Electronics Weekly articles from July 2007

Electronics Weekly archives from July 2007

News.
July 4, 2007... The femtocell industry has set up its own trade association to develop open standards to link GSM and 3G mobile phones to the network from basestations in the home. The Femtocell Forum launched on Monday this week [July 2] with seven...

News.
July 4, 2007... By Melanie Reynolds melanie.reynolds@rbi.co.uk The status of UK engineers in Europe has been undermined by the Government's decision to redefine a 'professional engineer' as an accredited degree graduate with no work experience,...

News.
July 4, 2007... Applied Kilovolts, the West Sussex-based manufacturer of high voltage power supplies, has acquired Brandenburg from US power supply giant Astec. The company has had a cash injection of [pounds sterling]3.93m from private equity firm Pi...

News.
July 4, 2007... By David Manners david.manners@rbi.co.uk In a sign of things to come, the first mainland China fabless semiconductor company held its IPO last week when Spreadtrum Communications of Shanghai launched on the Nasdaq exchange. With...

News.
July 4, 2007... The lack of UHF spectrum available for DVB-H mobile TV broadcasts makes a nonsense of the European Commission's expected choice of the technology for Europe, according to analyst firm Ovum. "Let's start by asking what is the greatest...

News.
July 4, 2007... The University of Southampton has developed a remote monitoring system for buried high voltage power cables. "These cables are typically 20km long with a joint every kilometre or so," Dr Paul Lewin of the University's high voltage lab told...

News.
July 4, 2007... Filtronic's shares also fell over 11 per cent to reach 126.75p after the firm said the loss of a key customer has put the financial viability of its Newton Ayclife fab into question. E2v Technologies' shares fell by almost 10 per cent....

News.
July 4, 2007... UK-based PCB designer Quantum CAD has been awarded the Green Dragon Environmental Standard. The standard is an initiative aimed at encouraging businesses across Wales to reduce their carbon footprint. The firm introduced a web-linked design...

News.
July 4, 2007... By Richard Wilson richard.wilson@rbi.co.uk Video compression specialist Display Link is working on a wireless version of its video-over-USB technology. Cambridge-based Display Link has already won design-ins for its USB...

News.
July 4, 2007... Samsung Electronics is targeting a multi-standard channel decoder and multi-band RF tuner mobile TV chipset at the European market. The firm said that Europe is an important market for the multi-standard decoder (S3C4F31) and multi-band RF...

News.
July 4, 2007... As Gordon Brown sets about reshaping the Government in his own image, much of the UK's electronics industry will be expecting little or no change in Labour's approach to the high-tech industries. After all, the new Prime Minister has been...

News.
July 4, 2007... Mark Cambridge is managing director of touchscreen technology firm Zytronic How many simultaneous contacts can your screens handle? Multi-touch performance has been the dream for traditional touch technologies for years. Our 'Projected...

News.
July 4, 2007... By Bill Jacobs A new US/UK defence deal will enable the transfer of key electronic equipment and information to the US. The treaty, agreed by former prime minister Tony Blair and President George W Bush, will also give the UK access to...

News.
July 4, 2007... Fife-based Semefab is to offer prototype MEMS services, and will build a third wafer fab to increase productivity on its existing MEMS line. "We have set up an open-access wafer fab for small quantity work, we could run just three wafers,"...

News.
July 4, 2007... XJTAG is rolling out its boundary scan tool through an "XJTAG Inside" brand that will be featured on partner's products. Last week, Cambridge-based XJTAG said it had reached an agreement with German PCB test firm Technotime Electronic to...

News.
July 4, 2007... Imagination Technologies and its Pure DAB radio division are to offer a 'buy now' option for songs that will download a tune with the touch of a button. "Currently if you are looking to sell your music via the radio, there is a gap between...

News.
July 4, 2007... Filtronic's profitability will not be significantly affected by the pull-out of customer RF Micro Devices, according to a spokesman, although there will be a substantial impact on revenue. "Cazenove was forecasting [pounds sterling]34m...

News.
July 4, 2007... The Europe-wide nanoelectronics public-private research partnership, ENIAC, is to be launched by the European Commission with E3bn of funding from industry, European member countries and the Commission. ENIAC is expected to "create a strong...

News.
July 4, 2007... This picture of silicon nanowires by Cinzia Casiraghi on a substrate was highly commended in this year's Owlstone photography competition at the University of Cambridge's Department of Engineering. The material was grown by oxide assisted...

News.
July 4, 2007... Dear Editor I just caught up with your article about the fears over WiFi and RF exposure levels (EW 06/06/07). The press do seem to have veered away from the mobile phone exposure somewhat, but what amazes me is that no one has (well I...

Features.
July 4, 2007... Manufacturer of the Year Award sponsored by Avnet Manufacturers, whether they are original equipment manufacturers (OEMs) or electronic manufacturing service (EMS) providers, represent one of the main technology and commercial foundations...

Features.
July 4, 2007... When considering entries for this year's Manufacturer Award category, the judging panel will be looking for those riginal equipment manufacturers (OEMs) or electronic manufacturing service (EMS) providers which can best demonstrate technical...

Features.
July 4, 2007... The adoption rate of analogue switches continues to increase across a broad range of end equipment including consumer electronics (mobile and audio applications), industrial systems and networking equipment. Each application maintains very...

Features.
July 4, 2007... The Institution of Engineering and Technology (IET) is offering financial awards, totalling almost [pounds sterling]1m, to engineering students to encourage a greater take up of engineering and technology courses at university The aim is...

Features.
July 4, 2007... A series of technical seminars on technology which combines functional and boundary scan testing are to be held in Bracknell, Cambridge and Birmingham next week. The technology, called JET (JTAG Emulation functional Test), integrates...

Features.
July 4, 2007... The use of IP (Internet protocol) for networking is continuing to grow and will remain a major technology moving forward. With many advances in IP networking protocols and technologies in recent years, the University of Surrey is presenting...

Features.
July 4, 2007... Using lower supply voltages means lower power consumption but also leads to lower signal levels. This in turn leads to more noise which worsens the signal-to-noise ratios. So how do you determine the compromises that must be made in this...

Features.
July 4, 2007... Jul 11: Successful RF PCB Design - Oxford www.conted.ox.ac.uk/electronics Jul 16-19: Virtuoso Analogue Design Environment - Bracknell www.cadence-europe.com/education Jul 19: Advanced IMS/SIP - Oxford ...

Technology.
July 4, 2007... Benchmarking organisation EEMBC has released results for NXP's 208MHz 90nm ARM9-based LPC3180 microcontroller. "NXP Semiconductors is the first to publicly demonstrate detailed performance and energy tradeoffs using the EnergyBench...

Technology.
July 4, 2007... Belgium research lab IMEC has released source code for scalable video coding (SVC). "The optimised code shows a factor of two speed improvement compared to the standardisation reference code," said the lab. "IMEC has also implemented a...

Technology.
July 4, 2007... 04jun07smtLaser.jpg The 6W surface-mount laser with its glass lid removed. Osram has announced a high-power surface-mount laser. "To our knowledge it is the first surface-mount laser over 1W," Dr Jorg Heerlein senior laser manager...

Technology.
July 4, 2007... 04jul07woodsHoleJaguar.jpg and Puma Massachusetts-based Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution has created a pair of autonomous robots to explore hydrothermal vents under the arctic ice "Most of the instrumentation that researchers would...

News.
July 11, 2007... Hitachi is developing a passive technique for touch sensing on mobile phones that does not involve the traditional sensor technology and could make touch screens more reliable. Instead it uses ordinary thin film transistors (TFTs) around...

News.
July 11, 2007... A UK consortium had begun work on a [pounds sterling]3m Government-funded project to transfer white LED production to cheap silicon wafers. "The big thing about the project is to reduce the cost," Dr Mike Astles, manager for the project at...

News.
July 11, 2007... Nicholas Harrigan, a postgraduate student in quantum optics at Imperial College, London, was the winner of NESTA FameLab 2007. Harrigan gave a presentation on the science of microwaves at the live final of the competition which seeks to find...

News.
July 11, 2007... Renesas has produced an 8-bit microcontroller aimed specifically at motor control. "With everything on chip that users need including oscillators, analogue inputs and timers, the H8/36079GF group of microcontrollers offers an integrated...

News.
July 11, 2007... CSR saw its shares increase by over 10 per cent to reach 821p. The Bluetooth chip firm has benefited from putting in an appearance in the iPhone. Although the firm could not confirm it is in the phone, a tear-down by analyst iSuppli found the...

News.
July 11, 2007... One of the people responsible for making the Bristol area the largest cluster of chip designers in Europe, Pasquale Pistorio, is to receive an honorary doctorate from Bristol University next Monday. "If STMicroelectronics hadn't taken over...

News.
July 11, 2007... By Nick Flaherty editorial@electronicsweekly.com A start-up from the University of Glasgow has raised [pounds sterling]400,000 to commercialise high performance microwave transistors and provide a European source. XanIC is...

News.
July 11, 2007... E2v Technologies is supporting two Britons who are driving a factory-prepared Aston Martin V8 Vantage from Tokyo to London, along the newly completed Asia-Pacific Highway, to increase road safety awareness and raising money to help save...

News.
July 11, 2007... Avnet Time sees potential to significantly grow its share of the UK component distribution market following the acquisition of Flint Distribution. "We are looking to strengthen local UK and Ireland markets, as these are very important for...

News.
July 11, 2007... The upgrading of UMA (unlicensed mobile access) software to allow its operation over 3G mobile networks is looking more likely, according to analyst firm ABI Research. "Until recently, proponents of competing fixed-mobile convergence...

News.
July 11, 2007... By Melanie Reynolds The European Institute of Technology (EIT) will be launched gradually, with two to three Knowledge and Innovation Communities (KICs) established by 2013 under the latest proposals from the European Commission. The...

News.
July 11, 2007... The ShakerScope has been developed by two doctors in Swansea. The device was inspired by Trevor Baylisl wind-up radio and is kinetically powered. Shaking the scope for 30 seconds provides 10 minutes of power. www.shakerscope.com

News.
July 11, 2007... Dear Editor The change in engineer status revealed in EW 04.07.07 may undermine today's engineer's case. Things were slightly different 65 or so years ago. Mr Churchill arranged state bursaries at Oxford for some 40 boys to read...

News.
July 11, 2007... Osram researchers have a 500 lm car headlight LED, as well as achieving their brightest ever reds and greens. "We have further developed our Ostar Headlamp LED, which has been certified according to the automotive standard," said the firm....

News.
July 11, 2007... What an astonishing week. The amazing Apple PR machine successfully ensured such a deafening buzz over the iPhone that it seemed to drown out virtually all other news, with major news organisations giving its launch greater prominence than most...

News.
July 11, 2007... Is it getting harder for technology firms to attract VC funding? Confidence has returned to the investment market and the UK probably now has the most vibrant capital market in Europe. However, the VCs are taking extra care in how they...

News.
July 11, 2007... The UK market may have changed in the last turbulent decade, the volume manufacturers have gone and local contract manufacturers are more influential, but distributors find themselves winning a bigger share of the market than ever before. ...

News.
July 11, 2007... Bluetooth is set to become the de facto wireless technology for the last 25 metres of the Internet, according to John Scarisbrick, CEO of Cambridge-based Bluetooth chipset supplier CSR. Scarisbrick disputes any suggestion that the Bluetooth...

News.
July 11, 2007... UK mobile TV tuner start-up Mirics Semiconductor has raised $10m from the venture capital arm of Intel for its next chip development and to build its sales, marketing and application support. "With a huge increase in mobile TV-enabled...

News.
July 11, 2007... The results of the UK's Technology Strategy Board's 2007 Spring Competition will be released next week. The competition has [pounds sterling]100m to give away to companies developing and researching technologies. The funds area earmarked by...

News.
July 11, 2007... Broadcom has asked the US government not to overturn an International Trade Commission action brought last month against Qualcomm for infringing one of its patents. Broadcom argued that a Presidential veto would weaken US efforts to strengthen...

News.
July 11, 2007... Distributor Trident has announced the 4.9in. QVGA multi-colour thin-film electroluminescent (EL) display from Planar. The display has an operating temperature range of -50[degrees]C to +85[degrees]C and a viewing angle greater than 160 degrees....

News.
July 11, 2007... The global demand for wireless machine-to-machine (M2M) modules is expected to grow by 31 per cent between 2006 and 2012, according to analyst firm ABI Research. Europe is considered to be the most advanced market for M2M while Asia-Pacific is...

News.
July 11, 2007... By David Manners david.manners@rbi.co.uk XMOS Semiconductor has developed a class of semiconductors it calls software-defined semiconductor devices (SDS), aimed at bringing low-cost user programmability to the consumer electronics...

News.
July 11, 2007... A rise in the DRAM price last week saw Micron Technology talking up prospects for the DRAM industry. Until last week prices had fallen so low Samsung had been turning away business from tier one customers. Prices fell 35 per cent in...

News.
July 11, 2007... PicoChip expects to triple revenues this year, and triple them again next year to about $15m a quarter, the level the firm has identified as suitable for an IPO, according to CEO Guillaume d'Eyssautier. "We expect to get to $15m a quarter...

News.
July 11, 2007... XP Power and Toshiba are sponsoring David Hempleman-Adams (pictured) on his world record balloon flight attempt across the north Atlantic. He is piloting the gas balloon with an open wicker basket on a 3,425km journey from St John's,...

News.
July 11, 2007... The US Portable Rechargeable Battery Association is calling for restraint in possible legislation restricting the carriage of lithium-ion batteries on public transport. "PRBA's goal is to ensure that both US and international regulatory...

Technology.
July 11, 2007... The US Argonne National Laboratory has delivered the last of 40 'undulators' to the first hard X-ray free electron laser - slated for operation at Stanford in 2009. Undulator are precision arrays of NeFeB permanent magnets and vanadium...

Features.
July 11, 2007... It is hard to imagine innovation in something as simple as a resistor, but somehow the manufacturers keep on developing new products and expanding existing ranges. Welwyn Components has added to its PCF series, which is now available in...

Features.
July 11, 2007... One common trend in switch-mode power supplies, microprocessors and digital circuit applications is the reduction of noise while operating at higher frequencies. In order to make these possible components with low ESR (equivalent series...

Features.
July 11, 2007... Space projects always make huge demands of the electronic components that are used. Payload is critical, so weight must be kept as low as possible. Yet, at the same time, the environment is very harsh with equipment being subject to extremes of...

Products.
July 11, 2007... Where there is an electronic system there is a need for switching, and there is a need for electrically controlled switching. And where there is a need for switching, there is normally an electromechanical relay. Today's designs are smaller,...

Features.
July 11, 2007... Bristol and its environs have become synonymous as an area for leading edge CMOS chip design. The area has a history in innovative microprocessor design stretching back to the 1970s when the Transputer was designed by David May at Inmos....

Features.
July 11, 2007... 11jul07Farnell.jpg Company of the Year Award sponsored by Amplicon The winner of the prestigious Company of the Year Award will be chosen from the winners of each of the individual categories. Technology innovation and business success...

Technology.
July 11, 2007... SRD Design Studio is free design and simulation software for short range device (SRD) wireless links based around Analog Devices' ADF70xx transmitters and transceivers. Providing designers with FCC, ETSI and ARIB-compliant design templates...

Technology.
July 11, 2007... Cadence has announced method claimed to achieve timing, power, area and schedule predictability in the hand-off of semiconductor designs from logic design teams to physical implementation teams. "Logic Design Team Solution offers a 'design...

Technology.
July 11, 2007... Mosis has added 0.25[micro]m SiGe BiCMOS technology multi-project wafer fabrication "Chip designers get access to wireless IC process technology at less than 10 per cent of the cost of a dedicated wafer run," said the firm. For...

Technology.
July 11, 2007... 11jul07Vishkin The card in the bottom of this PC includes 64 parallel 75MHz processors and is claimed to be "capable of computing speeds 100 times faster than current desktops", claims the University of Maryland. Built by Professor...

Technology.
July 11, 2007... 11jul07VIBES.jpg or....2 11jul07VIBES3.jpg in BOX (below) has Engineers at the University of Southampton have made an vibration-powered 50[micro]W AC generator smaller that a sugar cube. "It is a cantilever-based electromagnetic...

Technology.
July 11, 2007... no pic Nanowire transistors have overtaken amorphous silicon devices in research at Purdue University in Indiana. "The issue that is intriguing is we can get relatively high carrier mobility," Professor Tobin Marks told EW. "That...

News.
July 18, 2007... Freescale's threat to sell or close its site at East Kilbride comes after 38 years of semiconductor manufacturing and leaves 900 manufacturing jobs hanging in the balance. Scotland's first minister, Alex Salmond, said that all is not lost...

News.
July 18, 2007... Shortages of high-tech engineering skills are threatening to jeopardise economic growth and competitiveness in the UK, said the IET (Institution of Engineering and Technology). The industry organisation said its annual skills survey of 500...

News.
July 18, 2007... By David Manners david.manners@rbi.co.uk Two European R&D consortia announced successful results for the 32nm process node last week. Pullnano demonstrated a functioning 32nm CMOS SRAM, while More Moore said it had resolved...

News.
July 18, 2007... Avnet-owned distributor Silica has signed an agreement with Texas-based Diodes that covers Europe. Diodes makes application specific standard products for the discrete and analogue chip markets. "Since entering the European market in...

News.
July 18, 2007... This roadside billboard in Florida is aimed at attracting interest in Xg Technology's XMAX technology which, it is claimed, could provide broadband coverage to the entire US for a $15m investment in basestations. Xg said it has completed...

News.
July 18, 2007... By Melanie Reynolds melanie.reynolds@rbi.co.uk An increasing number of mandates and the adoption of standards is driving the use of RFID technology, but this does not mean the end for barcodes, according to the industry. "RFID is...

News.
July 18, 2007... By Richard Wilson A senior executive at the world's second largest connector maker has welcomed Avnet Time's acquisition of UK-based distributor Flint as good news for the European connector market. He also expects to see more...

News.
July 18, 2007... Epitaxial wafer company IQE saw its shares rise by over 25 per cent to reach 17p after the firm said its interim results would be better than expected. The firm said demand for wireless devices has boosted the firm's revenues. Interim results...

News.
July 18, 2007... By Richard Wilson richard.wilson@rbi.co.uk Farnell will see the Internet generating half of all its sales by the end of next year, according to Laurence Bain, chief operating officer at Premier Farnell. This is the clearest...

News.
July 18, 2007... Dear Editor I read the Electronics Weekly article on the term engineer [EW 04.07.07, page 1]. Don't look to me to support Jon Jennings' petition, why on earth would I wish to pay money to some expensive talking shop such as the IEE [now...

News.
July 18, 2007... How far can you go to protect yourself against patent violation? Due diligence is a necessary evil, but even that cannot protect you against submarine patents that surface alter on to blow you out of the water. That has been abundantly...