Electronics Weekly articles from June 2007

Electronics Weekly archives from June 2007

News.
June 6, 2007... London's Imperial College and Royal College of Art (RCA) are to create a [pounds sterling]5.8m multidisciplinary centre for teaching, research and business. Called Design-London "its purpose will be to bring together the disciplines of...

News.
June 6, 2007... Cambridge Consultants is planning a major expansion of its business as it predicts a significant increase in demand for design services in Europe and the US over the next five years. The design firm expects to add 150 staff at a new...

News.
June 6, 2007... Buckingham-based Racelogic has been awarded the Queens Award for Enterprise in the International Trade category. The firm designs and makes GPS-based vehicle performance analysers and data loggers. The firm has also just reported its best sales...

News.
June 6, 2007... By Steve Bush steve.bush@rbi.co.uk Oxfordshire wireless sensor firm Toumaz Technology is looking to get into sports medicine through a deal with Singapore-based Healthe Sport. "This is a development and joint marketing deal,"...

News.
June 6, 2007... The World Semiconductor Trade Statistics (WSTS) have come up with a gloomy re-forecast for the year, expecting the industry to grow only 2.3 per cent. This contrasts dramatically with the view of Europe's leading analyst, Malcolm Penn, who...

News.
June 6, 2007... CamSemi has signed up Redtree Solutions to act as a sales and marketing agent in Europe. The existing CamSemi team will continue to focus on the Far East. Steve Judge, managing director of Redtree Solutions (left), is pictured with John Miller,...

News.
June 6, 2007... Qualcomm has announced plans to invest E100m in European companies working on "innovative technologies and services" for the wireless communications industry. Qualcomm Ventures will focus on start-ups and SMEs in Europe working on 3G...

News.
June 6, 2007... By Richard Wilson richard.wilson@rbi.co.uk Abacus Group saw the benefit of last year's acquisitions as sales and profit increased in the first six months of the year, despite signs of weakness in the UK components market. The...

News.
June 6, 2007... Synopsys and Zuken have teamed up to develop an integrated and printed circuit board (PCB) design and simulation tool. Particularly applicable to the automotive and aerospace sectors, the tool effectively combines Synopsys' Saber Simulator...

News.
June 6, 2007... Flat-panel loudspeaker firm NXT has warned that sales and licensee shipments in stand-alone audio products have been disappointing and are likely to fall "significantly" below market expectations. The firm said it is considering "all strategic...

News.
June 6, 2007... Rob Anders is commercial director at Anders Electronics QWhat is wrong with plasma displays? APlasmas are in competition against the 'one hundred pound gorilla' of TFT LCDs. LCDs are available from under 2in to large sizes while...

News.
June 6, 2007... By David Manners david.manners@rbi.co.uk Xmos Semiconductor, the start-up founded by the Professor of Computer Science at Bristol University, David May, is to announce its first product this month. The company's website describes...

News.
June 6, 2007... RF specialist SiGe Semiconductor has raised $20m of venture capital funding which it intends to use to take it into profitability. William Burke, CFO of SiGe, said the firm only needed $10m but CEO Sohail Khan, and Samsung Ventures which...

News.
June 6, 2007... Intel, Dell and Microsoft are leading an initiative to create a memory interface standard which will promote the wider use of flash memory in solid state drives in PCs. Called the Non-Volatile Memory Host Controller Interface (NVMHCI), it aims...

News.
June 6, 2007... Microsoft has developed what it calls "Surface", a tabletop computer that will initially appear in hotels, retail establishments, restaurants and public entertainment venues, said the firm. It has a 30in display and works without a keyboard or...

News.
June 6, 2007... The Research Council's business plan for 2007 has been launched. It is open to researchers based in UK higher education institutions or public sector research establishments. Last year Warwick Warp won [pounds sterling]25,000 for its...

News.
June 6, 2007... Motorola has announced a further 4,000 jobs will be cut at the firm. This is in addition to the previously announced 3,500 job losses which will be completed by the end of June. The job losses are part of a cost-reduction initiative first...

News.
June 6, 2007... Sony has demonstrated a 16 million colour bendable active matrix OLED display. The 120x160xRGB device offers 100cd/m[super2] brightness and a contrast ratio of 1000:1. 318x318[micro]m pixels deliver 80dpi resolution from the 0.3mm thick 1.5g...

News.
June 6, 2007... TSMC has responded to the design community by coming up with a mechanism for delivering more manufacturing data to designers. "The more information the foundries give us, the more accurate the simulation, and the better the yields," said...

News.
June 6, 2007... By David Manners david.manners@rbi.co.uk Altera will have 45nm product out next year, according to John Daane, the company's chairman, president and CEO. "The key 65nm power innovations were designed with 45nm in mind, we've done...

News.
June 6, 2007... By Steve Bush The University of Delaware and Massachusetts-based Cambridge NanoTech have demonstrated measurement and control of electron spin in silicon. "The first step to making spintronic devices and circuits is to inject more...

News.
June 6, 2007... Mobile phones based on Linux operating systems are set for strong growth over the next few years, according to a report from market watcher Strategy Analytics. "Linux has begun to open doors for handset manufacturers, developers and mobile...

Features.
June 6, 2007... By Melanie Reynolds melanie.reynolds@rbi.co.uk Oxford University's Continuing Professional Development Centre is holding its 'High-Speed Digital Engineering Week' for the fourth year running on 25-29 June 2007, in Oxford. ...

Features.
June 6, 2007... Degree students will be able to gain two degrees over a four year period from the University of Kent and China's Tianjin University following a final-year direct entry agreement between the two universities. Under the agreement between...

Features.
June 6, 2007... Jun 11-13: OFDM for Wireless Communications - Scotland www.steepestascent.com Jun 14: DVB-H- Scotland www.steepestascent.com Jun 19: Auditing in UKAS Accredited Labs - Leatherhead shop.era.co.uk Jun 20-21: Practical...

Features.
June 6, 2007... Premier EDA Solutions is holding a series of roadshows to show engineers what Altium Designer can do. The roadshows are aimed at engineering managers, electronic product developers, software engineers and current users of Altium Designer,...

Supplements.
June 6, 2007... Alison Smith Power over Ethernet (PoE) is used in a multitude of applications from voice-over-Internet-protocol (VoIP) telephony to wireless access points and security cameras. Delivering power over CAT-5 cable is no longer limited to...

Supplements.
June 6, 2007... Hiren Shah AC-DC power supplies improve as a result of gradual advances in semiconductors and passive component technologies and materials. Here are some of the techniques that have worked in producing 30W to 450W units which achieve...

Features.
June 6, 2007... The view that manufacturing is moving inevitably from Britain to lower-cost services based offshore may be true for mass-market products, but production of high-value, advanced technology products is actually growing in the UK. To continue this...

News.
June 6, 2007... Qualcomm has been told by a federal jury in California that certain of its mobile baseband chips infringe three patents owned by Broadcom. The jury said the infringement was wilful and awarded Broadcom $19.6m in damages, signalling the end of a...

Supplements.
June 6, 2007... By Markus Matzberger The power supply architecture in modern portable and battery powered applications typically need to support processors which require one or more scalable supply voltages with tight tolerances and a defined power supply...

Supplements.
June 6, 2007... Alan Elbanhawy Synchronous buck converters have been used very successfully for the CPU power supply in personal computers. A simplified schematic of a single phase implementation is shown in the diagram. In this implementation Mosfets...

Technology.
June 6, 2007... North Carolina-based Cree has cut the number of micro-pipe defects in n-type 100mm silicon carbide substrates. "Micropipes can not only decrease the number of usable electronic devices produced per wafer, but can also affect performance...

Technology.
June 6, 2007... tiny antenna for keyboard-less phone Barcelona-based Fractus has designed a quad band (850, 900MHz, 1.8 and 1.9GHz) antenna just 40.8x10.74x7.45mm - specifically for Neonode of Sweden's 47x77x14.7mm keyboard-less N2 phone. "The handset...

Technology.
June 6, 2007... NXP has announced a 300W UHF transistor for TV broadcasting. Made in high-voltage LDMOS, the BLF878 increases "efficiency to 55 per cent constant wave (CW) and 32 per cent for digital broadcasting", claimed the firm It is sampling in...

Technology.
June 6, 2007... Massachusetts-based Strategic Test has announced waveform digitisers for PCI Express, claiming them to be the first. There are twelve cards in the UF2e-4600 series, using multiple 16-bit ADCs for simultaneous sampling. Maximum sampling...

Technology.
June 6, 2007... 06jun07GlobTop.....jpg GE Aviation of Newmarket has qualified a 'globtop' chip-on-board process for harsh environments. "We thought the full aerospace environment precluded chip-on-board," business development manger Steve Riches told...

Supplements.
June 6, 2007... 06jun07Toshiba1 Block diagram of TPD4120 06jun07Toshiba2 Toshiba SOI power structure Appliance manufacturers seeking to design-out conventional AC induction motors in favour of more efficient and quieter brushless DC (BLDC)...

Supplements.
June 13, 2007... Adopting a sustainable approach to design not only meets the requirements of the latest European Environmental legislation it can also deliver business benefits from environmental marketing and an enhanced reputation. We invite companies to...

News.
June 13, 2007... The massive $3.6bn acquisition of Solectron by rival electronics contract manaufacturer Flextronics will keep EMS industry leader, Foxconn at bay, according to industry analyst iSuppli. "With its jaw-dropping growth rate, Foxconn has...

News.
June 13, 2007... By Melanie Reynolds melanie.reynolds.co.uk US chip giant Qualcomm is planning on appealing to President Bush to veto a decision by the International Trade Commission (ITC) that bans the import of all devices using its chips that...

News.
June 13, 2007... A method of compacting carbon nanotubes into dense bundles has been developed by researchers at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute in the US. Theoretical studies have shown that closely packed carbon nanotubes should be able to outperform copper...

News.
June 13, 2007... By Alex Mayhew-Smith alex.mayhew-smith@rbi.co.uk The softness in the UK's distribution market lies in the passive and electromechanical sectors, according to the chief executive of Acal, Tony Laughton. The company reported interim...

News.
June 13, 2007... NXP has introduced a module for higher speed 802.11n wireless LAN standard which is aimed specifically at in-the-home networking of high definition digital TV. Optimised for high definition video streaming in both the 2.4GHz and 5GHz...

News.
June 13, 2007... Nu Horizons Electronics bought Munich-based design-in distributor Dacom-Sud Electronic Vertriebs as it bids to accelerate its expansion in to the German market. According to Thomas Reisinger, MD of Nu Horizons Germany, a factor in the...

News.
June 13, 2007... Abacus' shares fell when the firm released interim results recently and chairman Harry Westropp said current market conditions were "disappointing". Shares in Zetex fell by about six per cent last week to reach 84.5p. The firm's interim results...

News.
June 13, 2007... By Alex Mayhew-Smith alex.mayhew-smith@rbi.co.uk E2v Technologies is considering sourcing its volume low-cost components through a partner, a joint facility or its own facility in Mexico. "We have a team looking at how to best...

News.
June 13, 2007... Motorola claims it is continuing to recruit staff despite the recent announcement of the loss of a further 4,000 jobs at the firm. "It's important to note that Motorola is continuing to hire top talent for critical areas," said a Motorola...

News.
June 13, 2007... Abacus has received the Panasonic Industrial UK Distributor of the Year award for 2006/7. Pictured are (left) Uwe Reinecke, European distribution director for Panasonic Industrial Europe with Felix Corbett, North European marketing manager for...

News.
June 13, 2007... By Richard Wilson richard.wilson@rbi.co.uk Texas Instruments believes consumer-style time-to-market pressures are starting to make an impact on its customers in the industrial market. The semiconductor company has introduced a...

News.
June 13, 2007... Although the top manufacturers of flash memory are taking a conservative approach to solid state drive (SSD) modules for laptops, the independent module companies are driving densities fast. When Dell, Fujitsu and Sony brought out laptops...

News.
June 13, 2007... The price of laptops could go into freefall as competition hots up between Intel, the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) Media Lab and Taiwanese laptop makers. Recently, the head of the Media Lab, Nicholas Negroponte, described...

News.
June 13, 2007... It's amazing to me that we talk about wireless broadband when even mobile phone coverage is spotty. Here in Silicon Valley, many venture capitalists have offices on Sand Hill Road, yet mobile phone coverage there is terrible. People even...

News.
June 13, 2007... Two very surprising things happened last week: Samsung refused to supply tier one customers with DRAM, and Dell re-started selling PCs with XP. These two events are related, such is the interdependence of the electronics industry. It...

News.
June 13, 2007... Nigel May is CEO of specialist components for the military distributor Force Components 89 Has demand picked up for you since the recent round of wars in Afghanistan and Iraq? It hasn't really this time. The MoD changed its stocking...

News.
June 13, 2007... A new type of monochrome TFT LCD will soon be used as an in-car dashboard display. The display will have the high contrast ratio and graphics capabilities of an active LCD but without the complex and costly electronic drive circuit...

News.
June 13, 2007... Professor Chris Toumazou, director of the Institute of Biomedical Engineering at Imperial College London, was one of this year's recipients of a Silver Medal from the Royal Academy of Engineering. He was recognised for his work on...

News.
June 13, 2007... MIT has publicly demonstrated wireless power transmission to run a 60W light bulb. First announced last year (EW 20/11/06), the technique uses magnetic fields and two highly resonant circuits to improve coupling and reduce the effect of...

News.
June 13, 2007... By Steve Bush steve.bush@rbi.co.uk The UK is behind in LED street lighting, claims Coventry-based manufacturer Advanced LEDs. "We are virtually giving up on the country," company MD Carl Clarke told EW. "Everyone is talking about...

News.
June 13, 2007... Communication network operators in the US will have to provide more accurate E911 location information for callers dialling the emergency services from mobile and voice-over-Internet-protocol (VoIP) phones in the future. The FCC, the US...

News.
June 13, 2007... NXP Semiconductors and T3G Technology are claiming to have achieved the first automatic handover of a voice call on a mobile handset between TD-SCDMA and GSM networks. T3G's TD-SCDMA/GSM/GPRS/EDGE dual mode handset reference design...

News.
June 13, 2007... Dear Editor What I don't like is exposure to RF from shop security systems [see Electronics Weekly June 6 2007, page 3]. These have caused medical adverse incidents with pacemakers. And I bet that criminals just remove tags anyway, so they...

News.
June 13, 2007... By Melanie Reynolds melanie.reynolds@rbi.co.uk Devices that turn heat into sound and then into electricity have been developed at the University of Utah. The technology could be used to change waste heat into electricity. Orest...

News.
June 13, 2007... Freescale Semiconductor claims to have the world's highest power laterally diffused metal oxide semiconductor (LDMOS) RF power transistor which will deliver pulsed RF output power of 1kW at 130MHz. The transistor operates at 50V and will...

Features.
June 13, 2007... On entering one of Qualcomm's buildings at the firm's site in San Diego, you are confronted with a wall covered with metal plates stretching away around the curve of the corridor. On closer inspection the plates reveal themselves to be...

Features.
June 13, 2007... When you look at the flow of new consumer electronics products hitting the market, it seems like a race to add ever more functions and features to devices. Take mobile phones, for example. Waleli recently undertook some market research, in...

Features.
June 13, 2007... Wireless networking is catching the attention of a lot of people these days. Its impact is growing and spreading out from its early focus on office network applications into a host of other areas. In the industrial data communications space...

Features.
June 13, 2007... 13jun07Triteq.jpg Design Application of the Year sponsored by Sony This Award asks companies or research organisations to demonstrate how they have successfully applied component and software technologies in a specific product or...

Technology.
June 13, 2007... Designer Don McLeish has converted his home entirely to LED lighting. With few fittings available, he had to make an awful lot of the parts himself. Both the process and the result can be found at: www.dmcleish.com/MauiHome/

Technology.
June 13, 2007... Carbon nanotubes seldom grow straight and future devices will have to take account of this. From experiments on nanotube NAND gates, scientists at Stamford University have abstracted and generalised an algorithm that can guarantee a...

Technology.
June 13, 2007... Maxim has released an automotive contact monitor and debouncer. Crucially, despite consuming only 17[micro]A, the MAX13036 delivers 40mA 'wetting' current pulses to recently closed contacts to keep them electrically clean. For reliable...

Technology.
June 13, 2007... 13jun07STM - needs key taing off bottome. Boarder may also be ditched if needed. STMicroelectronics has announced a family of ARM Cortex-M3 based microcontrollers, claiming them to be the cheapest for the available performance. "For...

Technology.
June 13, 2007... Researchers at the University of Massachusetts Amherst have created a inherently fireproof synthetic polymer. "The polymer wouldn't need the flame-retardant chemicals that are added to many plastics before they can be used," said the...

Technology.
June 13, 2007... NASA's 20W laser - pictured here surrounded by its four receiver telescopes - is going to be fired at Venus and may locate the planet's cloud decks. "It could either fizzle or be a major result," said NASA project scientist Ralph McNutt. ...

Technology.
June 13, 2007... Analog Devices has developed a micromachined six degrees of freedom (6DOF) motion sensor for instrumentation and industrial use. "Most significantly, all testing and calibration is done by us," ADI product marketing manager Bob Scannell...

News.
June 20, 2007... Anglia Designs has opened a [pounds sterling]500,000 technology centre and EMC test chamber in Wisbech, Cambridgeshire. The centre was opened by Sir Robin Saxby, president of the IET and emeritus chairman of ARM. It has a fully...

News.
June 20, 2007... This thin-film Peltier effect thermoelectric cooler (TEC) has been developed by North Carolina's Nextreme to embed in electronic, photonic and bio-tech devices. 100[micro]m thick, the device pumps a maximum heat flux of 150W/cm2 versus less...

News.
June 20, 2007... By Richard Wilson richard.wilson@rbi.co.uk The Government will provide free set-top boxes to the disabled and partially-sighted as well as less well-off elderly people when the digital TV switchover starts in Cumbria in October. ...

News.
June 20, 2007... By Melanie Reynolds The UMTS Forum has asked the European Commission not to impose a single mobile TV standard on the industry. Viviane Reding, EU telecoms commissioner, is due to announce a 'communication on mobile TV'. The UMTS...

News.
June 20, 2007... By Steve Bush steve.bush@rbi.co.uk Milton Keynes Council has networked 400 streetlights over the mains in an effort to save power. "The driver is to save money as electricity prices have doubled," street lighting manager John...

News.
June 20, 2007... The Semiconductor Industry Association (SIA) has downgraded its forecast for 2007 global microchip sales growth to 1.8 per cent from 10 per cent predicted in February. The forecast now projects total sales of $252bn in 2007. Other...

News.
June 20, 2007... Two ex-senior managers of APW have acquired the metal enclosures product lines from the APW receivers and set up a firm called Verotec. The Southampton-based enclosure manufacturer APW went into administration at the beginning of the year....

News.
June 20, 2007... By Alex Mayhew-Smith alex.mayhew-smith@rbi.co.uk UK design services firms still have an edge over emerging competition in low-cost labour areas such as India, according to Kevin Edwards, the recently appointed business development...

News.
June 20, 2007... Atmel has released an AM/FM antenna amplifier IC for cars. "A separate LNA for FM and a buffer amplifier for AM are used to address the different operating frequencies and requirements of both AM and FM," said the firm. "The AM amplifier...