Electronics Weekly articles from March 2006

Electronics Weekly archives from March 2006

Design environment to ease RTL to GDSII flow.
March 1, 2006... Harry Yeates harry.yeates@rbi.co.uk Synopsys has released Pilot, a design environment intended to help customers handle elements of their RTL to GDSII flow that are not related to the detail of the design. The company's market research...

Taiwan foundry readies immersion lithography for 42nm.
March 1, 2006... Immersion lithography is almost ready for production, according to announcements from TSMC at the SPIE Microlithography conference in California last week. The Taiwanese foundry said it had developed defect correction technology to the...

We'll go to war to secure silicon fab, says Broers.
March 1, 2006... Sir Alec Broers, president of the Royal Academy of Engineering, said last week that "we might have to go to war" to secure a [pounds sterling]50m silicon mini-fab in the UK. The mini-fab is being considered by the Office of Science and...

Europe research plans too 'simplistic' for UK not top of UK wish list g.
March 1, 2006... Plans for a European Institute of Technology (EIT) research centre have received a lukewarm welcome among figures in the UK educational establishment. European Commission president Jose Manuel Barroso is keen on the idea of a flagship...

Supercapacitor market sees growth as wind turbine sales start to spin.
March 1, 2006... By Richard Ball richard.ball@rbi.co.uk Supercapacitors, once a technological novelty, are now mainstream and showing significant sales volumes, according to Maxwell Technologies. "We have shown now it's more than a new technology, the...

Chinese mobile TV move boosts DMB-T technology.
March 1, 2006... By Melanie Reynolds melanie.reynolds@rbi.co.uk The adoption by the Chinese of DMB-T for mobile TV will give the technology a huge boost, possibly prompting other countries to follow suit, according to London-based RadioScape. "I think a lot...

Demand rise sees contract manufacturer take on staff.
March 1, 2006... By Alex Mayhew-Smith alex.mayhew-smith@rbi.co.uk Contract design and manufacture firm EMA has taken on more staff to cope with a rising demand for its services, said the company's sales director Dave Stark. The firm, which is based in...

News.
March 1, 2006... Government research funding body the EPSRC is investing [pounds sterling]1.2m in a trial of pervasive computing technologies, including Bluetooth and near-field communications, in Bath. A group of universities and companies including...

News.
March 1, 2006... E2v Technologies saw its CCD imaging devices blasted into space recently on board NASA's New Horizons mission to Pluto. The sensors are incorporated into the spacecraft's Ralph and LORRI science instruments to help provide image data of the...

Comms start-up says time is right for powerline push.
March 1, 2006... By David Manners david.manners@rbi.co.uk SiConnect, the powerline communications start-up incubated by the SETsquared university group, expects to be sampling customers with its first chips around the middle of the year. "We have a plan...

Fabless firms team up on WiMAX platform.
March 1, 2006... A silicon collaboration between fabless firms picoChip and Wintegra has resulted in a wireless system development platform for WiMAX basestations. It combines picoChip's PC102 picoArray multi-core processor running the industry standard IEEE...

News.
March 1, 2006... EMC specialist 3C Test is building a 10m CISPR 16 semi anechoic chamber at its facility in the Silverstone Technology Park in Northamptonshire. MD James Gordon-Colebrooke (left) is seen with Garry Pitchford of Global EMC, which is constructing...

News.
March 1, 2006... Mar 6-10: DATE 06 in Messe Munich, Germany. www.date-conference.com Mar 7-8: MicroTech 2006, design, manufacture and test for system in package technologies conference, Cambridge. www.imaps.org.uk Mar 9-15: CeBIT, Hanover. www.cebit.de...

4G radio kit takes 2.5Gbit/s at speed.
March 1, 2006... NTT DoCoMo claims to have achieved downlink data rates of 2.5Gbit/s while moving at 20km/hr during a field trial of its 4G radio access equipment. The Japanese operator achieved a maximum 1Gbit/s in an earlier experiment but managed to up...

News.
March 1, 2006... A portable infrared camera from Flir Systems, which was on view at last week's MTEC exhibition, is designed to be used in a range of engineering applications. Called InfraCam, it has a 120x120 pixel uncooled focal plane array that displays...

HSDPA poised for launch as standards due for validation.
March 1, 2006... By Melanie Reynolds melanie.reynolds@rbi.co.uk HSDPA is moving out of the hype stage and into the launch phase with the standards due to be validated this year and several pre-commercial handsets being evaluated. "Now the groundwork has...

Foundry claims litho success.
March 1, 2006... Taiwanese foundry TSMC says its immersion lithography technology has produced test wafers well within acceptable parameters for volume manufacturing. According to Burn Lin, director of TSMC's micropatterning division, "TSMC produced...

Fuel cell firm signs LPG deal to develop generator market.
March 1, 2006... Hampshire-based fuel cell maker Voller Energy has signed a two-year deal with Calor Gas to develop a market for liquid petroleum gas (LPG) powered generators. Voller already makes a 100W device powered by hydrogen, and has arranged...

CSR plumps for WiMedia Alliance version of UWB for Bluetooth.
March 1, 2006... Cambridge-based CSR has announced it is backing the WiMedia Alliance version of ultra-wideband (UWB) technology to develop with its Bluetooth products. The decision puts CSR in line with ECMA, a European standards body for consumer...

Redundancies at PCB company.
March 1, 2006... The joint administrators at PCB firm Circatex have made 86 staff redundant but still hope to sell the company as a going business. Administrators from Ernst & Young said they remained hopeful that a sale of a leaner business can be...

WSN research partnerships needed in the UK, says DTI.
March 1, 2006... Academic-industrial partnerships should be set up and funded in the UK to develop a wireless sensor network (WSN) capability, according to the conclusion of the DTI-sponsored Global Watch mission report Wireless sensor networks - a mission to...

Renesas licenses dual-core ARM for SoCs.
March 1, 2006... Renesas Technology has licensed the ARM11 MPCore multi-processor for use in system-on-chip (SoC) devices aimed at mobile phones. This is part of the firm's strategy to widen its SoC offering to incorporate processors in addition to its own...

Display firm aims for volume LEP manufacturing this year.
March 1, 2006... By Steve Bush steve.bush@rbi.co.uk Edinburgh-based MicroEmissive Displays will be in volume production by the end of this year, according to the firm's CEO Bill Miller. "We are using our limited production capability to satisfy our current...

News.
March 1, 2006... The UK's newest semiconductor repping agency Redtree has been appointed by Tundra Semiconductor as its European agent. Bonan McCabe (left), Tundra's regional director signed the deal with Redtree's MD Steve Judge which will see the firm selling...

News.
March 1, 2006... university cleanroom open to European smes A Swedish university has negotiated a contract with the European Commission to make its cleanroom available free of charge to European researchers and SMEs working on microwave electronics, photonics,...

UK 'desperate' for silicon technology R&D facility.
March 1, 2006... By Harry Yeates harry.yeates@rbi.co.uk The case for a national facility to support R&D work in next generation silicon technology was made again last week, this time at a meeting organised by Silicon Futures, the network coordinated by...

Security check.
March 1, 2006... Troublesome people, hackers. A weekend with no interruptions and by Monday they will have dreamt up a clever new way to steal your electronic data. For a device with an accessible security chip (typically we're talking about smartcards), a nice...

Tool for advanced chip designs.
March 1, 2006... Cadence's Chip Optimiser tool is used after place and route to help improve yield, manufacturability and performance in advanced designs. Last month the company added interactive features for lithography-aware design to its Virtuoso...

Features.
March 1, 2006... IMEC works on wireless aware mobile handset At DATE Belgian research centre IMEC will be presenting results from projects aimed at developing a future multimode, low-power mobile handset that is aware of its wireless environment. The...

Support for SystemVerilog.
March 1, 2006... French test and debug specialist Temento Systems is introducing support for SystemVerilog assertions in its DiaLite Platform Edition tool. The assertion checker module enables at speed' verification of properties, directly on the chip. ...

Features.
March 1, 2006... Prototyping tools for low power design VaST Systems Technology will be touting the benefits of its virtual prototyping tools for low power design during DATE. The US company says virtual system prototypes are 95-100 per cent as accurate as...

Features.
March 1, 2006... Organisers hail diversity of exhibitors at Date This year's DATE show has attracted 98 exhibiting companies, 29 of which are new. Although the numbers are down slightly on last year, the organisers have stressed the more diverse range of...

North west connections.
March 1, 2006... When I read the announcement from the EDA Consortium that Phil Moorby, creator of Verilog, was to be given the 2005 Kaufman Award, my immediate reaction was one of pride and optimism. Here was a man from our neighbourhood, the north west of...

EDA key to productivity gap.
March 1, 2006... Gabriel Lezmi v-p European sales, Synopsys Globalisation and a burgeoning youth market are escalating the demand for small, high-performance, low-power consumer electronics products that are affordable and laden with features. These...

Consumers drive R&D focus to low power, smaller goods.
March 1, 2006... Mike Fister CEO, Cadence In 2006 the relentless move to smaller and smaller feature sizes will continue to drive much of the R&D focus. Along with developments at the leading edge of design, there are increasing efforts to strengthen core...

Online education service teaches about ultra-wideband technology.
March 1, 2006... By Melanie Reynolds melanie.reynolds.co.uk US-based Staccato Communications is offering an online education service which aims to tell you everything you ever wanted to know about ultra-wideband (UWB) technology - and probably some things...

University course switched on to high definition TV issues.
March 1, 2006... By Melanie Reynolds The University of Surrey is following up on the success of its courses on digital terrestrial television with training which addresses the issues surrounding high definition television. The first High Definition...

Features.
March 1, 2006... "Bite sized" training techniques to help small companies boost skill levels are being pioneered in England by sector skills council Semta and the Qualifications and Curriculum Authority (QCA). The scheme is designed to save small companies...

Features.
March 1, 2006... Mar 13-17: Comprehensive C++ - Cambridge www.doulos.com Mar 13-17: PCB Foundation - Staffordshire www.eda.co.uk/trainTechSem.html Mar 14: The Art of Designing for EMC - Leatherhead www.era.co.uk Mar 15-16:...

News.
March 1, 2006... A lower-temperature technique for growing crystalline gallium nitride (GaN) has been developed at Los Alamos National Laboratory in the US. The process, which is known as energetic neutral atom-beam lithography, or ENABLE, deposits GaN on a...

Test probe small enough to squeeze beneath BGAs.
March 1, 2006... By Steve Bush steve.bush@rbi.co.uk NEC claims to have developed the smallest electric field probe, capable of detecting signals under ICs. "As its lateral size is 125[micro]m, the probe can be inserted into narrow spaces such as the...

News.
March 1, 2006... The world's smallest, dual SCART chip for set-top boxes is Maxim's claim for the MAX9595. In a 7x7mm TQFN-EP package, the device integrates video filters and a switch matrix to allow routing of audio and video signals between an MPEG encoder...

News.
March 1, 2006... 01mar06 DigiComp Worth a look If you feel the need to make a three bit mechanical ALU, take a look at www.mindsontoys.com and click on eKits' at the top. Digi-Comp I V2.0 is a resurrected the original Digi-Comp I, a 1960s toy which...

Europe plans largest embedded systems project.
March 8, 2006... Europe's largest ever collaborative research project into embedded systems design will be mapped out this week in Brussels. It covers design from semiconductors to full systems. The six-year collaborative project linking research in...

Hopes for mini-fab rise with [pounds sterling]15m MEMS plan.
March 8, 2006... The Government is believed to be putting together one of the largest support packages to boost semiconductor manufacturing in this country. A [pounds sterling]15m investment by the DTI and Scottish Enterprise in a micromachines and...

News.
March 8, 2006... By David Manners reporting from Monterey The electronics industry is adjusting to the constraints which ceilings on power and heat dissipation have placed on the design and manufacture of electronics products, the Globalpress Summit...

Tiny vortices promise MRAM boost.
March 8, 2006... Development work on magnetic RAM (MRAM) has received a boost with the creation of tiny displaced vortex states' in micrometre-sized dots of magnetic materials. The magnetic field in each dot is tightly confined to these vortices, meaning...

Complex SoC visibility cuts debug and verification time.
March 8, 2006... Debug specialist Novas Software has released two products to speed up verification and debug by improving visibility into complex SoCs. Scott Sandler, Novas CEO, said the key capability in the Siloti SilVE and SimVE ASSPs is in correlating...

DTI funds InP wafer project.
March 8, 2006... By Steve Bush steve.bush@rbi.co.uk Cardiff-based Wafer Technology, the University of Oxford, and Ipswich's CIP are to develop wafers and epitaxy for InP-based thermophotovoltaic (TPV) devices. "These are photocells that also absorb heat...

Protective material goes surfing.
March 8, 2006... Originally created to protect sensitive electronic and mechanical structures from harsh weapons environments by the US' Sandia National Laboratories, TufFoam may be finding its way into surfboards. The material is a water-blown,...

News.
March 8, 2006... Anglia has signed two new franchises. Account manager Beverley Sole and Kevin Turner, MD of Schurter UK mark the signing of the fuse and power connector line by the Wisbech-based distributor. Anglia has also added a semiconductor franchise,...

News.
March 8, 2006... Swedish Asic prototyping firm Hardi Electronics has added two motherboards to its family of FPGA-based platforms. Company CEO Lars-Eric Lundgen said designs up to 30 million Asic gates could be catered for by connecting together multiple...

Tool tackles litho failures on 65nm.
March 8, 2006... By Harry Yeates harry.yeates@rbi.co.uk Mentor Graphics has released a version of its Calibre IC design tool intended to avoid failures resulting from lithography-dependent defects on 65nm processes. Launched at the DATE show this week,...

Women's absence shows skills gap.
March 8, 2006... Women are still being discouraged from taking up careers in engineering and technology companies, according to a report from the Women and Work Commission. According to the DTI-backed UK Resource Centre for Women in Science Engineering and...

Wireless firms stand back as start-ups thrash it out.
March 8, 2006... By David Manners david.manners@rbi.co.uk Huge venture capital investment in wireless technology start-ups has persuaded large companies to stand back and watch while the smaller firms engage in a bloodbath. The larger firms are waiting to...

National opens power design centre in Germany.
March 8, 2006... National Semiconductor has opened a power applications design centre at Fuerstenfeldbruck near Munich. The firm said the centre will strengthen its application and system support services for engineers designing power supplies and power...

TV design pushes cost of silicon down to $45.
March 8, 2006... Philips has released a reference design it claims will allow TV makers to reach a bill of material of less than $45 for analogue and digital processing functions. "The Nexperia TV520 family is expressly designed to facilitate the...

News.
March 8, 2006... Jean-Marie Doutrewe has been promoted to regional vice-president, sales, marketing and service operations for EMEA at On Semiconductor. He joined Motorola in 1993 and more recently he held the position of director, service operations for EMEA,...

Operational efficiencies tested at UK chip plants.
March 8, 2006... Twelve semiconductor manufacturing sites in the UK have had their operational efficiencies assessed by the National Microelectronics Institute (NMI). This benchmarking of manufacturing facilities was significant because it has encouraged...

Holey fibre squares up to cut energy loss in displays.
March 8, 2006... By Steve Bush steve.bush@rbi.co.uk Researchers at the University of Southampton have used a novel holey fibre and a laser to drill square holes for display manufacturer Exitech. "At the moment a circular laser beam is used by Exitech with...

News.
March 8, 2006... What: Quantum Information Group, Toshiba Research Europe, Cambridge Where: Cambridge Science Park, Cambridge Established: 1991 People Around 15 research staff and 8 PhD students Research: Quantum information technology -...

News.
March 8, 2006... Mystery electric effect used to deliver 0.48K/V cooling By Harry Yeates harry.yeates@rbi.co.uk A thermo-electric effect that no-one seems to understand has been exploited by scientists in Cambridge to deliver cooling of 0.48K/V. The work...

News.
March 8, 2006... Researchers at Sandia National Labs in the US are using GOMA, a finite-element computer code developed in the lab, to produce two-dimensional performance models for proton exchange membrane (PEM) fuel cells. In particular the level of water in...

News.
March 8, 2006... The UK government is ignoring solar power, according to a report from UK academics last week. In it they said that with an annual increase in production of 40 per cent, the UK could produce 12GW from solar power by 2023. In 2004 the increase...

TV in your hand.
March 8, 2006... Away from the supposed glitz and glamour of the usual Cannes location, with its yachts and movie star connotations, the 3GSM World Congress in Barcelona obviously decided it needed to inject some of the glamour back. Actors Wesley Snipes...

Radio barcodes.
March 8, 2006... New technology can sometimes make a rapid and major impact, such as mobile phones and MP3 players which evolved in a relatively short space of time. But the speed at which technology evolves does not necessarily dictate the impact it will have....

ETSI members seek change of intellectual property policy.
March 8, 2006... ETSI, the European Telecoms Standards Institute, is reviewing the way it handles members intellectual property rights (IPR). "Several member companies have asked ETSI to look at our IPR policy with a view to changing it," an ETSI spokesman...

News.
March 8, 2006... NASA uncovers traces of Mayan city merging space images and radar data By Steve Bush steve.bush@rbi.co.uk Remains of a Central American Mayan city have been uncovered from space by NASA. "From the air, everything but the tops of very few...

UK network needs to catch academia's imagination.
March 22, 2006... Academia has yet to fully support the UK's Knowledge Transfer Network, according to Tony Harker, chief executive of the Institute for System Level Integration (ISLI). The situation is a potential deal-breaker for the Government's flagship...

Mentor opens contacts book to UK start-ups.
March 22, 2006... Mentor Graphics has set up a UK start-up support firm called Cre8ventures as EW refreshes its start-up map (see pages 24 and 25). Mentor is attempting to assist UK start-ups by brokering contacts with potential allies, advisers and...

Picochip to get aggressive with 90nm wireless basestation chips.
March 22, 2006... Picochip, the Bath-based wireless-specific processor developer, has announced a family of three 90nm chips aimed at cost sensitive wireless applications. The PC202, PC203 and PC205 use the company's parallel array architecture and offer...

UK spin-out IP.access wins [pounds sterling]8.5m to develop its 3G pico-basestation.
March 22, 2006... By Melanie Reynolds melanie.reynolds@rbi.co.uk Ip.access, a spin-out from TTPCom, has received [pounds sterling]8.5m in its latest funding round which it will use to develop a 3G pico-basestation. The money will also be used to expand the...

Products.
March 22, 2006... Components distributors have reported a good start to the year, but stronger ordering has increased lead times on some products. Figures from UK industry association Afdec indicate that average daily order bookings in January rose by seven...

News.
March 22, 2006... Link Microtek has won a contract worth over [pounds sterling]1m from the UK Ministry of Defence for the supply of microwave horn antennas and adapters. The company said this was the largest order it had ever ever received for in-house...

News.
March 22, 2006... The Racal brand name will continue to be used in certain markets, according to Doug McGinn, CEO of EADS Test & Services UK. Test and services firm Racal Instruments was acquired by defence company EADS in 2004 but last week the parent...

Permanent magnets replace coils in synchronous motors.
March 22, 2006... More compact synchronous motors based on a design using permanent magnets instead of coils are replacing traditional inductive motors in a number of applications, according to International Rectifier. Smaller and lower cost designs of motor...

Plextek to see business change 'within a year'.
March 22, 2006... By Richard Wilson richard.wilson@rbi.co.uk Plextek's plan to create a substantial business designing and supplying products will be completed within the next 12 months, according to the head of the firm. The Essex-based company, has been...

MathWorks toolbox used in collider.
March 22, 2006... The Distributed Computing Toolbox from The MathWorks is being used to develop the International Linear Collider (ILC), the proposed electron-positron collider. "The toolbox enables multiple simulations of the accelerator and particle beam...

News.
March 22, 2006... Electronics Weekly published its first start-up map in 1999 and this is the fifth time it has been published. Firms that were started before 2000 have by necessity been taken off the map on this occasion due to a lack of space. There are 128...

Q5Lesley Thompson From Research councils uk.
March 22, 2006... Lesley Thompson is a programme manager for information and communication technologies within the Research Councils UK. The Government will make a decision this month on the funding of the [pounds sterling]50m mini-fab proposed by the EPSRC and...

Analogue market is rewarding territory.
March 22, 2006... Analogue is the place to be in the chip industry. Demand is growing, margins are fat, venture capitalists beckon the industry's elite. Top players such as Maxim and Linear Technology enjoy gross margins in excess of 70 per cent. The market...

Design group adds 25 engineers.
March 22, 2006... Broadcom is expanding its system-on-chip (SoC) design facility in Bristol and plans to recruit more than 25 engineers this year. The facility is one of the firm's centres for DSL broadband chip design and there is a project to create a 65nm...

Printing 'breakthrough' uses OLED technology.
March 22, 2006... Seiko Epson has developed what it claims is the first OLED-based print head. "At present, electro-photographic printing technologies for copiers and printers use either laser or LED light sources," said a spokesperson at the firm. "Epson...

Bio-medical engineering receives [pounds sterling]6m funding.
March 22, 2006... Philips Research and the UK EPSRC (Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council) have teamed up to put [pounds sterling]3m each into bio-medical engineering. The cash will go into four years of low-power bio-sensor research for...