Electronics Weekly articles from March 2003

Electronics Weekly archives from March 2003

Demand for RadioScape design tools shows high 3G interest.
March 5, 2003... Melanie Reynolds Interest in designing 3G mobile technology seems to be picking up again as demand for UK-based RadioScape's design tools has increased in the last quarter. "In the last quarter we've seen a good pick-up in demand for...

A true value-add service.
March 5, 2003... Designing for EMC is notoriously difficult, but it represents a significant opportunity for distributors, says GRAHAM COOK Seen by many as a 'black art', implementing electromagnetic compatibility (EMC) in designs demands a combination of...

Chinese source.
March 5, 2003... Worthing-based PCB distributor Photronix sources its boards from a Chinese manufacturer. RICHARD WILSON reports date. "We've never had a reject," says Millard. According to Millard, the main difference between working with the Chinese...

Work for an e-mech future.
March 5, 2003... Distributors have their work cut out to benefit from high margin passives and e-mech business, writes STEVE SYDES Over the last ten years many business models were driven by increasing volume sales, and typically the majority of the focus...

Mobiles put passives recovery in slow lane.
March 5, 2003... According to industry association, EPCIA, passives prices are under pressure as the mobile phone market fails to spark a recovery. But the passives distributors have a more optimistic view of the future. STEVE BUSH looks to the future ...

Keeping an even keel.
March 5, 2003... The University of Surrey is holding a seminar on leadership which will be led by ocean racing skipper Will Carnegie. Carnegie will illustrate the seminar with experiences gained taking part in the BT Global Challenge Yacht Race as skipper of...

Workplace skills get Government funding.
March 5, 2003... The Science, Engineering and Manufacturing Technologies Alliance is the first Sector Skills Council to be awarded Government funding to boost industrial and vocational training, writes MELANIE REYNOLDS Training organisation EMTA has...

Manchester offers MBA for engineers.
March 5, 2003... MBA modules, covering everything a manager should know, and a portfolio of electives specifically geared towards the engineering industry, and addressing topics crucial for engineering business managers. The course, which takes a minimum...

'We need an appetite for manufacturing...'.
March 5, 2003... The Government must act to tackle the falling level of investment in the manufacturing sector according to industry body the EEF. But is the situation really as black as it is painted? RICHARD WILSON finds out what the distribution sector...

Japanese scientists' breakthrough important for quantum computers.
March 5, 2003... Harry Yeates The prospect of a practical quantum computer has been given a boost by research in Japan that has demonstrated solid state quantum logic. A team at NEC's Fundamental Research Labs has connected two charge-based quantum...

Build nanotechnology facility or fall behind, says DTI report.
March 5, 2003... Harry Yeates The UK needs to implement plans for a nanotechnology fabrication facility immediately if it is to avoid falling behind international research leaders in the field. A fact-finding mission sponsored by the DTI and the...

Setting the trends.
March 5, 2003... Electromechanical and passive products show different trends to semiconductors, writes Afdec's GARY KIBBLEWHITE Passive and electromechanical products have always adopted differing trend patterns to semiconductors and recent history appears...

Replacing Mosfets with FEDs gives 'faster, lower power logic'.
March 5, 2003... Faster, lower power logic could be made by replacing Mosfets in CMOS with field-effect diodes (FEDs), claims Iranian researcher Dr Farshid Raissi. In his logic, appropriately-biased FEDs are used to replace the n and p-channel Mosfets in...

Lead-acid battery cuts weight of 42V systems.
March 5, 2003... Atraverda from Mansfield has demonstrated a simplified lead-acid battery that it claims will cut 50 per cent off the weight of 42V automotive systems. Called a bipolar battery, the firm's design should be able to produce 9kW in a 36/42V...

[pounds sterling]36m extension to Sun's Scottish site secures 700 jobs.
March 5, 2003... Richard Ball A pound sterling36m extension to Sun Microsystems' Scottish manufacturing plant has been opened by HRH The Princess Royal. An additional 13,000m2 of space almost triples the size of the Linlithgow plant and secures 700...

Doing it home and away is right mix to manufacture.
March 5, 2003... The Stadium Group has tailored its manufacturing strategy so that if it's labour intensive it goes to the Far East, but if it's technologically challenging it stays in the UK, writes ALEX MAYHEW-SMITH Continuing the debate on electronics...

Restructuring raises China revenues for manufacturer.
March 5, 2003... Alex Mayhew-Smith The Stadium Group has emerged after a year of restructuring as a contract electronics manufacturer. The firm exited from six businesses last year to take it down to 3 units, and is planning to sell one of these, a...

Researcher gives life to ant and beebots.
March 5, 2003... US researcher James McLurkin is developing algorithms and techniques for programming swarms of tiny robots. This particular one (pictured left) is a 33g, 35 x 35mm antbot. Intelligence comes from a 2MHz Motorola M68HC11E9 and it has four...

Irish funding body to grant p43m awards.
March 5, 2003... Science Foundation Ireland (SFI) is to split E43.4m between 45 teams in its round of funding approvals to universities and institutes of technology in Ireland. "These awards mark another milestone in our efforts to build a world class...

Scottish Enterprise offers [pounds sterling]5.6m for university R&D.
March 5, 2003... Steve Bush Scottish Enterprise has announced details of its pound sterling5.6m fourth Proof of Concept funding round. This round is split between 35 projects in 14 Scottish universities. Bio-tech projects get the lion's share but...

Basestation amp saves millions, says start-up.
March 5, 2003... Richard Ball A start-up in Cambridge claims to have a power amplifier design for mobile phone basestations that can save operators millions of pounds in running costs. Nujira said its power amplifier will be up to 35 per cent...

Norwegian analyser firm switches from Asics to FPGAs.
March 5, 2003... Bus analyser firm VMetro has switched from Asics to FPGAs in its latest products. The Norwegian firm is using high-end Xilinx devices in its Vanguard line of analysers, which means the boards can be upgraded in terms of both hardware and...

Ikanos gets $30m to fund broadband chips.
March 5, 2003... US start-up Ikanos Communications has secured $30m of next round funding which it will use to support volume shipments of its programmable, integrated, broadband chipsets. "The ability to attract funding from major investors in today's...

Camera phone market takes off as Japan makes its move.
March 5, 2003... The market for camera phones is starting to accelerate, although most of the sales to date are in Japan. According to research firm Strategy Analytics, some 18 million mobile phones with built-in cameras were sold last year, 13 million of...

IR lays off staff at Swansea.
March 5, 2003... International Rectifier is laying off between 40 and 50 staff at its facility in Swansea. The firm said the loss of the jobs is due to a customer losing a contract, leading to the closure of a line at the plant. Including the staff to go,...

Japan duo tell Asic customers to use SpyGlass chip analysis EDA software.
March 5, 2003... David Manners in Monterey Two major Japanese semiconductor companies are about to announce they are mandating the predictive analysis EDA software of two year-old Silicon Valley start-up Atrenta for their Asic customers. Atrenta's...

Prospect of war postponing demand for chips, says SIA.
March 5, 2003... David Manners in Monterey The prospect of war with Iraq has lead to a postponement of semiconductor demand but not an absolute decline, according to Doug Andrey, principal analyst of the Semiconductor Industry Association (SIA)...

PCB-enclosure alliance seizes opportunity with move to supply complete sub-systems.
March 5, 2003... A novel supplier partnership between PCB and enclosure suppliers is winning business which might otherwise have been picked up by contract manufacturers. It is the brainchild of enclosure company Pentair and backplane supplier CTS...

Consumers expect 3G to deliver phones.
March 5, 2003... Melanie Reynolds Next generation mobile phone systems will have to aim high to meet consumer expectation which has been raised by years of experience of using the current GSM networks. "The average consumer doesn't see why this...

PCB training centre opens doors.
March 5, 2003... The industry's first Government-backed training centre intended for PCB designers will go live with its full-time undergraduate degree course in October. The centre, based at Melrose in the Scottish borders, has also turned its attention...

Scottish chip repair unit wins [pounds sterling]200k for facility upgrade.
March 5, 2003... The Scottish Microelectronics Imaging & Analysis Centre (MIAC) has been given funding of more than pound sterling200,000 by Scottish Enterprise to upgrade its IC analysis and repair facilities. Based at the Scottish Microelectronics Centre...

Government research funding policy gives more to top-rated university departments.
March 5, 2003... In the same week that the Education Secretary told UK universities there is a need to reward quality in research, the Higher Education Funding Council for England (HEFCE) has done just that, by concentrating its funding on the top-rated...

Micron camera sensor clicks CMOS quality.
March 5, 2003... Micron has launched a 1.3 megapixel CMOS sensor for digital cameras which, claimed the company, eliminates the quality gap between CMOS and CCD for camera sensors. Micron also signalled its intentions to aggressively roll out new...

'Oldest' fab to close as firm shifts production to 150mm.
March 5, 2003... Alex Mayhew-Smith One of Europe's oldest semiconductor fabs is being wound down, as parent firm Zetex shifts production to a new 150mm facility. The fab at Gem Mill was processing silicon in the 1950s under owners Ferranti, and...

Avnet Time connects up to cut back dependence on passives.
March 5, 2003... Richard Wilson Distributor Avnet Time is looking to increase its business in higher margin connector products. According to Frankie Kelly, European president of the passives and electromechanical component distributor, there is a...

Cambridge design firm works on power patches.
March 5, 2003... Israeli printable battery firm Power Paper has hired Cambridge Consultants to take a Power Paper prototype to mass production. "Our aim is to develop PowerCosmetics patch production lines that are capable of manufacturing tens of millions...

Crolles alliance opens sub-0.1[micro]m chip doors.
March 5, 2003... The sub-0.1[micro]m semiconductor collaboration between STMicroelectronics, Philips and Motorola officially opened its fabrication facility in Crolles, France last week. Officially called the Crolles2 Alliance, the joint effort will employ...

Market forces dictate design-in support.
March 5, 2003... For jelly beans write golden nuggets. Passives and electro-mechanical distributors are finding they are under more pressure from suppliers to support and design-in their products. RICHARD WILSON looks at a market in demand The passives...

Premier Farnell renames its UK catalogue in May.
March 12, 2003... Premier Farnell will introduce its new catalogue brand name in the UK in May. The distributor is to rebrand its European catalogue business under the InOne name over the next three months. The move follows the introduction of the brand in...

The modern boxer.
March 12, 2003... The traditional market of the enclosure supplier is no more as smaller firms join their larger bretheren in outsourcing design and assembly of complete enclosure sub-systems. RICHARD WILSON goes into the ring with the boxers Boxing up the...

Sounds like test.
March 12, 2003... The increasing complexity of testing digital audio signals with embedded synchronisation data relies on transmission protocol standards such as AES/EBU and the similar IEC958. ALUN JONES looks at how they work CDs, DVDs, the Internet and...

Pay back time...
March 12, 2003... What happens when you get a very long boom? You get a very long bust, according to the CEO of Actel John East, who is busy transforming the company's programmable logic technology and its market focus. DAVID MANNERS reports The tech slump...

Surgeon lends a robotic hand from 400km away.
March 12, 2003... Surgical teams have performed the world's first hospital-to-hospital tele-robotic assisted surgery, claims medical equipment supplier Computer Motion. Surgeons based in St Joseph's Healthcare, Hamilton, Canada, performed oesophageal...

Bookham boosts buried-heterostructure lasers with etch-deposition combination machine.
March 12, 2003... Milton Keynes-based Bookham Technology has boosted reliability in buried-heterostructure lasers by adding etch capability to its deposition machine. The process "results in 50 per cent lower rates of burn-in degradation than can be...

Polysilicon gate flash goes into retirement at 65nm.
March 12, 2003... David Manners Non-volatile memory is currently taxing some of the best brains in the semiconductor industry as the end of conventional flash is in sight. "Everyone in the industry is trying to develop future generations of non-volatile...

Pb-free conference calling for papers.
March 12, 2003... The organisers of the International conference on Pb-free electronics, to be held in Brussels on June 10-13 this year, are calling for papers from organisations worldwide. "It is thought that this is the first time that a truly...

Automated compiler technology for custom processor designers.
March 12, 2003... Richard Ball in Munich At the DATE design automation conference last week, two firms were showing off automated compiler creation tools for processor designers. Target Compiler Technologies has a tool called Chess which takes a simple...

The technology estate agents.
March 12, 2003... Long faces were the order of the day at last week's UK Technology and Investment Forum, says ALEX MAYHEW-SMITH There was a gloomy atmosphere at last week's UK Technology Partnering and Investment Forum, held in London. Positive comments...

Aspirations for 3G.
March 12, 2003... Disappointed by the WAP and camera phones, consumer expectations of the service that will be offered by 3G networks is high. david manners has already signed up to get his phone. Delivery date? April Fool's Day. getting this thing when no...

Diamond platform makes bio-sensor.
March 12, 2003... Hydrogen plasma modifies a diamond-coated silicon wafer. Diamond films make for durable bio-sensors, according to a team from the University of Wisconsin-Madison. "Although there have been many advances in bio-chip technologies,...

Dutch design company takes stake in Newbury Technology.
March 12, 2003... Harry Yeates Dutch chip design company Catena has taken a minority stake in Newbury Technology, after signing a development deal with the Berkshire-based circuit simulation software firm. Following the deal, Newbury has changed its...

Computers will think ; for us, says Philips Labs.
March 12, 2003... Richard Ball Within the next five years home computer systems will start making decisions on our behalf, according to Professor Emile Aarts, scientific programme director at Philips Research Labs. Giving a keynote speech at the DATE...

BAE Systems' [pounds sterling]30m EPSRC link-up for university research.
March 12, 2003... Harry Yeates BAE Systems is partnering with the Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council (EPSRC) in a ground-breaking new pound sterling30m, five-year partnership to support university research in the aerospace and defence...

Radio firm foresees DAB volume take-up this year.
March 12, 2003... Melanie Reynolds London-based RadioScape is currently concentrating its main efforts on DAB digital radio, and predicts the technology will take off in volume this year. "The timing is now just right. Christmas saw the first real...

ST gets X rated for 0.13[micro]m chips.
March 12, 2003... STMicroelectronics has completed the first small-scale test of the X Architecture, proving that diagonal routing works on 0.13[micro]m chips. The 25mm2 test chip has comb and serpentine structures in the metal lines at a pitch of...

IEE launches network to connect SoC designers.
March 12, 2003... A professional network for system-on-chip designers and engineers has been launched by the IEE, with the aim of bringing together semiconductor companies, intellectual property developers and academia. The inaugural dinner showed the depth...

0.13[micro]m yields 'pretty iffy' worldwide, says Actel CEO.
March 12, 2003... David Manners Semiconductor process technology is running into trouble with poor yields on 0.13[micro]m processes, with technologies like strained silicon and low-k dielectric seen as desperate tweaks to deliver value. Although...

Synplicity modifies Asic tool for NEC gate array.
March 12, 2003... Synplicity has customised its synthesis software for developers using NEC's latest gate array. The Synplify Asic tool has been modified to make efficient use of the multiplexer-based architecture of the NEC chips, and the fact that all...

BT Brightstar spin-out looks for [pounds sterling]7m funding.
March 12, 2003... BT BrightStar spin-out Psytechnics is hoping to secure a pound sterling7m, third round of funding in April, with pound sterling1.6m already secured. The specialist in voice quality monitoring, which spun out of BT's incubation unit in...

$10m funding coup means more jobs at Manchester-based code-morphing firm.
March 12, 2003... Steve Bush Manchester-based code-morphing company Transitive Technologies has secured $10m in second-round funding to take its product to market and more jobs will follow as a result. "Our design centre currently has 45 engineers. We...

Jersey emergency call puts ; UK public services on alert.
March 12, 2003... Melanie Reynolds The UK's fire, ambulance and police services must stop talking and start rolling-out a compatible communications system, according to the emergency services in Jersey. The stalled introduction of emergency...

Power funds switched on.
March 12, 2003... A three-year programme to develop lightweight power electronics devices at Swansea University has received pound sterling1.2m backing from Welsh training and education body Education and Learning Wales (ELWa). The research, led by...

UK materials firm opens US operation for disk business.
March 12, 2003... Harry Yeates NanoMagnetics, the Bristol firm developing materials for high density magnetic storage, is opening a US operation to help hard disk manufacturers integrate its technology in next generation products. The company has also...

Intellect names director general.
March 12, 2003... John Higgins (pictured) has been appointed the new director general of trade body Intellect. Formerly chief executive of the electronics and IT industry body, Higgins' background is in the IT sector, where he was director general of...

UK firm PFE tops up staff after raising investment.
March 12, 2003... Steve Bush Oxfordshire-based Printable Field Emitters (PFE) has raised another round of venture capital funding from its original backers and recruited some senior staff. "Existing investors 3i, Quester and NIF have continued their...

Universities spin-offs increase 22 per cent.
March 12, 2003... The number of businesses spun-off from universities has grown by 22 per cent, according to the latest figures compiled by the Higher Education Funding Council for England. In 2000/2001, 248 spin-off companies were created from the UK's...

Ex-Marconi Edge Lane site will be tech park.
March 12, 2003... The former Marconi site on Edge Lane, Liverpool, which was acquired by the North West Development Agency (NWDA) last year, is to become a regional technology hub. The site, which will be renamed 'Liverpool Digital', will use existing...

Mobile firms wake up to reality of 3G.
March 12, 2003... Mobile phone companies are starting to realise that growing consumer interest in picture phones will not support an early deployment of 3G services. According to one supplier of silicon to handset makers, there is a growing belief that 3G...

Alcatel widens optoelectronic options.
March 12, 2003... Alcatel is still considering the future for its optoelectronics activity and has proposed to shareholders that tracking stock in Alcatel Optronics should be converted into ordinary Alcatel shares. The change will leave the future of the...

Floating gate flash demise sees Actel update ProASIC.
March 19, 2003... David Manners Actel is working on new architectures for its ProASIC programmable logic line because of concerns about future changes to non-volatile memory production processes. With conventional floating gate flash technology thought...

Rat's whisker sensor project awarded [pounds sterling]430,000.
March 19, 2003... Research to develop a robotic sensing technique based on rats' whiskers has received pound sterling430,000 from the Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council. The project will unite robotics experts from the University of the West...

Power down.
March 19, 2003... Everything is portable these days and that means power consumption is at the forefront of the analogue designer's mind. This is causing a shift away from bipolar towards pure CMOS processes. RICHARD BALL reports Low power was the...

Radio link goes home.
March 19, 2003... The ZigBee short-range low-power radio standard, designed for low power operation at data rates of a few dozen kbit/s, is not setting off alarms in the Bluetooth camp. But it does set off alarms in the home, says STEVE BUSH A team from the...

Aerial benders.
March 19, 2003... The latest designs of mobile phone antennas will enable handsets to cover all the GSM bands, as well as those used by Bluetooth and 802.11b. They will even pick up Premiership football. HARRY YEATES checks them out Ever since it began...

Value-added analogue.
March 19, 2003... Analogue manufacturers have their fingers crossed that glory days are set to return to the industry, but they haven't sat back and waited for it, it's taken a big push to add value to their traditional products. DAVID MANNERS reports ...

Connecting 999 calls.
March 19, 2003... As long ago as 1987 after the King's Cross fire and again following September 11, all the reports have said the need for free-flowing communications between the emergency services is paramount. UK take heed, says MELANIE REYNOLDS Tetra has...

Counting the real costs.
March 19, 2003... Conventional approaches to obsolescence management mask the real costs of sustaining aging systems, and effective control can achieve unforeseen savings, writes ROGER VANCE Capturing the benefits of technology updates while trying to...

Toshiba targets portable PCs with direct methanol fuel cell.
March 19, 2003... Toshiba has a prototype direct methanol fuel cell (DMFC) for portable PCs. It currently produces 12W average and 20W maximum. Five hours operation is available from a single 50cc fuel cartridge. According to the company, fuel cells...

Anode material has louder graphite roar in Liion cells.
March 19, 2003... Steve Bush Sandia Labs in California is developing a composite anode material for lithium ion cells which "may improve the specific capabilities of commercial graphite anode materials up to 400 percent," according to the lab's Jim Wang... .

Bluetooth transceiver puts radio/baseband on one chip.
March 19, 2003... A single chip Bluetooth transceiver, combining radio and baseband functions, has been developed by US firm Silicon Wave. The SiW3000 integrates a 2.4GHz direct conversion radio modem with an ARM7TDMI, baseband logic, and protocol software...

Bookham to demonstrate 40Gbit/s optical modulator.
March 19, 2003... A novel 40Gbit/s electro-absorption modulator (EAM) will be the subject of a paper from Bookham Technology to be given at the Optical Fiber Communication (OFC) conference on March 25. Based on the Franz-Keldysh effect, in which the...

Californian researchers plant chip in damaged brain cells.
March 19, 2003... Harry Yeates Researchers in California are planning to replace damaged regions of the brain with a microchip. By feeding electrical inputs through a chip designed to replicate the damaged part of the hippocampus - which plays a key...

Design firm posts [pounds sterling]5.1m loss.
March 19, 2003... Design automation firm TransEDA has posted a net loss of pound sterling5.1m for the six months ending December 31 2002. The company's CEO Udo Muerle has also left the company after just six months in charge. The losses dwarf the loss...

Standards of living.
March 19, 2003... When a device as innovative as the Psion Revo bites the dust because of standardisation, it's time to step back and ask, just what do standards offer? david manners finds there are lessons to be learned This week I bought a Psion Revo. A...