red with a spectral flatness...

Raising a Spirit to haunt the red planet.
January 21, 2004... The first of NASA's Martian rovers has arrived on the red planet and begun its mission. Electronics Weekly took a quick look into Spirit, the roving science lab. At 174kg and 1.6m long, Spirit dwarfs Sojourner, the last rover to traverse the...

Sandia sees brighter future for green LEDs.
January 21, 2004... Sandia National Labs in New Mexico is looking to improve green LEDs. "Deep green LEDs are very difficult," Sandia researcher Andy Allerman told EW. "Only a few companies make them and they are not nearly as efficient as blue LEDs." Deep, or...

Ride-in robot is powerful tool.
January 21, 2004... How to bake a sweet server Japanese firm Tmsuk has announced 3.5m tall T52 Enryu HyperRescueRobot. The 5,000kg machine, which spans 10m with its arms out, is not so much robot but a wearable assistant as the operator can ride inside. Power...

National Physical Labs sets up lead-free workshop additions.
January 21, 2004... The National Physical Laboratory (NPL) has set further dates for workshops on lead-free implementation. The one-day events are held at the NPL's facility in Teddington, Middlesex but can also be held at company's sites if four or more people...

Chip market to grow strongly, but less in UK.
January 21, 2004... A 'champagne and caviar' year is predicted for the worldwide semiconductor industry in 2004, but the UK market is expected to show little growth. "I'm expecting a champagne and caviar year," said Malcolm Penn, chairman of Future Horizons....

Prof cuts cheese with UV laser.
January 21, 2004... The University of Wisconsin-Madison is cutting cheese with a 266nm UV laser. Most other lasers cook as they cut, it said. "Photoablation occurs when a laser produces photons whose energies exceed the energies of the bonds holding molecules...

Digital stamp makes UK debut.
January 21, 2004... The Royal Mail has launched its first digital stamp, which allows users to print stamps straight onto envelopes from their PCs. The system, called SmartStamp, is aimed at businesses and allows users to ditch traditional stamps for a design of...

Mixed-signal firm doubles revenues with acquisition.
January 21, 2004... Mixed-signal company AMI Semiconductor has doubled its European revenues to 40 per cent of the market since it acquired the mixed-signal business of Alcatel Microelectronics two years ago. Much of the increase is owed to the automotive market,...

Samsung closes Teesside plant and cuts 425 jobs.
January 21, 2004... Samsung is to close its Teesside plant with the loss of 425 jobs at the end of April, despite glowing results for the firms memory and TFT flat panel operations in Q4 2003. The plant in Wynyard manufactures microwaves and computer monitors....

US body plans lead-free talks.
January 21, 2004... US trade body IPC, which works for the PCB industry, is organising a series of seminars covering lead-free production and the impact of the European legislation. The European leg will be held in Frankfurt on October 20 to 22. "With just over...

Tera Systems lands in UK to support European chip design tool customers.
January 21, 2004... Chip design tool firm Tera Systems has opened a European office in the UK and appointed a general manager for the region. Tera Systems specialises in front-end IC design tools. It defines a series of blocks called TeraGates, such as adders,...

Infineon has designs on China.
January 21, 2004... Infineon Technologies plans to create an IC design centre at Xi'an in China which may have up to 1,000 staff by 2007. It will work on projects for all of the firm's business groups, but an initial focus will be ICs for communications,...

Brammer receives bid for Livingston rental business.
January 21, 2004... The rental equipment division of Livingston is up for sale, and owner Brammer has received a bid for the loss-making business. However, a spokesperson for the London Stock Exchange listed company said the firm was unable to divulge the name of...

Radio spectrum plan not a benefit - Nokia.
January 21, 2004... Changes to the way in which radio spectrum is allocated in the UK, so that licences can be bought, sold and altered, may not necessarily benefit everyone, Nokia's expert has told Electronics Weekly. Proponents of a spectrum market argue that it...

100mm PC uses 1GHz Transmeta.
January 21, 2004... This 100x80x25mm 'ultra personal' computer from US start-up OQO uses a 1GHz Transmeta processor and runs standard Windows XP. Inductive pen-based navigation technology from Japanese firm Wacom enables mouse functions to be performed without...

MoSys to cut leakage current at 0.13[micro]m.
January 21, 2004... Memory design firm MoSys has unveiled a six-transistor SRAM that aims to cut leakage current in 0.13[micro]m circuits. Current leakage is halved, said the firm, compared with standard 6T-SRAM. Die size is not increased, and no special processes...

TI clocks first DSPs at 1GHz as 90nm ; process technology comes on line.
January 21, 2004... Texas Instruments has started sampling its first 1GHz-clocked DSPs. The firm's first DSPs fabricated on 90nm process technology should be in volume production in the fourth quarter of the year. "These devices will qualify the 90nm process,"...

Wind River joins CE Linux Forum.
January 21, 2004... Real-time software firm Wind River Systems has joined the CE Linux Forum (CELF), a group of companies developing the open source operating system as a platform for consumer electronics. The move is the latest by the company to improve its...

Technology locates 999 mobile callers.
January 21, 2004... A system enabling the emergency services to locate people making 999 calls from mobile phones was launched in London last week. The system, enhanced location information, is based on Cell ID and the accuracy of the system depends on the size of...

Robot scientist does experiments.
January 21, 2004... Professor Ross King from the University of Wales, Aberystwyth has developed a robot scientist. "This research is very exciting as we have given the robot the ability to design the experiments and interpret the data for us," said King. According...

Laser interference technique creates 3D photonic crystals.
January 21, 2004... The University of Oxford has invented a way to make 3D photonic crystals. "Oxford has developed a technique which utilises the interference pattern between four laser beams to produce a custom lattice structure in a photo resist," said Isis...

Oxford physicists tune gain by varying magnetic field.
January 21, 2004... A bipolar transistor in which the gain can be tuned by varying an applied magnetic field has been demonstrated by physicists at Oxford University. The researchers are now looking for funding to develop the concept into a device with...

Taiwanese firm set to join NAND flash memory gang.
January 21, 2004... Powerchip Semiconductor of Taiwan will be the next new entrant to the booming NAND flash memory market. "We have partners in the US and Taiwan with which we're developing a product which will be sold under our own name later this year," a...

Chip bosses dismiss SoC network plan.
January 21, 2004... Proposals for a virtual design network of universities and companies fosteering system-on-chip (SoC) design have been described as unworkable by two semiconductor executives. The proposal for a virtual research network linking design teams in...

Obsolescence issues outweighed by costs.
January 21, 2004... Cost pressure and inexperience are limiting awareness amongst young designers of the long term pitfalls of component obsolescence, according to a group of experienced engineers. "Many design engineers are not fully aware of how obsolescence...

Sequoia adds wireless control.
January 21, 2004... Sequoia Technology has taken a licence to design in and sell a 468MHz wireless control chip. "The embedded wireless market has become very active," said Nick Lidington, MD of Sequoia Technology. Lidington believes there are more firms serious...

UK PCB firm to open in France.
January 21, 2004... One Way Circuits, a Norfolk PCB manufacturer, is negotiating to open a manufacturing operation in Toulouse. Although Mike Urry, founder and managing director of One Way, admitted it is still early days, the firm could take on one of Alcatel's...

PWM device push.
January 21, 2004... Wolfson has entered the market for class D pulse width modulation (PWM) devices. Called WM8608, it can provide up to 7.1 channels of PWM output.

Making data work for you.
January 28, 2004... Products like mobile phones, MP3 players and digital radios need cheap, low power DSPs that can manipulate data. Richard Ball looks at how some firms are making digital signal processing work for the consumer adar, sonar, mobile phone...

Getting more for less.
January 28, 2004... Process technology and market forces are pushing DSP prices lower making very high performance devices suitable for consumer designs in digital video and high end audio applications, writes Richard Wilson ommunications systems and high-end...

Fuel and oxidiser mixture means CMR cells can be stacked tightly on top of each other.
January 28, 2004... Scientific Generics spin-out CMR Fuel Cells is a Cambridge-based firm with a novel fuel cell technology. Unusually, the compact mixed-reactant (CMR) cell, as its name suggests, is supplied with fuel and oxidiser as a mixture rather than...

Generics Group spin out develops novel fuel cell.
January 28, 2004... Generics Group has spun out CMR Fuel Cells with venture funding from energy technology specialists Conduit Ventures and Carbon Trust Investments. Cambridge-based CMR has invented a fuel cell that uses mixed reactants (see Technology page 7). It...

Upping the ante.
January 28, 2004... FPGA firms started adding DSP hardware to their devices about three years ago and since then developments have gathered pace as designers look for greater flexibility in their products. Chris Evans-Pughe finds out what is going on ver a...

Oxford lab grows blue-violet laser diodes with MBE.
January 28, 2004... Blue-violet laser diodes have been grown using molecular beam epitaxy (MBE) for the first time at Sharp Labs of Europe. The Oxford-based lab said using MBE could be cheaper than the existing technique of metal-organic chemical vapour deposition...

Flash memory process is modified to deliver byte-alterable memory.
January 28, 2004... Philips Semiconductors has adapted its two transistor NOR flash memory process to create embedded EEPROM delivering a byte-alterable memory. Compared to conventional EEPROM there is a 75 per cent decrease in cell-size and reductions in erase...

Digital drive delights Wolfson CEO.
January 28, 2004... The next silicon upturn will be driven by the digital consumer electronics sector, believes Wolfson Microelectronics' CEO David Milne. The market rates Wolfson because they see it well positioned to ride a consumer-driven up-cycle and because...

Partition benefits EDGE.
January 28, 2004... Development of multimedia applications such as streaming video on EDGE and W-CDMA mobile phones will benefit from partitioning baseband and applications processors, according to TTPCom. Its reference design keeps the baseband modem independent...

DTI blamed as UK falls behind Europe in fuel cell technology.
January 28, 2004... Britain is lagging both Europe and the US in research and development of fuel cell technology. "There's been a lack of Government funding and poor policies. The DTI has a very small programme; [pounds sterling]1m to [pounds sterling]2m a year,"...

Modem for RNLI could save lives.
January 28, 2004... RF design firm Wood & Douglas has created a radio modem for the RNLI that links weather stations in the Solent to a public website. Access to real-time weather data is expected to save lives of sailors. Wood & Douglas had to pay careful...

UK valve gets a pinch of medical technology.
January 28, 2004... Digital valve developer Camcon has launched a pinch valve for medical applications. The Cambridge firm said its valve is ideal for controlling medicine dosages, while low power operation could help make patients more mobile. Camcon's technology...

LCD glass panels yield 12 screens.
January 28, 2004... Production of LCD glass panels measuring 1,500x1,800mm has begun in Japan, according to Sharp. The firm said its Kameyama plant is the first to go into production using 'sixth generation' glass. Each panel yields 12 LCD screens measuring 26...

Welsh speed drive firm creates 30 R&D jobs after 50% growth.
January 28, 2004... About 30 research and development and production jobs are to be created by Welsh electronics company Invertek Drives over the next six months. The firm designs and makes electronic AC variable speed drives used to control the speed of electric...

Virtual test users see lower prices.
January 28, 2004... PC-based test system supplier National Instruments has followed the test industry trend for lower prices with reductions of up to 25 per cent for 13 of its most popular data acquisition modules. There will, for example, be a [pounds...

Cadence collaborates on verification.
January 28, 2004... Cadence has linked up with 0-In Design Automation to gain access to verification technology such as assertion checkers, protocol monitors, assertion synthesis, and assertion management technology. The library of around 100 components will be...

Intel builds up wireless portfolio.
January 28, 2004... Intel has strengthened its backing of WiMAX, the wireless standard for metropolitan area networks. WiMAX, or IEEE802.16 to give it its proper name, promises 70Mbit/s and cell sizes measuring tens of km. "The wireless service provider and...

Mesophotonics wins $10m funding in move to opto IC production.
January 28, 2004... Mesophotonics, the optical components spin-off from Southampton University, has raised $10m in a second funding round as it moves towards initial commercial production of devices aimed at the consumer sector. "One of the reasons investors are...