Electronics Weekly articles from June 2005

Electronics Weekly archives from June 2005

Nanometre hot spots.
June 1, 2005... unique convergence of intense pressures is threatening the viability of "cheaper, smaller, faster" that has driven the high tech industry for decades. Thanks to ever smaller geometries, designs have evolved from single- or multi-block...

Axeon hopes summer float will raise [pounds sterling]1.5m.
June 1, 2005... Axeon, the Aberdeen semiconductor IP company specialising in automotive engine control, is to float on the Alternative Investment Market (AIM) in June with the intention of raising [pounds sterling]1.5m which will value the company at [pounds...

Industry body urges earlier redesigns for Pb-free PCBs.
June 1, 2005... Firms are being urged to consider any PCB and product redesigns at an early stage in plans to comply with the upcoming RoHS lead-free Directive. The Scottish Advanced Manufacturing Centre (SAMC) has said firms should address the issue of PCB...

No money in structured Asics, says Toshiba.
June 1, 2005... Structured Asics are not making any money, according to Toshiba, while full-scale SoCs are costing a lot less than people think. "Structured Asic is not making any money. We wonder how long it will be before people make any money from...

University opens research centre.
June 1, 2005... A [pounds sterling]40m research centre dedicated to work on electronics and communications technologies was opened last Wednesday at Queen's University Belfast. The Institute for Electronics, Communications and Information Technology (ECIT) is...

RadioScape tunes digital radio to many frequencies.
June 1, 2005... RadioScape has released a digital radio module that supports the Digital Radio Mondiale (DRM) standard for digitised AM bands (SW/MW/LW). The RS500 card, which is size and pin compatible with the RS300 module released last year, also supports...

Investors back UK mixed-signal start-up for in-car optical fibre network devices.
June 1, 2005... Fabless mixed-signal firm Nanotech Semiconductor has received an investment boost as it offers its first CMOS devices for in-car optical fibre networking based on the MOST bus standard. The Surrey-based start-up has received $6m in investment...

Roxboro in talks to sell part of Solatron division.
June 1, 2005... Roxboro Group is in discussions about disposing of part of its Solatron division. The group is divided into two main businesses, measurement equipment group Solatron and electronic lighting division Dialight. Solatron products are mainly...

Heading here.
June 1, 2005... Shares in Amino Technologies, the IPTV set-top box company, fell by 11.5 per cent, down to 188p. The company has recently admitted just over 7 million new shares, raising some [pounds sterling]15m for the firm, which it says is essential if it...

US firm buys UbiNetics' 3G test and measurement business.
June 1, 2005... The test and measurement division of UbiNetics has been bought by US firm Aeroflex for [pounds sterling]46m. Cambridge-based UbiNetics has two businesses: a 3G terminal software development and handset modem reference design business; and the...

Chip analysts up growth predictions.
June 1, 2005... US chip industry analysts are gradually upping their forecasts for the year, the latest being IC Insights which has increased its market growth forecast for semiconductors from minus two to plus four per cent. It reckoned that the world...

Abacus poised to acquire firms for European distribution move.
June 1, 2005... Component distributor Abacus is still mulling acquisition options which would give the firm a boost in mainland Europe. However, after Avnet and Arrow, the US distributors that dominate the sector, the tier 2 firms are noticeably smaller, and...

JEDEC standard for material definition.
June 1, 2005... With its eye on the lead-free RoHS Directive, JEDEC has published a standard for defining the materials content in electronic products. "The standard was motivated by the increasing trend toward international environmental regulations that...

Direct sequence ultra-wideband chipset hits 110Mbit/s over 20m, says Freescale.
June 1, 2005... Wireless communications Freescale Semiconductor has demonstrated a direct-sequence ultra wideband (DS-UWB) chipset operating at more than 110Mbit/s over 20m. The firm said the extended range is a direct result of a regulatory waiver granted in...

UK fabric firm puts solar power in backpack.
June 1, 2005... Eleksen, the UK force-sensing fabric company, is showing its latest range of wearable electronics, including a backpack with solar panels. The H2 series was developed with O'Neill Europe and includes an entertainment backpack and a second...

Irish display firm deliberates over Chinese plant.
June 1, 2005... Irish display technology developer NTera is considering a second production line, in China, to add to its Taiwanese plant commissioned two months ago. "What we've set up in Taiwan gets us to reasonable volume straight away," said Nick How,...

Manufacturing sector in UK is safe: minister.
June 1, 2005... The UK should be able to manufacture in every sector as long as firms are constantly innovating, according to Barry Gardiner, minister for competitiveness. The minister told EW at a debate on UK manufacturing last week run by the Manufacturing...

Plastic electronics firm opens prototyping shop.
June 1, 2005... Plastic electronics developer Plastic Logic has opened a multi-million dollar prototyping line at its Cambridge site. The firm will use it to demonstrate product concepts and work with licensees on process qualification. The plant can process...

Second quarter sees venture capital investments take off after slow start.
June 1, 2005... Venture capitalists in the UK have been slow to invest in semiconductors and photonics in Q1 2005, according to Ascendant, the technology-focused corporate finance advisers. Q1 saw only two deals completed, those for Plastic Logic ([pounds...

Toshiba moves away from NOR flash as price war and crowding cut profits.
June 1, 2005... Collapsing prices in the NOR flash market, following the Intel-Spansion price war and recent entrants to the market, have led Toshiba to cut production and shift focus away from the merchant market. "We don't see us competing against Intel, we...

Signal sampling method simplifies digital filters.
June 1, 2005... RF Engines claims to have simplified digital filter design with an FPGA-based architecture which can be used to perform up-sampling or down-sampling of high speed signals. The technique, called fractional resampling, is a signal processing...

Optimise your yield.
June 1, 2005... today's process nodes, it has become increasingly obvious that designers can no longer consider yield as an afterthought. At 90nm and below, design decisions have a direct impact on device manufacturability and yield. The challenge is...

Amorphous silicon OLED display for flat panel TV.
June 1, 2005... Samsung has developed a 40in. active matrix organic light-emitting diode (OLED) for emissive flat panel TV. The single sheet OLED prototype has a 1280x800 pixel resolution and is driven by an amorphous silicon backplane. It is one of the first...

Development platform uses interface layer for 3G designs.
June 1, 2005... A 3G mobile phone development platform aims to open the way to greater differentiation of handset design, using standard and proprietary applications software elements. By combining a software interface layer with established tools and around...

Wireless design: toughest challenge in electronics.
June 1, 2005... viewpoint By William Joyner Wireless consumer electronics is a bright spot in the electronics industry and a key driver for electronic design automation tools. According to Gartner Dataquest, in 2004 wireless semiconductor revenue grew in...

High bandwidth DC-coupled VGA.
June 1, 2005... Analog Devices' highest bandwidth DC-coupled variable gain amplifier is the 250MHz AD8337 which has a high slew rate of 475V/ms in a 2V step. For industrial and instrumentation applications it will provide a low-noise (2.2nV/vHz), single-ended,...

Wireload models give way to topographical technology.
June 1, 2005... Synopsys has replaced wireload models with what it calls a topographical technology' in the latest release of its Design Compiler RTL synthesis tool. The company claimed its approach gives improved timing and area correlation between synthesis...

DfD Consortium in debugging debut.
June 1, 2005... A consortium aimed at promoting software tools and design practices that make it easier to perform functional debugging will meet for the first time at DAC. The Design-for-Debug (DfD) Consortium, whose members include Novas Software, Cadence,...

'DAC spotlight on electronic system level design' - ARM.
June 1, 2005... System verification and validation, and the standardisation of APIs to enable IP exchange as part of an ESL (electronic system level) design methodology should be big themes at this year's DAC design tool conference, according to ARM. "We have...

Heading here.
June 1, 2005... There is little comfort in a Government minister being blithely optimistic about the competitive state of manufacturing in the UK. Anyone working in the electronics manufacturing sector will be all too aware of the very real threat from...

Heading here.
June 1, 2005... TT Electronic Manufacturing Services will be at this month's Paris Air Show promoting itself to the aerospace sector with the help of the Aerospace Wales Forum (AWF). Pictured is Keith Warner, new business development director for TT ems...

Digital JTAG bus in analogue drive.
June 1, 2005... National Semiconductor has annouced an analogue voltage monitor which is controlled via the IEEE 1149.1 (JTAG) bus, and is capable of accurate measurement or sampling of up to eight analogue or mixed-signal input channels for verification of...

Platinum-free catalysts for ethanol fuel cells to go commercial by 2006.
June 1, 2005... Low-cost, platinum-free catalysts for fuel cells running on ethanol, which were initially discovered during research into removing heavy metals from tannery waste water, should be inside commercial devices by the end of the year. Ethanol is an...

Software speeds code selection.
June 1, 2005... Cambridge Consultants has developed software that it says "demystifies and accelerates" the selection of turbo codes for forward error correction in wireless systems. Available as part of the company's design services, the MATLAB-based...

Win funding with ideas for Galileo.
June 1, 2005... A competition has been launched to find an innovative use of Galileo, the European GPS system due for launch in 2008. The successful entrant of the Galileo Masters 2005 will get business development support worth ?50,000. Last year's winner was...

Photonics start-up makes BTG top ten.
June 8, 2005... BTG is ringfencing support for ten of its existing physical science investment companies despite a move to focus itself on the medical sector. The firm will not invest in new electronics or photonics firms. "We have a lot of early stage assets...

Industry pressures DTI over network.
June 8, 2005... Pressure is growing within the industry for the Government to clarify its intention to support the microelectronics design community through the creation of a Knowledge Transfer Network (KTN). Similar networks of companies, universities and...

Good year for chips as Asics battle FPGAs.
June 8, 2005... The semiconductor industry will have a good year in 2005 with the market strengthening as the year goes on. "2005 won't be a boom year, but it will be a year in which everyone does well - everyone's Q4 will be better than everyone's Q1. It sets...

RFEL resampling blocks for FPGAs.
June 8, 2005... A range of fractional re-sampling blocks for FPGAs has been developed by Isle-of-Wight-based RF Engines (RFEL). Aimed at up-sampling or down-sampling of high-speed digital signals, the designs can handle one channel, or thousands of channels...

UK distributor signs US-based mixed-signal firm to linecard.
June 8, 2005... Distributor 2001 Electronic Components has added a US-based mixed-signal specialist to its linecard. Called LSI/CSI, the supplier offers incremental encoder interfaces and other devices for applications including lighting, counters, timers,...

Radio transceiver implanted in humans has fast 500kbit/s data link to external device.
June 8, 2005... A radio transceiver designed specifically for implanting in the human body has been introduced by Zarlink Semiconductor. The radio modem will set up 500kbit/s data links between implanted medical devices such as heart pacemakers and an external...

Virtual emulation capability is based on 0.13[micro]m custom Asic.
June 8, 2005... Hardware-assisted verification specialist Tharas Systems has introduced what it calls virtual emulation' capability in its new Hammer tools. The two verification appliances' are known as S-Class (single-user) and M-Class (multi-user) and can...

Mini resistors handle up to 50W.
June 8, 2005... Miniature thick film resistors have been designed to handle power ratings up to 50W by BI Technologies. The resistors dissipate power away from the PCB because they are vertically-mounted through-hole planar devices with thick film resistive...

Carbon nanotubes solve via electro-migration.
June 8, 2005... Fujitsu has tried filling vias with carbon nanotubes to get over the problem of electro-migration from copper fillings vias. The Fujitsu team fabricated bundles of multi-wall nanotubes in 2[micro]m vias and connected each tube's inner shells...

Liquid fuel cell powers GSM army mobile.
June 8, 2005... US firm General Dynamics C4 Systems is to offer a liquid fuel cell powerpack to the military as an accessory for its secure GSM phone. The powerpack, developed by Medis Technologies, will serve as a battery charger for the phone wherever access...

DAB company samples T-DMB in South Korea.
June 8, 2005... Frontier Silicon, the fabless mobile digital TV and DAB chip maker, has begun sampling a terrestrial digital multimedia broadcasting (T-DMB) chipset in South Korea. "This is our next step," said Steve Evans, v-p of sales at Frontier Silicon....

Heading here.
June 8, 2005... Set-top box company Pace Micro Technology saw its shares surge by over 18 per cent to 63.5p after the firm said it had made a deal with Comcast in the US, worth between $375m and $550m over three years. Under the deal the two firms will jointly...

IP firm shifts emphasis to medical devices.
June 8, 2005... Intellectual property company BTG is to refocus on the medical market following a strategic review. The firm's chairman, Sir Brian Fender, said: "We will concentrate our resources exclusively on acquiring, developing and commercialising...

Heading here.
June 8, 2005... IPTV set-top box company Amino Technologies' shares bounced back after last week's fall. The company's shares gained over 16 per cent to reach 219p as it prepared to release its MPEG4 set-top box this week. Elektron saw shares rise over 15 per...

Women technologists to be recognised for contributions in business and academia.
June 8, 2005... The inaugural BlackBerry Women & Technology Awards have been launched with the aim of recognising excellence and outstanding contributions made by women in technology. The awards are divided into eight categories, including best woman in...

High performance analogue good for margins, says CEO.
June 8, 2005... Everybody knows that wireless is the hottest, fastest growing segment of the semiconductor industry. So why would a company get out of it? Rich Beyer, CEO of Intersil, got out of wireless and has not looked back since. In 2003 he got out of...

Foresight is needed for lead free to be success.
June 8, 2005... Dear Editor In response to claims that there is a shortage of PCB design resource in the UK to cope with lead free designs (EW June 1) I believe it isn't a lack of resource that will cause the problems, but a lack of foresight. It is our...

UK duo tune set-tops into MPEG-4 standard.
June 8, 2005... Set-top boxes supporting the MPEG-4 AVC standard have been announced by UK companies Amino Communications and Pace Micro Technology. MPEG-4 AVC, or H.264, is a high compression digital video codec standard which Amino said is in "high demand"...

Scottish Enterprise adds [pounds sterling]6m to fund concepts.
June 8, 2005... Scottish Enterprise has decided to extend its Proof of Concept fund for another year, with [pounds sterling]6m of extra money. This will allow the scheme to have a seventh round of funding Scottish technology firms. An announcement is expected...

Heading here.
June 8, 2005... UK technology needs more talent I've become increasingly aware of the UK's need to rethink its opinions on certain careers. When people compare their careers on the doctors-to-estate-agents scale, it is common to hear engineers comment...

Government to release passport specification.
June 8, 2005... The Government is about to release the specification for its e-passport chip. "We will be rolling out e-passports from the end of the year and our offices will be issuing them by the end of the second quarter next year," said a spokesman for...

Chip analyses blood ?and sends diagnosis.
June 8, 2005... A smart chip which analyses blood and sends the results via Internet or wireless network is being developed by researchers in Sweden from Uppsala University and Melardalen University. Called the Loc&Poc (lab on chip, point of care), it will...

Cameras will allow access and adjust controls in cars in three to four years.
June 8, 2005... Cars containing multiple cameras will be on the market in the next three to four years, according to the semiconductor industry. "I have been in contact with every German automotive system manufacturer and every German car manufacturer and...

Heading here.
June 8, 2005... Passive components and connectors distributor TTI has recruited Noel McNamara as sales manager for Ireland. He was with Molex for 21 years before joining TTI. James Rowan has been appointed as president of Celestica for Europe. Rowan has...

Energy consortium pushes for supercapacitors in vehicles.
June 8, 2005... Significant strides are being made towards the use of supercapacitors for energy storage in vehicles. Supercaps are already being used in larger vehicles, such as trucks and buses, to store energy wasted during braking. The US Advanced Battery...

DC motor drive holds the power.
June 8, 2005... Power semiconductor announcements at the PCIM show in Germany this week include Fairchild Semiconductor's low power brushless DC motor drive module which combines six fast recovery Mosfets and three half-bridge high-voltage ICs (HVIC) in a...

Options for tantalum.
June 8, 2005... ith a volumetric density that is unrivalled, and a host of other advantages besides, tantalum capacitors have become a staple of a wide variety of designs, notably in portable appliances, telecoms, computing and medical systems. However,...

A standard makes sense.
June 8, 2005... mart sensors commonly used in digital instrumentation and measurement systems have been given their own industry standard-based plug-and-play capability to simplify and widen their use in a range of applications. The IEEE1451.4 standard...

Capacitors are on the move...
June 8, 2005... shift in the capacitance-voltage ratio to service the growing number of portable applications has been one of the key trends in the capacitor market as a result of the automotive and portable segments generating the greatest volumes. Other...

Audio codec has ADC and DAC sample rates.
June 8, 2005... The data converters, one ADC and one DAC, within Wolfson Microelectronics' latest stereo audio codec can be simultaneously operated at different sample rates. As a result the codec can be used in applications where separate ADC and DAC devices...

Quantum dots hit by nanoparticle.
June 8, 2005... A type of strongly fluorescent nanoparticle that is cheaper and chemically more inert than semiconductor quantum dots has been built by researchers at Cornell University in the US. By surrounding fluorescent dyes with a shell made of silica,...

Freescale models FinFET transistor.
June 8, 2005... Freescale, in collaboration with the University of Florida, has developed a software model of a FinFET double-gate transistor and is licensing it. FinFETs are being investigated for the 45nm ITRS node, since, at such short length scales, two...

Organic route to biological sensors.
June 8, 2005... Nitrogen-containing organic molecules called amines could enable a new breed of biological sensors. Alexander Wei, a chemist at Purdue University in the US, found they bind strongly to gold surfaces when mixed with carbon disulfide, creating a...

Cheap antennas to replace costly dishes in satellite Earth stations.
June 8, 2005... NASA and Georgia Tech are looking to replace large expensive ground link dishes with arrays of cheap antennas backed by signal processing. Information from satellites, such as Earth Observing-1 (EO-1), is now down-linked to various 11m dishes...

Manufacturing responds to pressure.
June 15, 2005... An unexpected rise in manufacturing output in April is contradicting what is actually happening in industry, according to the head of one UK-based electronics manufacturer. "The manufacturing industry is experiencing tough weather conditions...

Heading here.
June 15, 2005... The British Standards Institution (BSI) is planning to introduce an RoHS Trusted Source certification for suppliers providing components compliant with the Restriction of Hazardous Substances Directive. The standard is being developed with...

30mW wall plug phone charger.
June 15, 2005... Power Integrations has produced a wall plug-style phone charger design with a creditable 30mW no-load power consumption from mains between 85 and 265V. Based around the firm's TNY264P chip, the flyback circuit uses a transformer winding to both...

'Structured Asics is good business' Altera responds to industry debate.
June 15, 2005... semiconductors The industry furore on whether structured Asics are a profitable business, or just another opportunity to lose money, has been joined by Altera. "Absolutely it's profitable," Danny Biran, v-p for product and corporate marketing...

US modules are ZigBee-ready.
June 15, 2005... Utah-based MaxStream has unveiled 802.15.4/ZigBee-ready modules. The 1mW out XBee module has a receive sensitivity of -92dBm, (90m range). XBee-PRO boasts -100dBm receive sensitivity and 100mW output to push range to around 1.4km. Both modules...

SIA raises chip forecast.
June 15, 2005... The Semiconductor Industry Association (SIA) has revised its forecast for worldwide IC sales to [pounds sterling]226bn for 2005. US-based SIA originally predicted flat sales in 2005. "Higher sales have been driven by better than expected demand...

Foundry revenues drop.
June 15, 2005... TSMC has seen its May revenues drop 10 per cent year on year but has raised its shipment and utilisation rate forecast for Q2. The Taiwanese foundry reported that net sales for May were around $623.6m, up 3.2 per cent compared to April but down...

UK distributors aim for growth in Europe with acquisitions.
June 15, 2005... UK distribution firms Acal and Deltron last week added their names to firms on the acquisition trail in mainland Europe. "There is lower growth in an economic environment with a smaller market so you can't rely on organic growth now,"...

Scottish university's technology to monitor deteriorating transformers.
June 15, 2005... Glasgow Caledonian University is to develop condition monitoring equipment for transformers on the national power grid. "Transformers installed in the 1960s are coming to the end of their design life," said project leader Dr Scott McMeekin. As...

Dionics arm to support out-of-date military kit.
June 15, 2005... Distributor Dionics has launched a military and obsolete division (MOD) dedicated to increasing the support available to military and other electronics manufacturers with requirements for long-life products. "We have created a broad portfolio...

Future looks to Europe for Philips deal.
June 15, 2005... Philips Electronics has signed a pan-European distribution agreement with Future Electronics. It was the distributor's design-in capabilities which convinced Philips to extend its relationship with Future in the US to Europe. "Its strategy...

Zilog joins group pushing ZigBee.
June 15, 2005... Zilog has joined the ZigBee Alliance, the group of firms pushing a global standard for ZigBee. "Consumer demand for ZigBee-based products will continue to accelerate, in turn requiring integration of intelligent control, wireless communication...

Governments lobby Intersil over its location of future R&D facilities and design centres.
June 15, 2005... Intersil is evaluating a host of proposals from various governments competing to attract the company to locate future R&D facilities and design centres in their countries. "We're in the process of developing a long-term strategy of where to put...

CDT to market IBM TFT technology.
June 15, 2005... The UK's Cambridge Display Technology (CDT) is to market IBM's amorphous silicon (a-Si) thin-film transistor (TFT) expertise. "I can advise that CDT will be using its display industry knowledge to introduce the IBM IP portfolio to its [CDT's]...

UK design house puts protocol stack into Analog chip.
June 15, 2005... UK design house Plextek has worked with Analog Devices to develop a radio protocol stack for the semiconductor firm's range of ISM unlicensed band transceivers. The software development kit includes radio air interface protocol and the...