Electronics Weekly articles from January 2007

Electronics Weekly archives from January 2007

News.
January 17, 2007... Nervous about the blue DVD format battle, Warner Home Video has revealed 'Total Hi Def', an optical disc which has content in the HD DVD format on one side and the Blu-ray format on the other. "While consumers rave about the quality of high...

News.
January 17, 2007... By David Manners reporting from Las Vegas NXP Semiconductors is about to go into production with a new technology that it claims will reduce the cost of packaging for solid state lighting to half that of anything else on the market....

News.
January 17, 2007... The industry has been stunned by the Government's failure to support the building of Plastic Logic's $100m chip production facility in the UK rather than Germany. Despite investing over [pounds sterling]1.5m of public money in the...

News.
January 17, 2007... UK start-up firm Pufferfish has created a giant spherical TV for use in advertising and promotions. The PufferSphere, which was developed at the University of Edinburgh, is the company's first dynamic digital display system. It makes use of...

News.
January 17, 2007... By Richard Wilson richard.wilson@rbi.co.uk A French company claims to have come up with a better way of converting standard definition video into HDTV. The company, called Let It Wave, has a patented up-conversion and frame rate...

News.
January 17, 2007... Researchers at the Fraunhofer Institute for Ceramic Technologies in Dresden have developed an etch-resistant film that allows deeper and narrower "trenches" for memory production. The work was carried out in support of manufacturer Qimonda.

News.
January 17, 2007... By Steve Bush steve.bush@rbi.co.uk The University of Southampton has begun installing optoelectronic fab equipment to replace the optical clean room lost in a fire in the Mountbatten Building in 2005. "The money is coming from our...

News.
January 17, 2007... By David Manners reporting from Las Vegas Samsung has come up with a technology allowing local broadcasting stations to get into the TV-to-the-handset market inexpensively. "Broadcasters can use current spectrum, and they don't...

News.
January 17, 2007... Apple's launch of its first mobile phone, the iPhone, set off a flurry of speculation as to which semiconductor firms have been designed into the handset. Although Apple has not disclosed which suppliers are being used for the product,...

News.
January 17, 2007... Smart fabric company Eleksen has been included in Microsoft Windows SideShow, a computer auxiliary display product for use in soft-goods such as bags, backpacks and clothing. Last week, Eleksen also signed an agreement with Apple Computer...

News.
January 17, 2007... By steve Bush steve.bush@rbi.co.uk Scottish Enterprise is to build a facility for start-ups centred on a cleanroom. "We wish to establish a multi-occupancy property to provide post-incubation companies requiring cleanroom...

News.
January 17, 2007... Dialight has warned that sales will be some [pounds sterling]1m lower than expectations, which caused the firm's shares to fall some 12 per cent to reach 227.5p. Shares in Wolfson gained about 8.5 per cent after news of Apple's iPhone was...

News.
January 17, 2007... Ofcom is proposing a 'combinatorial clock auction' for selling licences for the 10GHz, 28GHz, 32GHz and 40GHz spectrum bands this year. The price per lot is set by the auctioneer and bidders indicate how many lots they wish to bid for at...

News.
January 17, 2007... By David Manners reporting from Las Vegas Pulse-Link, which has a UWB technology called C-Wave capable of delivering 1Gbit/s data rates over coax, wireless, twisted pair and powerline simultaneously, is preparing a second generation...

News.
January 17, 2007... Raytheon Systems has made Richard Daniel up to its board of directors. He joined the firm in 2001 and has 20 years experience in the defence industry and holds a BSc in Electrical and Electronic Engineering from UMIST.

News.
January 17, 2007... That the Americans are taking the consumer electronics industry seriously is beyond any question when you look at the line-up of speakers at the 40th Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas last week. Bill Gates, Ed Zander, CEO of Motorola,...

News.
January 17, 2007... Bob Conrad is ???? at Fairchild Semiconductor Last year the company set a target of $500m analogue revenues by 2008 and a 50 per cent gross margin. How is Fairchild doing in achieving that? At the current time, Fairchild Semiconductor...

News.
January 17, 2007... BT is launching an updated version of BT Fusion, its FMC (fixed mobile convergence) offering, using WiFi to replace Bluetooth as the short range communication technology. UMA allows a mobile handset to automatically switch between wireless...

News.
January 17, 2007... By Richard Ball richard.ball@rbi.co.uk Xilinx has updated its FPGA design software with a system that speeds up recompilation of designs. Making changes to a design's VHDL or Verilog normally forces the whole design to be...

News.
January 17, 2007... Sensor and airborne systems firm Selex is expanding its R&D activities in Edinburgh with the support of a [pounds sterling]2m investment grant from the Government. Around 60 engineering jobs will be created in a project to develop...

News.
January 17, 2007... Truncated pyramids on the end of cantilevers are one part of a die stacking scheme from the University of Southampton. See Research Watch page 7.

News.
January 17, 2007... Engineers will be able to achieve Chartered Engineer (CEng) and Incorporated Engineer (IEng) status via a work-based route in the future with the introduction of a Government-backed initiative. In five years, over 20,000 engineers are...

News.
January 17, 2007... The FCC, the US telecoms regulator, is to take action against several US wireless operators over their failure to achieve the target set for customers to have E911 location capability. The E911 legislation required that, by the end of 2005,...

News.
January 17, 2007... By Nick Flaherty editorial@electronicsweekly.com Manufacturers are demonstrating systems for military and aerospace applications this week based on the latest VPX standard. GE Fanuc Embedded Systems is using its acquisition of UK...

News.
January 17, 2007... By David Manners david.manners@rbi.co.uk Texas Instruments has adopted solid state lighting sources for its latest digital light processing (DLP) flat panel display technology. "LEDs can switch very fast, and DLP mirrors switch...

News.
January 17, 2007... SiConnect has recruited Grant Masom as non-executive chairman. Masom has 20 years of senior executive experience in a range of telecoms, networking and IT service sectors. He was chairman with Amino Technologies and guided the company from a...

News.
January 17, 2007... Wolfson Microelectronics has acquired a Scottish firm and design team with micro electromechanical system (MEMS) technology. Wolfson is paying [pounds sterling]2.9m for Oligon, a MEMS sensor start-up located at the Scottish Microelectronics...

News.
January 17, 2007... Berkshire-based optoelectronic device and display supplier Pacer has set up an office in the US, appointing David House to head up the North American sales team. Pictured (l to r) are: Chris Tassell, chairman Graham Rothon, MD and David House,...

Features.
January 17, 2007... Location and navigation systems are by nature technologies 'on the move'. Today they are moving in a different direction - away from traditional vehicular applications and increasingly into pedestrian ones. It is a change that will require...

Features.
January 17, 2007... Designers who can not wait for the WiMAX IEEE 802.16e standard to stabilise can take a lead in WiMAX product development with flexible design tools. Broadband wireless access via WiMAX technology has been projected by many research studies...

Technology.
January 17, 2007... 100[micro]m pyramids help align die for stacking Researchers at the University of Southampton have invented a way to align die for stacking. The technique involves etching pyramidal pits in the upper surface of chips and forming...

Technology.
January 17, 2007... New York-based Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute has created carbon nanotubes with metal end terminals. The team starts by depositing gold or copper inside the nanometre pores of an alumina template to make metal nanowires. This assembly is...

Technology.
January 17, 2007... By Steve Bush US torch maker SureFire is to use Cree's 7090 XR-E white power LEDs in three flashlight models. The performance of the XR-E, it produces typically 80 lm of luminous flux at 350mA (70 lm/W), has allowed Cree to challenge...

Technology.
January 17, 2007... By Richard Ball richard.ball@rbi.co.uk Chip design software with the potential to dramatically speed simulation and verification has been unveiled by Synplicity. Called TotalRecall, the technology takes FPGA prototyping and...

Technology.
January 17, 2007... Engineers at UC San Diego have synthesized p-type ZnO nanowires. "In contrast, making n-type ZnO nanowires has not been a problem," said San Diego. "Zinc oxide nanostructures are incredibly well studied because they are so easy to make. Now...

News.
January 24, 2007... Sheffield Hallam University is developing 'canary test' robots which will enter dangerous buildings first to assess for structural soundness, airborne chemicals and locate small fires. Jacques Penders, a senior research fellow at Sheffield...

News.
January 24, 2007... A second wave of manufacturing is moving to China as small UK firms look to follow large companies in taking advantage of the low labour costs, according to UK manufacturing services firm Components Bureau. "We are dealing with more...

News.
January 24, 2007... Scottish Enterprise is putting [pounds sterling]2.77m into a demonstration centre showing hydrogen fuel cell technology. The centre will include combine solar, wind and geothermal source heat pumps with hydrogen and fuel cell energy storage...

News.
January 24, 2007... Process equipment firm ASML has reported record sales in 2006. The firm, which is a good weather vane for the chip manufacturing market, said the overall semiconductor lithography equipment market grew by an estimated 34 per cent while its...

News.
January 24, 2007... By Steve Bush steve.bush@rbi.co.uk Swiss current sensor firm LEM has introduced Minisens, a non-contact AC and DC current sensor in an SO8 package surface-mounted over the track it is monitoring. "Minisens integrates, within one...

News.
January 24, 2007... More women are studying engineering, but failing to take it up as a profession according to a survey funded by the Economic and Social Research Council (ESRC). The study, led by Professor Barbara Bagilhole of Loughborough University, found...

News.
January 24, 2007... By Richard Wilson richard.wilson@rbi.co.uk It is likely that a major semiconductor company will join the Crolles2 Alliance following the decision of founding member NXP Semiconductors to pull out of the international process technology...

News.
January 24, 2007... German wireless company Hopling Technologies has teamed with Fujitsu Microelectronics to develop a Linux-based WiMAX baseband system-on-chip (SoC) reference kit. With spectrum and standards issues still to be resolved, the WiMAX broadband...

News.
January 24, 2007... A model of a driverless bus is on display at the Science Museum. The driverless bus was developed by Capoco Design and the Royal College of Art and a prototype is planned for next year. The bus will navigate via magnets embedded in the...

News.
January 24, 2007... Advanced Power Components has signed a distribution agreement with VPT, a power distribution firm for military, aerospace, space and other high reliability markets. VPT's customers include BAE Systems, Smiths Industries, Thales, Lockhead...

News.
January 24, 2007... Jennic has launched a recruitment drive for embedded software and wireless applications engineers in the UK. The firm, which is based in Sheffield, is looking for a dozen engineers particularly with experience of wireless mesh networks and...

News.
January 24, 2007... By Nick Flaherty editorial@electronicsweekly.com Frontier Silicon has raised [pounds sterling]16m to see its multi-standard mobile TV chip development business through to profitability in 2009. The company's DAB business was...

News.
January 24, 2007... CSR's shares gained by over 15 per cent to reach 714p after the firm revealed the acquisition of two firms, Cambridge Positioning Systems and NordNav Technologies. CSR is paying between $75m and $110m for the two firms. Its aim is to integrate...

News.
January 24, 2007... By Melanie Reynolds melanie.reynolds@rbi.co.uk CSR has acquired two companies and brought GPS location technology into its portfolio. In the most significant move to date in the firm's strategy to diversify beyond Bluetooth into...

News.
January 24, 2007... A range of fuel cell fans, available in 12, 24 or 48Vdc, has been released by EBM-Papst, distributed in the UK by Challenger Components. www.challengercomponents.com

News.
January 24, 2007... Researchers from the University of Essex are searching for volunteers to take part in a two year study to establish if there are any short-term health effects from exposure to Tetra mobile radio masts. The research, funded with over [pounds...

News.
January 24, 2007... Frontier Silicon has always done things differently. Set up to take advantage of the new DAB digital radio standards four years ago with designs from Imagination Technology and money from a DAB operator, it has so far kept a low profile in...

News.
January 24, 2007... Steve Lane is commercial director at contract design firm Triteq Which trade bodies are you a member of? Are they worth the fee? We have recently joined ISIS, the Oxford Innovation Society and this is very exciting for us as a company....

News.
January 24, 2007... CSR and CMAC CEOs to give talks at MicroTech 2007 The MicroTech 2007 show and conference, run by the International Microelectronics and Packaging Society UK, has attracted a range of senior executives this year. The CEOs of CSR and CMAC...

News.
January 24, 2007... By Steve Bush steve.bush@rbi.co.uk AMD is developing an open standard for small x86 motherboards, aiming to boost the adoption of reduced-size PCs, also known as 'small form factor' computers. Called DTX, "the specification will...

News.
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News.
January 24, 2007... Manchester-based clockless chip technology firm Silistix has raised $6m in a funding round. The success of the funding round, which now includes Partnerships UK, is being seen as a vote of confidence for the firm's self-timed on-chip...

News.
January 24, 2007... National Instruments UK is holding a series or free technical symposiums for engineers. Five events are being held, staring in Newbury on February 6 and finishing in Dublin on February 22. www.ni.com/uk/techsym

News.
January 24, 2007... High-performance computing chip designer Clearspeed more than tripled its turnover last year to [pounds sterling]1.9m after big deals with Sun Microsystems and the Tokyo Institute of Technology. Last month the Bristol-based firm also...

News.
January 24, 2007... Lattice Semiconductor has introduced a lower cost option for OEMs using its high-end SC FPGAs in high volume applications. Using a scheme called FreedomChip, it will map customer designs into FPGAs that have not passed 100 per cent defect...

News.
January 24, 2007... NEC Electronics has introduced 55nm cell-based Asics. Called CB-55L, "the latest addition to NEC's Asic line-up has superior power consumption characteristics, demonstrating a 40 per cent reduction in power from the previous 90nm CB-90M",...

News.
January 24, 2007... By Steve Bush steve.bush@rbi.co.uk Southampton-based touch sensor chip firm Quantum Research Group is taking legal action against Apple over the capacitive sensing technology used in iPod Click Wheels. "We are suing Apple over...

News.
January 24, 2007... Distributor Anglia has taken on a range of sockets from Multitech which can be used with GSM wireless and Ethernet modems. Pictured are (l to r): Serena Sutton, account manager at Multitech, Tim Shaw, divisional marketing manager at Anglia and...

Features.
January 24, 2007... The Southern Electronics and Manufacturing Exhibition's programme of free seminars have a strong focus on environmental legislation this year. The issue is so important that the seminar 'Developments in RoHS legislation worldwide, focusing...

Features.
January 24, 2007... Jamie Furness EDE development manager, Farnell InOne The recent rapid changes within the electronics industry, such as the advent of RoHS, have resulted in electronic design engineers (EDEs) looking for additional support and increased...

Features.
January 24, 2007... Diamond Electronics will be introducing low cost piezo ceramic switch technology from D-Switch at the Southern Electronics show. The piezo switch technology allows designers to create zero travel, pressure sensitive keyboards and individual...

Features.
January 24, 2007... Andrew Ferrier commercial manager, Components Bureau Components Bureau has been working with Asia for over 20 years which has enabled it to build up a lot of experience to draw on. This gives a great advantage when dealing with the...

Features.
January 24, 2007... Hungerford-based Triteq is planning to use the Southern Manufacturing and Electronics Exhibition to launch its growth plans for 2007. "Southern Manufacturing 2006 kick-started what has been a phenomenal year for Triteq. We have expanded...

Features.
January 24, 2007... solid state lighting brightens show RS Components will be showcasing its solid state lighting, displays and wireless technology products at this year's exhibition. The distributor says the solid state lighting market is highly...

Technology.
January 24, 2007... Brazilians play ball with lightning and silicon A team from Brazil may have created ball lightning. Following a theory that ball lightning is silicon vapour - formed as forked lightning hits soil - burning in air, the Federal University of...

Technology.
January 24, 2007... Plasmoid thrusters last longer in space travel The University of Alabama in Huntsville is investigating plasmoid thrusters for deep space travel. With no direct contact between plasma and generator, these thrusters have the potential...

Technology.
January 24, 2007... By Steve Bush Maxim has announced a low-dropout (LDO) linear regulator for cars that produces 5V at 250mA from a 3.5 to 72V input. The secret of the MAX5092B's wide input range is a switching boost pre-regulator that cuts in...

Technology.
January 24, 2007... By Steve Bush steve.bush@rbi.co.uk Hewlett Packard has proposed a space-saving FPGA architecture that uses a nanowire cross-bar switch array for interconnection. Dubbed field-programmable nanowire interconnect (FPNI), the concept...

Technology.
January 24, 2007... Design Competition ZigBee is a low data rate short-range wireless system aimed at building and home automation for applications including: lighting and heating control automatic curtains wireless burglar alarms utility meters and medical...

News.
January 31, 2007... Mobile phone firms still need to deal with the problems of mobile TV transmission working alongside GSM signals, according to RF chip firm Microtune. Phil Spruce from Microtune said, when the GSM power amp turns on it interferes with the...

News.
January 31, 2007... By Steve Bush steve.bush@rbi.co.uk Dutch flexible display firm Polymer Vision has chosen the UK for its first manufacturing fab, aiming to be in production this year. According to Polymer Vision chief operating officer, Guido...

News.
January 31, 2007... By Melanie Reynolds Suzanne Stamford, an electronics platoon commander for the 3rd Battalion Royal Electrical and Mechanical Engineers, has won the 2006 Mary George Memorial Prize. The award, which is part of the IET (Institution of...

Features.
January 31, 2007... By Colin Weaving European technical director at Future Electronics One of the most common uses of RF technology today is for cable replacement in industrial, consumer and other devices. This normally requires the application of...

Features.
January 31, 2007... 31jan07DISTtdc1/2.jpg Design support in wireless communications By Simon Taylor, product manager at TDC Broad generalisations are dangerous, but 90% of the time, on the first call/ meeting we have with about a project, the customer...

News.
January 31, 2007... By Richard Wilson richard.wilson@rbi.co.uk Cambridge Broadband is recruiting engineers for its wireless systems design and assembly activities after raising $22.5m venture funding. The wireless transmission equipment supplier said...

News.
January 31, 2007... 31jan07DIST2001.jpg Caption: Gordon Serpis from 2001 with Wen Wang of computer board supplier Axiomtek. The Independent Distributor - a case for reinvention? By Gordon Serpis General Manager With the absence of the boom and...

Features.
January 31, 2007... Where do old standards go to die? The PC/104 x86 single board computer format has been around since 1992, serving the embedded designer in areas where size matters. There have been attempts in the past to update it, adding in the PCI standard...

Features.
January 31, 2007... 31jan07DISTrutronik.jpg Rutronik has identified an opportunity to increase sales of wireless products in the UK. The distributor has set up a team of wireless engineers to support the sales team and FAEs. "With the Wireless Development...

News.
January 31, 2007... 31jan07sayinger.jpg Necip Sayiner is president and CEO of RF CMOS semiconductor specialist Silicon Laboratories Will RF CMOS win out against GaAs and others? The trend for RF to be developed in CMOS will continue and relegate GaAs...