Electronics Weekly articles from June 2003

Electronics Weekly archives from June 2003

Researchers create material to store fuel cell hydrogen.
June 4, 2003... Steve Bush The University of Michigan claims to have invented a material that can conveniently store hydrogen for use in fuel cells. "The material takes up two per cent of its weight in hydrogen," said chemistry professor Omar Yaghi....

A trip to the C side.
June 4, 2003... System level design has made significant progress through C and C++, but how good are they? asks RICHARD BALL Once upon a time chips were laid out using little coloured rectangles - how quaint. Then someone said "let's use gates", and the...

Limited damage to China's electronics industry from SARS.
June 4, 2003... SARS under control for short term; but investors reviewing long term strategy, says Joseph Zhu While SARS is dealing devastating blows to service industry in China, its damage to the electronics industry in the country appears to be...

BAE gyroscopes keep cars away from vehicle in front.
June 4, 2003... Harry Yeates Adaptive cruise control that enables cars to maintain a safe separation from the vehicle in front even on twisty roads is being developed by BAE Systems and electronics manufacturing company TT Electronics. Conventional...

Looking for training?
June 4, 2003... Where do you start when seeking high-tech training? TONY ATHERTON gives you a few suggestions Keeping up-to-date is one of the joys, or binds, of working in the electronics industry. But even when it is a joy you still need help. ...

Take me higher.
June 4, 2003... Synthesis tools are having to move to higher levels as designers cope with massive gate count FPGAs, but that's not the only problem. RICHARD WILSON looks at some of the latest products to grace the designer's box of tricks It is over a...

Horses for courses.
June 4, 2003... The range of components made by analogue chip company Zetex needs many different tools, says STEVE BUSH Analogue chip company Zetex produces a wide variety of components at its Oldham fab. Most are designed in-house. How does its design...

Distribution boss predicts 'flatter' industry recovery.
June 4, 2003... Alex Mayhew-Smith Premier Farnell's chief executive John Hirst says any recovery in the electronics market will be a gradual and slow process. "It is likely any recovery will be much flatter. We have depressed general economic...

A supercomputer made from PS2s.
June 4, 2003... Steve Bush Clustering, Sony and HP Key to clustering the PlayStation 2, said the US National Center for Supercomputing Applications, is the Sony Linux Kit. This allows the units to be used for non-graphic, computationally...

Motorola 8-bit processors feature 20nA wait-for-hardware-wake mode.
June 4, 2003... Power management and on-chip debugging are the major features of Motorola's latest 8-bit microcontroller range. HCS08 devices include multiple power-saving modes - with a 20nA (at 2V) wait-for-hardware-wake available. To estimate...

EDA consortium outlines IP re-use in standard designs.
June 4, 2003... Richard Ball A consortium of EDA companies is planning a series of standards to improve the creation and use of intellectual property. Called SPIRIT, the consortium aims to solve the problems of creating and re-using IP and then...

Samsung LCD substrates size up 40in. displays.
June 4, 2003... Richard Ball Substrates for LCDs will reach 2.2x1.87m within two years, according to Samsung with the announcement of a factory in Korea. Each of the so-called 7th generation substrates can produce a dozen 32in. LCDs or eight 40in...

Ex-Devlin employees launch push-button distribution firm.
June 4, 2003... Alex Mayhew-Smith Two ex-employees of Devlin Electronics have set up their own distribution company focused on switches for the audio and video sector. Rick Sucher, MD of RJS Electronics, told EW: "I felt that the UK market, especially...

IEEE sets verification language as standard.
June 4, 2003... The IEEE has begun a project to create the first verification language standard for chip designers, based around Verisity's 'e' language. "This is a language invented specifically for the purpose of verification," said Francine Ferguson,...

Radiocomms Agency looks to 3.5GHz trial.
June 4, 2003... The Radiocommunications Agency (RA) is hoping to demonstrate there is a workable business case for 3.5GHz fixed wireless access technology with the award of a contract to build and operate a trial network. The nine-month project, which is...

Thales sets up WLAN design service centre.
June 4, 2003... Thales has established a wireless design services business in Livingston, Scotland that will specialise in Bluetooth and DECT cordless designs. "We're focused squarely on wireless, but very much at the system level," said Barclay Milne,...

Failed processor firm finds single customer for assets.
June 4, 2003... Richard Ball Suggestions that Altera has bought the intellectual property of failed processor firm Siroyan have not been denied by the FPGA firm. Former CEO of Siroyan, Ken Will, told Electronics Weekly: "All the company's assets have...

AMD aims Mirrorbit flash at NAND arena.
June 4, 2003... AMD is attacking the fast-growing NAND flash market with a version of its Mirrorbit flash which can act both as a code store and a data store. "In the next four weeks there will be a major product launch of a phone where Mirrobit is used...

Strong order book leads to expansion at Team Simoco.
June 4, 2003... Melanie Reynolds Private mobile radio (PMR) company Team Simoco is planning to expand just 12 months after being sold by administrators to Wakefield-based telecoms services company Team Telecom. "The order book is twice what we thought...

UK start-up goes milking with imaging technology.
June 4, 2003... Harry Yeates A Scottish start-up is developing an automated milking machine using novel robotics and low-cost imaging technology. IceRobotics, which was officially formed last week, will initially sell its imaging system for use with...

Cadence updates design tools to run simulations in parallel.
June 4, 2003... Cadence has updated parts of its analogue and mixed-signal chip design tools with the ability to parallelise Spice simulations. The Aptivia tool is part of the firm's Analogue Design Environment and its Virtuoso Schematic Composer tool. It...

Cyan Technology wins first design-ins for 16-bit micro.
June 4, 2003... Fabless processor company Cyan Technology has won its first three design-ins for its eCOG1 16-bit flash microcontroller. "We have one in China for a cell phone, a point-of-sale terminal in China and an industrial controller in Taiwan," Dr...

Mobile location firm upbeat despite US choice for E911...
June 4, 2003... Melanie Reynolds Cambridge Positioning Systems (CPS) remains bullish about the potential for its E-OTD location technology, despite having cut 50 of its 80 staff after it was pushed out of the US market. "We're seeing strong interest...

Quarter brick converters get extra pins for current output.
June 4, 2003... Quarter-brick power converters are to get extra pins as current output exceeds the standard profile. Called The Double P, for thermally enhanced double power pins, the standard has an additional pair of power and ground pins. It sprang...

UK module opportunity for embedded GSM firm.
June 4, 2003... Pierre Piver, Wavecom's European general manager (left) was in London last week to sign a distribution deal with Mike Collen, UK managing director of ACTE Components. Embedded GSM technology supplier Wavecom says there is a business...

...as Sarantel sets up office in Seattle.
June 4, 2003... Wellingborough antenna developer Sarantel has created a US subsidiary and appointed a president to run the division, which will be based in Seattle. Brad Hurte said he expected to put together a team of ten in the next 12 months. ...

Design gap between technology and tools will be closed by 2007, says EDA analyst.
June 4, 2003... David Manners in Anaheim, California The design gap between chip technology and design tools will be closed by 2007, according to Gartner Dataquest's EDA analyst Gary Smith, speaking on the eve of the 40th Design Automation Conference...

Glasgow opto start-up fails to find buyer.
June 4, 2003... Efforts to find a buyer to take on Glasgow optoelectronic component start-up Essient Photonics as a going concern have failed, according to the firm's liquidator. The company now looks likely to be broken up. "We have worked very hard...

Marconi to cut more staff as sales slump.
June 4, 2003... Richard Wilson Marconi continues to trim the size of its UK workforce as sales fell 32 per cent in the last 12 months. The struggling telecoms supplier, which re-floated on the stock market two weeks ago after extensive restructuring,...

UK pair plan group of 12; for contract manufacture.
June 4, 2003... Richard Wilson Two businessmen plan to create a group of UK-based contract manufacturers and claim to have investors in London and Hong Kong prepared to back the plan. Jonathan Wooller, chairman of corporate rescue firm Hoskyn Child is...

Disneyland beckons for EW awards winner.
June 4, 2003... Texas Instruments, sponsor of the product of the year in the 2003 European Electronics Industry Awards, is offering a family trip to Disneyland Paris for the person who submits the winning entry in the category. Organised by Electronics...

Design house dilemmas.
June 4, 2003... There may be a lot of design houses in the UK, but with business slow, how are they all coping? asks HARRY YEATES Analogue Integration www.analog.co.uk ARM www.arm.com Cadence www.cadence.com Cambridge Consultants...

Start-up gets investment.
June 11, 2003... Oxford display start-up Ocuity has closed a financing round including investment from TTP Ventures and BTG. "We are looking to use the cash to take us to our first licence," said Ocuity's chairman Paul May who would not reveal how much is...

Oxford switchable 3D display firm adapts technology for brightness.
June 11, 2003... Oxford-based Ocuity - which announced switchable 2D-3D display intellectual property earlier this year (EW 26/02/2003), has adapted its technology to make a switchable brightness display. Key to the operation of both switchable displays is...

Astrium set to scoop q180m windfall from Galileo work.
June 11, 2003... Steve Bush Astrium in the UK is expecting up to E180m-worth of business from Europe's GPS-like Galileo satellite constellation, leading to recruitment at the firm. "The UK should get not far off 20 per cent of E900m," Dr Mike Healy,...

Anadigm software tool designs control loops.
June 11, 2003... Programmable analogue chip firm Anadigm has developed software for implementing proportional, integral and derivative (PID) control loops. The tool allows the design of PID loops from top level coefficients. The result is downloaded into...

Global distribution on learning curve.
June 11, 2003... Business models for global distribution must evolve as low-cost offshore manufacturing filters in, says CHRIS McANENY While migration of manufacturing to the 'low cost' regions of Asia and Eastern Europe is a major challenge for the UK...

A strategy to ride out the storm.
June 11, 2003... EBV Elektronik takes a relaxed approach to the market and to meeting its target of profitable growth, says MICK ELLIOTT Patrick Zammit strolls across the Munich restaurant looking relaxed and confident. That is a rare enough mien for...

The growing season.
June 11, 2003... Component distributors have been hard hit by the telecoms downturn and the smart guys are looking for new ways to drive future revenue growth, with some companies looking for new business areas. RICHARD WILSON reports Component...

In search of revenues.
June 11, 2003... Distributors are looking to supplement revenue streams during the downturn, writes Gary Kibblewhite In this week's issue we see that distributors are continually looking at the ways and means of setting up new revenue producing activities...

Seeing the importance of locality.
June 11, 2003... Flint has spotted an opportunity for the local specialist supplier. MICK ELLIOTT finds a company playing to its strengths We are embarking on our most important development since our launch." With those ringing words Keith Williams unveiled...

Electron hopping technology used to control pixels in FEDs.
June 11, 2003... Steve Bush A Philips-PFE tie-up? At the end of his presentation at SID 2003, Philips spokesman Daan den Engelsen indicated a room hired by Oxfordshire's Printable field Emitters (PFE) if delegates wanted to view an example of the...

Wizard hosts meetings over web.
June 11, 2003... Bristol IT device design firm the Appliance Studio has launched a new product to help teams work collaboratively on projects. Particularly suited to distributed teams, because work can be shared over the web via an ordinary web browser, the...

Best-in-class.
June 11, 2003... The Big Three design tool makers, Synopsys, Cadence and Mentor, are talking about consolidation in the EDA industry as an increasing number of start-ups do innovative work. david manners looks at the challenges ahead other reason is that...

Light mobile radar uses handheld and car battery.
June 11, 2003... Richard Ball A mobile radar system using a handheld computer for display has been developed by Plextek. The Essex-based consultancy firm says its system could be used to provide troops on a battlefield with extra information. ...

Toshiba team hits quantum cryptography key record.
June 11, 2003... Richard Ball Quantum cryptography keys have been transmitted over 100km of fibre optic cable by scientists at Toshiba Research Europe, the longest distance yet achieved. "As far as we are aware, this is the first demonstration of...

Terahertz radiation research overcomes problems.
June 11, 2003... High bandwidth on-chip transceivers and point-to-point communications over distances up to a couple of kilometres could result from research into terahertz radiation sources and detectors. Until now absorption from molecular oxygen and...

Chip design firm opens up at the University of Sussex.
June 11, 2003... Harry Yeates Flextronics Semiconductor has set up a UK design centre in Brighton to support Asic and SoC customers in the UK, Ireland and Europe. The firm has expanded its Asic design capability in Scandinavia, and opened a design...

Diagonal wiring in chip layouts cuts costs and ups yield.
June 11, 2003... Richard Ball Using a diagonal layout for wiring in chip designs has proven to cut area by ten per cent and via count by a quarter. A team from Cadence Design Systems tested the so-called X Architecture on an ARM9 processor to gauge the...

Community network to keep young engineers ; in touch.
June 11, 2003... The YEDA (Youth Electronics Design Applications) Trust will be launching a web-based community network containing details of all the YEDA Award finalists from 1985 onwards at the end of this month. The network will allow the finalists to...

MTL opens process control division.
June 11, 2003... MTL Instruments has set up a new division for open hardware and software components for real time system applications in the process control market. The firm says the move is the formalisation of a business trend it has seen over the last...

Acquisitive EDA companies stimulate start-up business.
June 11, 2003... David Manners in Anaheim, California The EDA industry is going through a period of increased start-up activity, encouraged by a recent spate of mergers and acquisitions. Recently, the top three companies in the industry, Synopsys,...

EDA firms put re-spins top of R&D priority list.
June 11, 2003... David Manners in Anaheim, California

Isle of Man gives clean bill of health to 1W handsets in Tetra digital radio system.
June 11, 2003... Melanie Reynolds in the Isle of Man The Isle of Man has chosen to deploy lower power 1W handsets in its Tetra digital radio system because of concerns about health, despite the fact that the 3W handsets would have provided better...

Fears of tin whisker growth in solder trimmed by tests.
June 11, 2003... An international team to study tin whisker growth mechanisms in Pb-free soldering has been agreed at a meeting in Tokyo. The team will be made up from soldering organisations in Europe, Japan and the US. "The team will propose a draft...

Interconnect firm expands.
June 11, 2003... Interconnect firm EDAC has expanded into larger premises in Milton Keynes. The move is part of the firm's growth strategy, and will enable it to extend its bespoke design services and develop the UK and European client base for its custom...

Battery firm has wireless chargers in the pipeline.
June 11, 2003... Malanie Reynolds Cambridge-based start-up Splashpower is expecting products with its wireless battery charging technology to be available on the market early next year. "We're talking to a lot of customers in a lot of segments," said...

CERN claims storage first.
June 11, 2003... CERN is claiming a data storage record using 45 newly installed StorageTek 9940B tape drives. The drive tapes are capable of writing to tape at 30Mbyte/s and the IT Division of CERN achieved storage-to-tape rates of 1.1Gbyte/s for several...

Micron delivers 'fastest memory device available'.
June 11, 2003... Micron has delivered samples of what it calls "the fastest memory device available today". It is a graphics DDR synchronous DRAM which delivers aggregate bandwidth of 6.4Gbyte/s and per pin bandwidth of 1.6Gbit/s. Micron calls the...

Bluetooth firm shows third generation chip.
June 11, 2003... Bluetooth specialist Cambridge Silicon Radio (CSR) has launched BlueCore3, the third generation of its single chip silicon for the short range wireless standard. The chip is claimed to be the first complete implementation of the Bluetooth...

IBM foundry business grows by a third.
June 11, 2003... Top 5 foundry rankings Ranking****Company****Revenue****Change 1****TSMC****$4,662m****+26.1% 2****UMC****$1,940m****-8.7% 3****IBM****$730m****+32.7% 4****Chartered****$449m****-3.0% 5****TI****$320m****-20.0% ...

Business start-up scheme to expand UKrange of services.
June 11, 2003... A business start-up scheme for science related firms is planning to expand with centres in Harwell, Oxfordshire and at the Woolwich Royal Arsenal. Start International has also opened a high-tech business incubator near Portsmouth, called...

Motorola says SARS takes toll on profits.
June 11, 2003... Motorola has issued a profits warning for the second quarter of the year placing the blame on the SARS outbreak. The firm said it had a "more pronounced impact on consumer purchases of cellular handsets" than assumed. Motorola also...

Electron hopping technology used to control pixels in FEDs.
June 11, 2003... Steve Bush No matter where an electron leaves a pixel's cathode, with Philips' insulating hop-funnel (the lower, conical void), it always arrives in the centre of the pixel phosphor (top). The upper cone simply spaces the anode. With this...

Seeking a new way forward.
June 18, 2003... BAE Systems' technical director, Professor John Roulston, opens the COG Conference Professor Roulston, OBE, FRSE, FIEE, CEng is also Industrial Professor of Electronics at Edinburgh University. His work with BAE Systems is concentrated on...

UK chip firm records loss after stalled third quarter.
June 18, 2003... Alex Mayhew-Smith A poor third quarter has pushed UK semiconductor firm CML Microsystems to a full year loss. The firm reported a loss of [pounds sterling]322,000, compared to a profit of [pounds sterling]2.1m a year ago. Chris Gurry,...

Secret service.
June 18, 2003... Toshiba's demonstration of quantum cryptography has huge implications for secure Internet transactions because, the firm claims, it guarantees unconditional secrecy. RICHARD BALL looks at the technology involved Data encryption is...

Failure fuels design success.
June 18, 2003... The cost of chips not working first time is going up to around the $1m mark, but that's good news for Mentor Graphics because it sells software that cuts the risk of failure. DAVID MANNERS caught up with CEO Wally Rhines in California ...

A different spectrum.
June 18, 2003... While FM and VHF have been taking the plaudits over the years for the quality of broadcast, digital radio mondiale (DRM) has arrived that allows good quality audio on the 100kHz to 30MHz spectrum. STEVE BUSH listened in AM transmissions on...

Intel claims 3D trigate transistor breaks records for NMOS device.
June 18, 2003... Also at the VLSI Symposia IBM Microelectronics said it could scale vertical transistors in DRAM to 70nm, allowing their use in logic processes. It has produced a 512Mbit device using a 110nm process. Meanwhile, Toshiba said it can cut...

Medium wave digital radio transmissions will give FM-like quality sound in 9kHz channel.
June 18, 2003... So what does it sound like? Your earnest Technology Editor listened to a Coding Technologies demonstration and can confirm aacPlus (MPEG4 AAC with SBR) is remarkably good. While the firm readily admits aacPlus will never quite match...

Weighing up the euro.
June 18, 2003... The day when cash tills all over the UK are ringing to the sound of the euro has been put off until Gordon Brown's five tests have been passed. So how does the electronics industry feel about it? alex mayhew-smith tests the water Can you...

Thermal cycling boosts fuel cells.
June 18, 2003... Oxides of cerium, terbium and praseodymium can produce hydrogen from water vapour and methane by thermal cycling. Researchers at the Georgia Institute of Technology have doped the oxides with iron, cutting operating temperature. Now...

Small volume is big business.
June 18, 2003... Manufacturing flexibility in small volume and specialist markets is winning new business, writes RICHARD WILSON Electronics equipment manufacturers are not writing off the UK market. Most of the large volume contract electronics...

Processor exceeds 400MHz on 0.13[micro]m.
June 18, 2003... Richard Ball At the Embedded Processor Forum yesterday, MIPS Technologies unveiled a 32-bit processor architecture that significantly outperforms its existing designs. Codenamed Topaz, with products to be labelled the 24K family, the...

Software interface prolongs life of obsolete test systems.
June 18, 2003... Racal Instruments has developed software to extend the life of automated test systems by acting as an interface between existing test programs and new hardware. The system, called TILS (Technology Insertion into Legacy Systems), is...

Converter suppliers join chip firm for non-isolated power.
June 18, 2003... Two power converter suppliers have joined forces with a semiconductor firm to promote the use of the latest type of non-isolated point-of-load modules in distributed power designs. Artesyn Technologies and Emerson's Astec Power division...

3G for price cutting not multimedia, claims CCL.
June 18, 2003... David Manners 3G is for cost reduction and not for multimedia data transmissions such as streaming video and video-telephony, according to Cambridge Consultants (CCL). "The theoretical cost per minute is eight times lower on UMTS, so...

Automotive market gets boost from car gadgets.
June 18, 2003... Melanie Reynolds Automotive manufacturers are using electronics in the car as a means of differentiating their products, resulting in an ever increasing amount of electronics being included, according to ARM. "Electronics in...

ARM uses 32-bit instructions to revamp Thumb 16-bit code.
June 18, 2003... ARM is revamping its Thumb 16-bit instruction set, giving it instructions until now limited to the full 32-bit set. Extra instructions in Thumb-2 can also be mixed with standard 32-bit instructions, said the firm, removing the need to...

Lead-free alloys analysed for thermal performance.
June 18, 2003... A study to analyse the properties of the three alloys which are the leading candidates for lead-free assembly has been started by trade association IPC. The study will look at assembly performance and basic material properties, such as...

Philips bets on SavaJe as dominant mobile OS.
June 18, 2003... David Manners Philips expects the dominant operating system (OS) for next generation mobile phones and wireless-enabled PDAs to be the little-known SavaJe rather than the established Symbian OS of Psion, or the SmartPhone OS of Microsoft....

Minister sings praises of Welsh electronics sector.
June 18, 2003... Richard Ball Welsh assembly minister Andrew Davies has expressed support for the country's electronics industry, saying the assembly will continue to push investment in the sector. "Employing 26,000 people, electronics is one of Wales'...

TTI has grand idea in Brighton.
June 18, 2003... Distributor TTI was in Brighton last week to present its supplier awards to passives manufacturer Kemet Electronics and connector firm Molex. It is the first time the distributor's European business has presented the awards, which...