Electronics Weekly articles from July 2003

Electronics Weekly archives from July 2003

Students: A big STEP for small firms.
July 2, 2003... The DTI-backed STEP programme has been set up to change the expectations of UK electronics degree students and help them embrace the SME community. MELANIE REYNOLDS reports A total of 135 STEP electronic projects were arranged in 2002 and...

Electronics Weekly is published by.
July 2, 2003... Levelling the playing field for power supply MTTF BYLINE: Rob Hill Inconsistencies in mean time to failure (MTTF) ratings make power supply lifetime comparisons difficult. Increased reliability requirements are driving the focus on...

The waking giant.
July 2, 2003... The advance of China into the electronics market is gathering pace, with electronics design houses making as big an impact as factories. DAVID MANNERS, ED SPERLING, KENJI TSUADA and WILLIAM ZHANG report It took Japan three decades after...

Earth Simulator heads top 500 supercomputer list.
July 2, 2003... The 21st TOP500 supercomputer list has been unveiled. The Earth Simulator built by NEC and installed last year in Yokohama retains the number one position, with a Linpack benchmark of 35.86Tflop/s. Number two is the HP-built ASCI Q...

Toshiba claims world first with SOI DRAM technique.
July 2, 2003... Toshiba has developed an embedded DRAM cell for silicon-on-insulator (SOI) system chips, claiming it to be a world first. "Toshiba aims to apply the new technology to mass production of system LSIs for broadband network applications in...

Technology island.
July 2, 2003... Mauritius, one time home of the Dodo and favoured holiday destination of the rich and famous, is hiding a secret behind the palm tree-fringed beaches that benefits electronics firms. HARRY YEATES visited Radiometrix on the island Here's a...

Cambridge firm speeds test of boards via enhanced JTAG.
July 2, 2003... Richard Ball A JTAG system that speeds up board testing and can test non-JTAG components has been developed by Cambridge firm XJTAG. "It came about as a requirement from our own engineers, who were seeing more BGA packages," said Simon...

Philips incubator hatches Mirror TV.
July 2, 2003... The first commercial product to come out of Philips' HomeLab technology incubator, Mirror TV is a 43, 68 or 76cm LCD integrated into a mirror. It uses 'polarised mirror technology' which Philips claims transfers close to 100 per cent of light...

PCI Express extension 'will reduce costs in equipment'.
July 2, 2003... Richard Ball An extension to the PCI Express architecture, dubbed Advanced Switching, will save telecoms equipment makers time and money, according to supporters of the scheme. The Advanced Switching specification has received...

Quantum entangled photons transmit to separate receivers via free-space links.
July 2, 2003... Harry Yeates Researchers in Austria have transmitted pairs of photons in a state of quantum entanglement to two independent receivers using free-space links. The receivers, 150m and 500m respectively from the entangled photon source, had...

Distributor consolidates sales teams.
July 2, 2003... Distributor Silica is consolidating its UK sales activities and will close its sales office in Slough. The semiconductor distributor, with lines including TI, Intel and Analog Devices, is combining its internal sales teams at its Stevenage...

Asia leads Europe in race to bring fibre closer to customer.
July 2, 2003... David Manners Asia is ahead of Europe in bringing fibre nearer to the end-customer with European telecommunications network operators making no significant attempts to bridge the gap. When asked at the Fibrecomm2003 conference whether...

Orange to grant customer wishes.
July 2, 2003... Providing content that customers want to use, was one of the key targets announced by mobile phone operator Orange last week. The company said it would open dedicated centres in Europe, the US and Asia early next year to help developers...

Microsoft to end Eurodis partnership.
July 2, 2003... Eurodis Electron has parted company with Microsoft, a move the distributor said would allow it to widen its portfolio of embedded operating systems. Microsoft was the only software franchise held by Eurodis. The firms began their...

Plasma antenna firm looking for funding.
July 2, 2003... Plasma Antennas' directional aerial uses a solid-state plasma in a silicon wafer to direct RF energy. For commercial reasons, details outside the company are scarce. The aerial appears to rely on the ability of a conductive electron...

Telecoms is on way back, reports GSM Association.
July 2, 2003... Melanie Reynolds The telecoms industry is beginning to find its way back after the slump it has suffered following the 3G mobile phone spectrum auctions, according to industry body the GSM Association. "Operators have paid the tax for...

IBM material has tunable properties; g.
July 2, 2003... A synthetic route to materials with potentially tunable magnetic, electrical and optical properties has been demonstrated by researchers at IBM in the US. The technique involves co-crystallising particles of the semiconductor lead selenide...

Europe still important for chip design despite offshore manufacturing craze.
July 2, 2003... Richard Wiison Europe remains a major target for semiconductor firms looking for design-in business. Despite the move of production to lower cost regions in China, the level of design activity in applications such as wireless, consumer...

NHS costs 'will add [pounds sterling]150m to employers' insurance'.
July 2, 2003... The Engineering Employers' Federation says proposals to recover NHS costs in all compensated workplace accidents will add [pounds sterling]150m to employers' liability insurance. UK manufacturing will suffer from the Health and Social Care...

DTI policy knocks UKinterest in 65nm process technology project.
July 2, 2003... Harry Yeates The manager of a Europe-wide R&D project developing 65nm process technology has told Electronics Weekly that a lack of DTI support is hampering UK companies wanting to get involved in the programme. The work, running as...

Memec to cut jobs as European business operation restructured.
July 2, 2003... Richard Wilson Memec is reorganising its European distribution business with the loss of up to 200 jobs as it merges two of its business divisions. The firm is also creating a division to represent overseas manufacturers in Europe. ...

Fabless chip industry 'only growing sector'.
July 2, 2003... The fabless semiconductor industry was the one growing sector of the whole semiconductor market last year, according to the chairman of UK analysts Future Horizons, Malcolm Penn. The fabless sector grew 18 per cent while the top ten...

Scientists grow nanotubes straight onto microcircuits.
July 2, 2003... The wispy strands in this photo are carbon nanotubes deposited onto a micron-scale wire through localised resistive heating. The technique, developed by engineers at the University of California, Berkeley, enables nanowires to be grown...

How the plasma antenna works.
July 2, 2003... Plasma Antennas' directional aerial uses a solid-state plasma in a silicon wafer to direct RF energy. For commercial reasons, details outside the company are scarce. The aerial appears to rely on the ability of a conductive electron...

WLAN chip market worth $1.1bn by 2007.
July 2, 2003... The wireless LAN (WLAN) chip market is predicted to reach $1.1bn in revenues by 2007, pushed along by increased adoption of wireless networking and hotspots. According to research firm IDC, the world WLAN chip market will increase at a 13...

GSM guard band proposals will hit 3G use.
July 2, 2003... A proposal that current GSM guard bands be used in licence-exempt, short range, low power applications will lead to problems later when the spectrum has to be given over to 3G mobile use, according to comms experts. "Once you give out...

DRAM maker doubles output despite losses.
July 2, 2003... Despite making losses on its DRAM sales last year, Powerchip Semiconductor of Taiwan says it intends to double its output this year and will invest $2bn in a second 300mm wafer fab. The investment will allow it to take 20 per cent of the...

Water cooler for notebooks.
July 2, 2003... NEC has developed a slim-line piezoelectric pump-driven water-cooling module for notebook PCs. "This water-cooling module is developed by integrating the pump and the tank with the aluminum radiation plate that contains the water...

Display company creates grey-scale demonstrator.
July 2, 2003... Malvern-based ZBD Displays has produced a four-level grey-scale demonstrator for its bistable LCD technology. "Many people mistakenly believe the technology is only capable of producing black and white displays," said Henri-Luc Martin, CEO...

Intel adds Madison core devices to Itanium family.
July 2, 2003... Intel has added to its 64-bit Itanium 2 processor family with devices based around the Madison core. Madison gives 30 to 50 per cent performance gains over the previous core, codenamed McKinley. Compatibility is maintained, said the firm,...

Marconi to supply exchange broadband equipment to BT.
July 2, 2003... Steve Bush Marconi has won a contract to provide BT with broadband access equipment for telephone exchanges. "The deal is expected to be worth tens of millions of pounds per year," said a Marconi spokesman. "It is difficult to say...

May chip sales up two per cent.
July 2, 2003... Chip sales reached $12.5bn in May, up two per cent from April's figure, according to the Semiconductor Industry Association (SIA). This is the third consecutive monthly increase, said the SIA, and a rise of ten per cent over May 2002. ...

The wider angle.
July 9, 2003... The three principle proposals for the low-power radio technique ultra wideband go before the IEEE next week as the standardising of the technology continues. HARRY YEATES looks at what the contenders have to offer It's shake-down time for...

Engineers feeling touchy with technology over the Internet.
July 9, 2003... Steve Bush Engineers in the Virtual Reality Laboratory at the University of Buffalo have developed a way to transmit the sensation of touch over the Internet. "As far as we know, our technology is the only way a person can communicate...

Monitoring the gas supply.
July 9, 2003... JIM O'CALLAGHAN finds a solution to a gas problem in chilly Wyoming Energy producers face many hostile environments from extreme heat to temperatures well below freezing. In addition to fluctuating temperatures, unstable prices in natural...

The challenge for wireless networks.
July 9, 2003... Ruud Riem-Vis and Michel Chevroulet piece together a wirelessly connected sensor network As wirelessly connected sensor networks become more important, one challenge is to develop low-power, low cost, robust networks. A solution developed...

Walking with control.
July 9, 2003... Radiometrix has helped modern prosthetics with its latest product. Sabanthan Paramananthan explains Imagine walking along, but then having to descend a slight slope. Suddenly one of your legs locks, then skates out of control and over you...

Delivering inflight GSM.
July 9, 2003... A development by GSM firm Altobridge could allow secure GSM handset use during flights, says MIKE FITZGERALD A report issued earlier this year by the UK Civil Aviation Authority (CAA), 'Effects of Interference from Cellular Telephones on...

Toshiba Pb-free in two years.
July 9, 2003... Toshiba's products will be lead-free, and contain no other Europe-defined hazardous substances, within two years. "The position is that Toshiba will replace currently used toxic substances by alternatives by March 2005 for all of its...

Solder goes into space.
July 9, 2003... NASA will investigate soldering in the International Space Station (ISS) using an experiment named ISSI, the in-space soldering investigation. "ISSI will investigate soldering practices and behaviour in a microgravity environment, an area...

Disc firm to invest [pounds sterling]90m in Northern Ireland plant.
July 9, 2003... Richard Ball Hard disc drive maker Seagate Technology is to invest [pounds sterling]90m over the next three years in its Springtown, Northern Ireland manufacturing plant. Seagate's move is supported by Invest NI, which is offering to...

NEC notebook PC has internal fuel cell.
July 9, 2003... Steve Bush NEC's fuel cell at a glance Average output 14W Maximum output 24W Voltage 12V Cell weight 900g Fuel weight 300g PC+cell weight 2 kg PC size 288x280x40mm Run time 5hour approx. Fuel 10%...

We need rubber bands.
July 9, 2003... A large number of users have been attracted to the licence-exempt 2.4GHz frequency band compounded by the arrival of Bluetooth and 802.11 wireless LANs. So how will they all fit in? MELANIE REYNOLDS asks those in the know The door to the...

Chip floor planning assembly tool will make life of designers easier.
July 9, 2003... A chip floor planning and assembly tool for mixed signal designs has been developed by Mentor Graphics Called ICassemble, the tool carries out floorplanning of the chip, and constraint-driven routing at all stages of the design. ...

Money talks in a world of new science.
July 9, 2003... Harry Yeates explores the phenomenon that is gripping government investment - nanotechnology The Government last week announced that it is investing [pounds sterling]90m over six years to help commercialise nano-technology. The money will...

West Europe connector market worth m4.9bn in 2002.
July 9, 2003... The west European connector market was valued at E4.9bn in 2002, down 19 per cent from 2000's level, according to the latest figures from Reed Electronics Research. The continuing weakness in both the fixed line and mobile network...

Lumileds details 3W Luxeon LEDs.
July 9, 2003... Lumileds has revealed more details of its imminent 2W and 3W Luxeon LEDs. Light outputs of white devices will be 50 and 70 lumens respectively, company European marketing manager Mark Van Den Berg, told Electronics Weekly. Maximum current...

Kids design solar-powered model cars.
July 9, 2003... A model car design competition for schoolchildren using solar panels and PIC microcontrollers has been set up by the education division of Rapid Electronics. The Colchester-based distributor is organising the competition, initially for...

CML deliberates on VoIP after fabless acquisition.
July 9, 2003... Richard Wilson Voice-over-IP devices is one area CML Microsystems is looking to address following the acquisition of German DSP and microcontroller developer Hyperstone. The Essex-based mixed signal chip manufacturer is paying [pounds...

CDT rethinks strategy as OLED market slips back.
July 9, 2003... Richard Wilson Cambridge Display Technology (CDT) does not expect the organic LED display market to produce substantial sales volumes for at least another two years. As a result the company has restructured its manufacturing and...

Polycrystalline TFTs point to higher resolution matrix LCDs.
July 9, 2003... Harry Yeates Korean researchers have developed a structure for polycrystalline silicon thin film transistors (TFTs) that could make higher resolution, more reliable active matrix LCDs. These displays currently use amorphous-silicon...

ST claims world's first volume 0.18[micro]m CMOS-embedded flash.
July 9, 2003... STMicroelectronics is claiming the world's first volume production embedded flash memory in 0.18[micro]m CMOS. The technology helps to save on silicon area for lower cost implementations by using a cell size of 0.37[micro]m2, which ST...

Broken leg gives young inventor top YEDA award.
July 9, 2003... Melanie Reynolds A device that warns when a patient has put too much weight on a broken leg was the winner of the Duke of York's Award for the most imaginative concept at this year's YEDA Awards. The inventor, 16 year old Yarm student...

Soldertec offers cheaper Pb-free advice.
July 9, 2003... Advice on going lead-free and on EU directives has got cheaper, following re-organisation at industry body Soldertec, which has re-named itself Soldertec Global. "There was only one membership price: [pounds sterling]5,000 per year. This...

Education system not delivering, says ETB.
July 9, 2003... Not enough time is being devoted in the education national curriculum to help children develop "engineering friendly skills", such as "thinking outside the box", according to research by the Engineering and Technology Board (ETB). The...

Telecoms majors shun start-ups.
July 9, 2003... The major telecoms companies are choosing to reduce risks by continuing to work with established companies rather than start-ups, according to Agere Systems. "The start-ups are on the way, but the tier one customers we have don't want to...

Change in brain function suggests mobile hazard.
July 9, 2003... A study showing mobile phone use can improve short-term memory in men, also indicates that exposure to RF emissions could cause damage to the brain. "That mobile phone exposure influences brain function in any way could possibly mean that...

Ultra buys GPS company.
July 9, 2003... Defence electronics firm Ultra Electronics has bought Southampton-based SML Technologies, which supplies charting, radar, and GPS systems to the military, off-shore oil and marine industries, for [pounds sterling]6.5m in cash. SML employs...

Alternative stock listing chased by Densitron.
July 9, 2003... Densitron Technologies, the electronic displays and computer products group, has applied to be listed on the Alternative Investment Market (AIM), as opposed to the official list of the London Stock Exchange. Densitron's finance director...

Orthogon in $7m funding deal to push 5.8GHz plan.
July 9, 2003... Harry Yeates Orthogon Systems, the non-line-of-sight (NLOS) wireless communications start-up, has raised $7m in venture capital backing to accelerate sales of its licence-exempt 5.8GHz systems. In addition the company is establishing a...

Microsoft to use wizards in embedded systems push.
July 9, 2003... Richard Wilson Microsoft plans to use its off-the-shelf approach to selling software in the desktop PC market to grow its share of the embedded systems market. The company hopes to capitalise on the proliferation of its Windows OS to...

MP says more women needed at board level.
July 9, 2003... Melanie Reynolds The engineering industry needs more women employed at board level, proving it is committed to equal opportunity, if it is to attract more women into the profession. "If you want to attract women into this fantastically...

Bookham buys US optics firm.
July 9, 2003... Bookham Technology is buying a California-based design and manufacturing company specialising in thin-film filters and other components for fibre optic telecoms. Cierra Photonics employs about 40 people in the US, and will cost the UK...

Faster growing fabless firms put brakes on consolidation.
July 9, 2003... The much-predicted consolidation in the semiconductor industry is not happening because fabless companies are growing faster than the overall market, according to market analyst Future Horizons. While the big integrated device manufacturers...

NEC claims longest single-photon transfer over cheap optical fibre.
July 9, 2003... At over 100km, NEC is claiming the world's longest single-photon transmission in low-cost optical fibre - but Toshiba got there first. "NEC [and partners] have succeeded in realising the world's first 100km long single-photon transmission,...

Comms conference scrutinises frequency allocation.
July 9, 2003... Global radio frequency allocation has been under scrutiny at the month-long World Radiocommunication Conference 2003 in Geneva. The work "has an enormous impact on the information society and the decisions taken are critical to allowing ITU...

Remploy's six-shooters gunning for electronics.
July 9, 2003... David Manners Remploy is to create a stand- alone electronics division, based on six manufacturing sites focused entirely on electronics, with the aim of doubling the company's turnover in the next two years. The electronics activities...

EU software patents hit traffic jams.
July 9, 2003... Sheer weight of submissions is delaying the European directive on software patents. "It is the volume of views that need to be considered," said a British Patent Office spokesman. The European Parliament was due to vote on the...

AMI aims gate arrays at 'higher density' users.
July 16, 2003... AMI Semiconductor has launched 0.18[micro]m gate arrays, aimed at the FPGA conversion and medium density Asic markets. "It's in reply to our customers who need higher density," said Vince Hopkin, v-p of AMI's Asic business unit. The...

IP firm gets $10m with second funding round.
July 16, 2003... Reconfigurable semiconductor IP firm Elixent has closed a second round of funding worth $10m. The money will go to expand its engineering group and speed delivery of its technology to customers, said the firm. "The commercial progress we...

Invensys sells off US business to repay debts.
July 16, 2003... Engineering firm Invensys has sold its Teccor Electronics business to Littelfuse for $44m in cash. Invensys will use the proceeds to pay off debt. Headquartered in Texas, Teccor produces ICs and products for the telecoms equipment...

Polight looks beyond holographic storage.
July 16, 2003... Cambridge holographic data storage start-up Polight Technologies is exploring alternative applications for its materials technology, but says it is still pursuing storage products. "We're still interested in holographic data storage," said...

Fabless wireless LAN chip company ships dual-band access point development kit.
July 16, 2003... Harry Yeates Fabless wireless LAN chip firm Synad Technologies has begun shipping development kits for its dual-band, single-radio AgileAP access point. The design uses the company's Mercury5G chipset with software to interleave the...

Sandia shows tungsten lattice emissions.
July 16, 2003... Harry Yeates The researchers at Sandia National Labs who last year (EW 15/05/2002) showed that a lattice of tungsten could theoretically shift infra-red light to shorter wavelengths have demonstrated actual emissions from their structure....

2001 picks up Halo line.
July 16, 2003... Halo Electronics has added to its UK sales activities with the appointment of 2001 Electronic Components as a franchised distributor. According to the distributor, the US supplier's comms magnetics products "offer the features and benefits...

Standards bodies define combined Firewire/Ethernet physical layer.
July 16, 2003... Richard Ball A combined Firewire/Ethernet physical layer is being defined by the 1394 Trade Association and the IEEE standards body. The design will allow 1394b (Firewire at 800Mbit/s) links over 100m of category 5 cabling using the...

Mentor revives PADS PCB design for low end...
July 16, 2003... Mentor Graphics has resurrected the PADS name for circuit board designers, bringing out three toolsets for low to mid end PCB layout. Called PADS Suites, the Windows-based tools address the "ready-to-use" sector, said the firm, which it...

Scope is fastest: 20Gsamples/s per channel.
July 16, 2003... Steve Bush X-stream LeCroy uses a streaming architecture in its high-end scopes. "It enables high data throughput even when performing complex measurements on long data arrays," claims the firm. The front-end 8-bit A/D converters...

FPAA gets reconfiguration.
July 16, 2003... Anadigm has added dynamic reconfiguration capability to the free version of its field-programmable analogue array design software. AnadigmDesigner2 version 2.3 "provides trial users full access to all the software's features, including the...

Silicon moulds home for live cells.
July 16, 2003... Scientists at Harvard Medical School and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology have created an artificial circulatory system capable of keeping human cells alive for a week. They used silicon etched with a network of channels to pattern...

UK laser micromachining firm wins funding for Eureka project to develop organic OLEDs.
July 16, 2003... Harry Yeates Eureka funding announ-ced by the DTI last week included [pounds sterling]260,000 for Oxford laser micromachining firm Exitech, which has joined an Italian-led project developing flexible OLEDs for automotive lighting...

Youngest Fellows for Academy.
July 16, 2003... The Royal Academy of Engineering has elected its youngest ever Fellows. Civil engineer Paul Westbury (33), and Colin McInnes (35), Professor of Space Systems Engineering at the University of Glasgow, were elected at the Academy's AGM last week....

PCB body supports use of halogen flame retardants.
July 16, 2003... Steve Bush US printed circuit board industry body IPC has produced a report supporting the use of "today's" halogen flame retardants in PCB making, and rubbishing attempts to ban them. According to the report "there simply was no...

Matsushita starts shipping samples of 0.18[micro]m FRAM.
July 16, 2003... Matsushita says it will ship its first samples of embedded FRAM (ferroelectric RAM) made on a 0.18[micro]m process next month. FRAM offers non-volatility, lower power consumption than flash and a higher write speed, and is attractive as the...