Electronics Weekly articles from March 2005

Electronics Weekly archives from March 2005

Welsh incubator hosts 11 firms.
March 2, 2005... The Optic Technium incubator at St Asaph in north Wales was officially opened last week. Optic's director Dave Rimmer, said the centre, one of eight Technium sites funded by the Welsh Development Agency, is now host to 80 people, representing...

Tin industry argues for reliability of Pb-free PCBs.
March 2, 2005... The tin industry has responded to Hewlett Packard's assertion that tin-whiskers will affect reliability in Pb-free PCBs compared with existing SnPb coatings (EW 16/02/05). "Data has shown that, on alloy 42 leadframe materials, matte pure tin...

Scottish programme to fund ultrawideband technologies research.
March 2, 2005... Scotland's ITI Techmedia programme is planning to put money behind research into ultrawideband (UWB) technologies at the end of March this year. The organisation, which was set up in September 2003 by Scottish Enterprise, has around [pounds...

Philips shows off ARM9-based chip.
March 2, 2005... Philips announced its first ARM9-based processor at Embedded World in Germany last week. The ARM926EJ-S, without its caches but including Jazelle Java processor, fits into 1.2mm2. The ARM9 decodes MP3 at 21MHz (28MHz for Philips' ARM7TDMI), and...

Renesas moves Ito into CEO role.
March 2, 2005... Renesas Technology, the world's fifth largest semiconductor company, has appointed Satoru Ito as its new CEO. Ito takes over the CEO role from Koichi Nagasawa who becomes chairman emeritus. Before the new appointment, Ito was the firm's...

UK's network for design not on DTI agenda.
March 2, 2005... Hopes for substantial Government funding for a national design network have been dashed. The latest funding round under the DTI's knowledge transfer network (KTN) programme will not include a proposal from the electronics industry for a...

Education reform has 'missed an opportunity'.
March 2, 2005... Government proposals for the reform of education for 14-19 year olds, including an increased emphasis on vocational qualifications, has met with a mixed reaction from the industry. "We welcome the Government's recognition of the importance of...

Product development gives contract design firm boost.
March 2, 2005... Plextek is benefiting from its strategy to include product development in its contract design business. The design and consultancy firm has a number of large product development projects which, according to Plextek's managing director, Dr Colin...

Wolfson seeks margin growth in mixed signal sector but rejects customised product model.
March 2, 2005... Wolfson Microelectronics expects to increase its gross margin but does not see customised or differentiated product as the way to achieve it. Although gross margin rose to 49.3 per cent of sales last year, Wolfson's CEO David Milne, reckons...

ERA Technology to educate firms on compliance to the RoHS Directive.
March 2, 2005... ERA Technology has added a few courses to its repertoire this year, including the topical 'Achieving Compliance with the RoHS Directive'. The Leatherhead-based firm will be offering this half day seminar on the restriction of hazardous...

Imagination builds 16-bit controller.
March 2, 2005... Imagination Technologies has developed MTX, a 16-bit instruction microcontroller to partner its 32-bit multi-threaded Meta processor. "Called MTX it is derived from the logic of a single Meta thread," product manager Woz Ahmed told EW. Data...

Firms to invest in 3G network monitoring.
March 2, 2005... The requirement for the monitoring of mobile and fixed line networks is going to grow as 3G mobile and voice-over-Internet-protocol (VoIP) systems roll out, according to test firm NetTest. "We believe there will be more investment in monitoring...

Toshiba work will improve quantum cryptography crypto.
March 2, 2005... Scientists at Toshiba's European research headquarters have developed a novel single-photon detector based on quantum dots that could dramatically improve the performance of quantum cryptographic communications. "One of the reasons we're very...

UK complex SoC design test system in demand.
March 2, 2005... A test system for complex system-on-chip designs developed in the UK is being used by major semiconductor firms. It is being used by Philips and AMI Semiconductor and is now being targeted at other major European semiconductor firms. "We are...

FPGA has flash and SRAM.
March 2, 2005... Lattice Semiconductor has announced FPGAs with both flash and SRAM configuration storage. With a wide bus between flash and SRAM, the devices can be reconfigured in under 1ms, allowing preventative reconfiguring, said Lattice's v-p of marketing...

Broadband powerline comms takes hold in US.
March 2, 2005... Broadband over powerline (BPL) has been tipped to really start taking off in the US this year as commercial deployments rise according to the New Millennium Research Council (NMRC). NMRC said there were over 20 BPL projects in operation in...

UK lags behind rest of Europe for R&D spend, says EC report.
March 2, 2005... The UK spends less on research and development as a fraction of its gross domestic product than other EU countries, and substantially less than both the US and Japan. Figures released last week by the EC's statistics office show the UK's 'R&D...

Start-up promises universal hardware.
March 2, 2005... Silicon Valley start-up Chips & Systems is promising to bring the "first significant IC technology development to market in 20 years". Chips & Systems claimed it is designing adaptive silicon hardware platforms with "unique computing technology...

Hydrogen fuel battery tiny enough for mobiles.
March 2, 2005... NTT has demonstrated a prototype micro polymer-electrolyte fuel cell (PEFC) using hydrogen gas as a fuel, which the firm claims is small enough to fit in a mobile phone. The Japanese firm said the advantage of the hydrogen PEFC over the...

Chip recycling firm heads for profit.
March 2, 2005... Welsh semiconductor firm Pure Wafer says growth in 300mm wafers is pushing it towards profitability. The company, which reclaims wafers used in fabs worldwide, was floated on the stock exchange in December. "With the losses diminishing, we are...

XJTAG signs boundary scan deal.
March 2, 2005... XJTAG has been chosen by nCipher to provide a boundary scan system to test and debug PCBs for their hardware security modules. The arrangement includes a licensing deal to allow nCipher to use XJTAG's boundary scan development system. "We...

AMD claims lead in dual-core processor volume production for consumer PCs.
March 2, 2005... AMD reckons consumer PCs running on dual-core AMD microprocessors will be available in Q2 or Q3, and believes they will beat Intel to having dual-cores out in the market. "We're starting volume production of dual-core processors for the desktop...

Electroluminescent technology keeps car driver aware of road.
March 2, 2005... Swiss company Rinspeed Designs has produced a concept car called Senso, which makes use of electroluminescent film technology developed by Bayer MaterialScience and the Swiss electronics specialist, Lumitec. Four small electroluminescent...

It is all or nothing with chips, says start-up boss.
March 2, 2005... Semiconductor start-ups should come with a health warning according to the co-founder of one of the UK's most successful young chip companies. "Silicon start-ups are nasty," said Will Robbins, co-founder and design director of Bath-based...

Cameras click as automotive market pushes driver safety.
March 2, 2005... The automotive sector is going to be a big market for cameras as technology for driver assistance and safety are added to vehicles, according to US firm OmniVision Technologies. "Automotive is starting up for us, with things like reversing...

Prototyping and development board for reconfigurable computing.
March 2, 2005... A prototyping and development platform for reconfigurable computing on FPGAs has been released by Celoxica. The RC250 board comes with design software, intellectual property and APIs for connecting to higher level control, such as a PC. At the...

Update on toolset for system remodelling and simulation.
March 2, 2005... CoFluent Design, the French EDA tool provider, has expanded the capabilities of CoFluent Studio, its toolset for system modelling and simulation. The latest release includes facilities for analysing variables such as resource utilisation,...

Novas Software tool enables debug of complex embedded systems-on-chip.
March 2, 2005... Debug specialist Novas Software has released a tool designed to enable debug of complex multi-processor-based embedded systems-on-chip (SoC). The nESL tool extends the company's existing Verdi automated RTL debug tool, adding capabilities such...

French tool gets PSL assertion checker.
March 2, 2005... French EDA firm Temento Systems is updating its debugging tool, DiaLite, adding the option of a PSL assertion checker. PSL (property specification language) assertions are specified by the designer to define the expected system behaviour....

ARM and Synopsys combine forces to create reference flow for dynamic voltage control.
March 2, 2005... ARM and Synopsys have partnered to create a reference flow for designers using dynamic voltage control in the ARM11 processor. The system is part of ARM's intelligent energy manager (IEM) scheme, which can cut power consumption by 60 per cent,...

VaST updates tool with peripheral device builder.
March 2, 2005... VaST Systems Technology is making two announcements at DATE this year, with enhancements to its tools and a peripheral IP builder. The peripheral device builder (PDB) will allow users of the firm's Comet and Meteor tools to create peripherals...

An electronic way of training.
March 2, 2005... A recent report has found the UK ahead of its European counterparts in providing training via electronic delivery over the web. But we are still some way behind the US in e-learning. Melanie Reynolds says it's time to catch up ontinuing...

Anadigm releases EDA tool update.
March 2, 2005... Programmable analogue chip firm Anadigm has released version 2.5 of its AnadigmDesigner2 EDA tool. The company said it shrinks the code size of configuration datasets by 90 per cent, allowing the use of lower-end microcontroller companion...

US molecule is negative resistor.
March 2, 2005... A US scientist has demonstrated a single molecule negative differential resistor. Stuart Lindsay, from the Biodesign Institute at Arizona State University, measured the characteristics of the hepta-aniline oligomer attached to electrodes and...

University close to world record for single-junction solar cell efficiency.
March 2, 2005... Imperial College London is knocking on the door of the world single-junction solar cell efficiency record. "We are close to 27 per cent," Professor Keith Barnham told Electronics Weekly. "The record is 27.6 per cent." Barnham's cell has one...

SpeedStep takes control of desktop.
March 2, 2005... In an effort to control power and heat in desktop microprocessors, Intel is using its SpeedStep technology in the latest Pentium 4. SpeedStep was developed for mobile processors. It allows the operating system - Windows or Linux - to vary...

Entangled qubits key to quantum computer.
March 2, 2005... The prospects of building a quantum computer using conventional semiconductor fabrication have been improved, thanks to work by scientists in the US. The researchers used superconducting Josephson junction circuit elements (see photo) to create...

Converter takes solid oxide fuel cells into home.
March 2, 2005... A converter aimed at turning low voltage DC fuel cell outputs into useful high voltage AC runs at 97 per cent efficiency, according to its developers. Scientists at Virginia Tech said using such a converter allows solid oxide fuel cells to...

QUICC Engine drives Freescale.
March 9, 2005... Freescale Semiconductor has pushed its PowerQUICC range of processors up the ISO 7-layer structure with QUICC Engine, a replacement for its communication processor module (CPM). The Engine supports IP forwarding (layer 3) and IP passing (layer...

Intel goes ahead with Irish plans.
March 9, 2005... The expansion of Intel's Fab 24 at Leixlip in Ireland will go ahead, despite the company withdrawing its application for a major grant from the Irish government. However, Intel hinted the situation may affect decisions on where to site its...

French embedded FPGA firm targets DSPs with latest architecture.
March 9, 2005... Embedded FPGA firm M200 has produced a set of core aimed at digital signal processing applications. The FlexEOS-DSP architecture combines reprogrammable logic with hard-wired DSP functions, such as memory, multipliers, accumulators, adders and...

On-die sensing temperatures.
March 9, 2005... More accurate on-die temperature sensing is available from a technique developed by National Semiconductor, claims the firm. According to National Semiconductor, the integrated temperature-sensing diode on x86 processors is actually the base...

Lead-free exemptions wrangle rumbles on as MEPs shout 'foul'.
March 9, 2005... Exemptions granted to the lead-free Directive (RoHS) are to be re-examined after the European Parliament accused the European Commission of over-stepping its authority when it sanctioned the exemptions last December. "We want the Commission to...

VoIP will destroy phone call pricing structure, says CEO.
March 9, 2005... Telephone calls are going to cost nothing, and there is not a lot the network operators can do to stop it happening, Bob Bailey, president and CEO of PMC-Sierra, told the Globalpress Summit Conference in Monterey last week. "VoIP will be very...

Museum shows nano exhibits.
March 9, 2005... The Science Museum in London is holding an exhibition on nanotechnology, open until August 31. Exhibits such as digital displays as thin as paper and the Tandem cell which turns sunlight into hydrogen fuel. The steel screws holding this...

Frontier Silicon to cash-in on Korean thirst for mobile TV.
March 9, 2005... UK fabless semiconductor developer Frontier Silicon is positioning itself in the market for the roll out of TV broadcast to the mobile phone in Korea this summer. The London-based firm claims around 70 per cent of the market for digital audio...

Bluetooth lacks user-friendly ; appeal for consumer adoption.
March 9, 2005... Bluetooth will never see true mass adoption in its current form because it is not easy enough to use for consumers not already interested in technology. That is the opinion of David McCall, a senior product consultant at Cambridge Silicon...

EDA tool places test structures.
March 9, 2005... An EDA tool for placing test structures into ICs has been rolled out by Cadence at the Design, Automation and Test Europe (DATE) show in Munich. The tool implements structures such as scan, compression, memory BIST, on-product clock generation,...

Chipset predicts WiFi connectivity for $5.
March 9, 2005... Next year it will be possible to add WiFi connectivity to a product for under $5, according to WiFi chipset manufacturer Marvell. This year the company is selling modules which include all the electronics and software for adding WiFi to a...

OS company signs deal with Nokia for terminal platforms.
March 9, 2005... Enea Embedded Technology has agreed a licensing deal with Nokia for its OSE RTOS products. The deal is based on a royalty-paying model and the OSE family of products will be used in Nokia's terminal software platforms. "For Enea this agreement...

Fingerprint recognition too costly for use in mobile phone security.
March 9, 2005... Fingerprint recognition has a long way to go before it can enable or disable mobile phones to counter mobile phone theft. "If I could sell fingerprint recognition for $1 I'd have a huge number of customers," Alan Kramer, president of UPEK told...

90nm SoC needs three re-spins, ; says first time right silicon firm.
March 9, 2005... Re-spins on 90nm system-on-chip projects average at three per design, according to the president and CEO of an Asic firm which guarantees first time right silicon. "Three re-spins is average for any process node at the early stages,"...

Supercapacitor is sum of its parts.
March 9, 2005... With the aim of making it easier for designers to use supercapacitors, Maxwell Technologies has packaged six of its 2.5V devices to create a 15V module. Each supercap in the module is a 350F device, the same size and shape as an alkaline D...

Decline in science education sparks fears over future for US technology.
March 9, 2005... Pat Gelsinger, Intel's former chief technology officer, is "fundamentally fearful" of a decline in science education in the US, especially in primary schools. "I just fear for our long term competitiveness," he said. "Education in the US is...

UK firms grow more confident despite concerns over manufacturing migration.
March 9, 2005... Electronics firms remain positive about business prospects for the year despite continuing concern over the erosion of the UK manufacturing base. EW surveyed the views of 12 senior managers in UK-based companies and found half were more upbeat...

Battling for the best recruits.
March 16, 2005... Fresh out of university, debts looming in the back of your mind and you land a job at British Aerospace. It is secure because the firm is so well-known and has been around for so long. It is safe because of the size of the company, winning big...

Become a high-flyer.
March 16, 2005... The variety of electronics engineering jobs available within the avionics, defence and aerospace sectors greatly depends on the type of company an engineer works for. In defence-related and avionics engineering, for instance, much of the work...

UK universities excel in aeronautical engineering degree courses.
March 16, 2005... By melanie reynolds With avionics, defence and aerospace being such specialist sectors there is demand for engineers who can perform in these areas, which of course means training is needed. The obvious first stop for suitable training is...

Heading here.
March 16, 2005... Switching at the heady frequency of 4MHz, Linear Technologys LTC3418 current mode buck converter offers an 8A output from a 200nH inductor. The device has in-built synchronous rectification and its 35mO switch contributes to a claimed maximum...

4MHz switching gives 8A outputMicroswitch gets 200[degrees]C ratingIntense Photonics broadens horizons with platform arm.
March 16, 2005... business the industrys technology newspaper Wednesday 16 March 2005 No. 2185 design update enabling technologies By Steve Bush Intense Photonics, the Glasgow optoelectronics company, has set up a new division to produce generic platforms...

Call for WEEE Directive delay.
March 16, 2005... In a letter to MPs, recycling body REPIC is calling on the Government to delay the date on which the UK implements the European WEEE (electronic waste) Directive. oWe would rather have a later implementation that was right, than an early one...

Belfast wireless SoC research lab inspired by House of Lords report.
March 16, 2005... Queens University Belfast has opened a [pounds sterling]5.4m research centre with the ambitious aim of developing enabling technologies for wireless systems integrated entirely on CMOS chips. The International Centre for System-on-Chip and...

Mobile multimedia open door for sim cards.
March 16, 2005... The sim card will see growth through increased use in mobile phones as multimedia services are adopted, according to smartcard firm Gemplus. oOne thing that creates a strategic position for the sim is the fact its the only part of the operators...

Marconi: standard would 'cut' loss.
March 16, 2005... Marconi is to move to the International Financial Reporting Standard (IFRS) for its financial year to the end of March 2006. The telecoms firm will begin reporting results under IFRS in the quarter ending June 30 this year. Marconi said the...

Antenna developer valued at [pounds sterling]43m as firm floats on AIM.
March 16, 2005... UK antenna developer Sarantel was five times over-subscribed for its recent float on the AIM stock exchange. The firm raised [pounds sterling]18m at 82p a share, which gives it a market capitalisation of [pounds sterling]43m. The firms chief...

Scottish firms see increased orders.
March 16, 2005... Although electronics firms in Scotland are reporting healthier order levels, optimism is down. The findings in the quarterly Scottish Engineering Review show UK orders from electronics firms are up, according to 43 per cent of the firms...

Wireless and RFID applications drive comms market recovery.
March 16, 2005... The long slump in capital spending by the networking industry is over, with technologies and applications driving an upswing, according to industry leaders. oThe telecom meltdown of 2001-3 has bottomed out,o Bob Bailey, CEO of PMC-Sierra, told...

Altera is making a push with venture capitalists and semiconductor start-up companies to persuade them to use FPGAs rather than Asics and ASSPs to get initial products to market.
March 16, 2005... Altera is making a push with venture capitalists and semiconductor start-up companies to persuade them to use FPGAs rather than Asics and ASSPs to get initial products to market. oInstead of spending $30m to $40m on producing their own SoC, a...

The trade association UK Competitive Telecoms Association (UKCTA) has criticised the lack of detail contained in BT's proposals to set up a ofenced offo business responsible for the local loop copper network.
March 16, 2005... The trade association UK Competitive Telecoms Association (UKCTA) has criticised the lack of detail contained in BTs proposals to set up a ofenced offo business responsible for the local loop copper network. Speaking at a Trade and Industry...

Innovation climate 'strong' in wireless comms market.
March 16, 2005... Philips sees the wireless communications market exploding with a proliferation of new applications and possibilities. oComms is full of new ideas and possibilities, the innovation climate is strong, customers are putting new ideas to us,o Indro...

Researchers discover reason for poor conductivity in organic Fets.
March 16, 2005... Researchers at the University of Cambridge have identified the cause of poor n-type conductivity in organic Fets, and demonstrated electron mobilities of 10-3 - 10-2cm2/Vs in n-type devices. Working with colleagues in Singapore, the Cambridge...

Centre for women in science opens.
March 16, 2005... The Bradford headquarters of the UK Resource Centre (UKRC) for Women in Science, Engineering and Technology (SET) was opened by MP and professional engineer Claire Curtis-Thomas last week. The DTI-funded UKRC aims to improve the participation...

Mesh networks on the brink of global roll-out.
March 16, 2005... The time has come for Mesh networks, according to BPO Solutions, as the technology starts to see worldwide deployment. oThe market has started to turn now,o said Andy Coney, CEO of the Surrey-based firm. oCustomers looking at these types of...

Silicon spin-out offers fast track to prototype.
March 16, 2005... Southampton-based silicon technology firm Innos is promoting its e-beam fabrication capability as a realistic approach to fast prototyping for UK fabless chip firms. The cost of prototyping Asics through foundries are often prohibitive for SMEs...

Spin-out adds actuation to remote sensing technology.
March 16, 2005... Leeds University spin-out Instrumentel is exhibiting its inductively-powered remote sensing and actuating technology at CeBit this week. The firm, which initially applied its IntraSense technology to condition monitoring of Formula One engines,...

Japanese mobile users slow to take up location-based services, claims report.
March 16, 2005... Location-based services are proving slow to attract users with only 10 per cent of Japanese A-GPS mobile handset owners signed up for the service. oOnly ten per cent of KDDI [the Japanese mobile operator and leader in the GPS phone market]...

AlphaHorizon to guide Chinese into Europe.
March 16, 2005... AlphaHorizon, the Swindon high-tech business development start-up, has established a local presence in China to help Chinese companies penetrate the European market. oOur first employee will be Chinese,o AlphaHorizons CEO, Ray Gleason, told EW....

Network-on-chip tools replace bus structure.
March 16, 2005... French start-up Arteris has unveiled its tools that implement network-on-chip technology to replace conventional bus structures. Test chips made at 90nm show serial links can transfer data at up to 6Gbyte/s, while saving die area compared to...

Telecoms firms dial up European structured Asic design market with.
March 16, 2005... Structured Asic design activity seems to be increasing in Europe as two suppliers introduce new families of low entry cost custom chip products. Design interest in the structured Asic approach, with low upfront NRE costs, has shifted to the...

Engineering institutes to be merged.
March 16, 2005... The Society of Engineers is to merge with the Institution of Incorporated Engineers (IIE). Members of the Society, which was established in 1854, will retain the letters after their names. The IIE is still in talks with the IEE to form a joint...

Electronic design automation has growth potential to attract venture capital firms.
March 16, 2005... There are still opportunities for venture capital firms in the electronic design automation market despite a flat sector, according to a panel of experts at this years DATE conference. oEDA is flat, but subsectors have huge growth potential,o...

Free high-level tool allow e la carte design without using C.
March 16, 2005... Cypress MicroSystems has released a high-level development tool for designers using its microcontroller-based PSoC mixed-signal arrays. PSoC Express sits above the existing PSoC Designer tool, and allows developers to describe system...

US police get a nose for drugs.
March 16, 2005... Texas police have finished trials of Hound, an e-nose from Sandia Labs of New Mexico. "There are not enough good things I can say about this tool," said drugs task force commander Jaime Garza. Hound draws "a bathtub's worth of air" through its...

Changing the face of virtual reality.
March 16, 2005... Aiming to change virtual-reality experiences, University of Buffalo researchers are developing 'self-aware' computational agents that can improvise responses to the spontaneous actions of human users. Scroll down www.buffalo.edu/news for a link...