Electronics Weekly articles from March 2008

Electronics Weekly archives from March 2008

Features.
March 5, 2008... 05mar08Mentor.jpg Intelligent testbench automation to close the verification gap Functional verification techniques are lagging behind design complexity, but the the gap can be narrowed by testbench automation technology, writes By...

News.
March 5, 2008... Belgian research organisation IMEC is claiming a record efficiency of 24.7 per cent for GaAs solar cells grown on Ge substrates. The key is the substrate, made by European precious metals firm Umicore. "We haven't changed anything...

News.
March 5, 2008... Amid hundreds of new microcontrollers launched last week at Embedded World, two UK companies took a new spin on their devices. Cambridge-based 16-bit controller maker Cyan has launched a low cost version of its eCOG controller, stripping...

News.
March 5, 2008... 05mar08Abacus.jpg Abacus has teamed up with LED lighting specialist Osram to create a distribution business division to address the solid state lighting market. Called AbacusLED, the venture will market the Osram range of discrete LEDs and...

Features.
March 5, 2008... Functional verification techniques are lagging behind design complexity. This article describes how the gap can be narrowed by new intelligent testbench automation technology. First, declarative rules make possible a complete separation...

Features.
March 5, 2008... Power consumption is important and particularly at today's shrinking technology nodes. At 90nm and below, total consumption power has increased and leakage power now takes a bigger share of total power. Leakage constantly drains power...

Features.
March 5, 2008... Mar 10: Effective Project Management for Engineers & Scientists - Oxford www.conted.ox.ac.uk/electronics Mar 10-14: Small Terminal Satellite Systems: VSAT Systems - York www.yorkemc.co.uk/cpd Mar 11: Successful Change...

Features.
March 5, 2008... The Institute for System Level Integration (iSLI) has partnered Mentor Graphics to provide professional development courses in exchange for Mentor Passbook tokens. Mentor created the idea of Passbooks as part of an annual training plan for...

Features.
March 5, 2008... A workshop focusing on Linux system design will feature in embedded masterclasses to take place in London and Bristol later this year. The events, at the Thames Innovation Centre in outer London on the 8th May and near Bristol on the 13th...

News.
March 5, 2008... 05mar08Q5ronblack.jpg Dr. Ronald Black is CEO at Wavecom, the French developer and supplier of embedded industrial wireless communications systems which are sometimes referred to as M2M systems. How would you describe the M2M business...

News.
March 5, 2008... Despite the set-back of the Crolles 2 partners going to other sources for core microelectronics process technology, the French government has said it will continue subsidising Crolles, according to a statement from the Elysee Palace, the office...

News.
March 5, 2008... Richard Wilson richard.wilson@electronicsweekly.com FPGAs have been used for video processing for almost as long as there have been FPGAs. Where once the emphasis was on processing power alone, now FPGA suppliers offer development...

News.
March 5, 2008... Two embedded operating system vendors, Lynuxworks and Green Hills Software, have launched hypervisor software, which will allow different operating systems to run on a single system securely. Lynuxworks has created a software development...

News.
March 5, 2008... Freescale Semiconductor and STMicroelectronics have jointly developed a range of microcontrollers based on the Power Architecture and targeted at automotive applications. Lead automotive customers will receive samples of the first MCU samples...

News.
March 5, 2008... By Steve Bush steve.bush@electronicsweekly.com London-based OLED-T has developed a material which will cut power and extend the lifetime of OLED displays. Compared with the benchmark electron transport material aluminium quinolate...

News.
March 5, 2008... XJTAG has thrown its weight behind National Electronics Week, the UK's newest electronics exhibition which will take place at London's Earls Court in June. "The UK electronics industry is the fifth largest in the world and this is an important...

News.
March 5, 2008... By Steve Bush steve.bush@electronicsweekly.com Texas Instruments has introduced what it claims is the first single-chip digital input Class-D speaker amplifier with closed-loop feedback."The feedback is in the analogue domain, around...

News.
March 5, 2008... 05mar08ST.jpg by Richard Wilson Despite the growing interest in 32-bit microcontroller designs, STMicroelectronics believes there is potential to extend the use of lower cost 8-bit MCUs, and the strategy seems to be based on...

News.
March 5, 2008... Human interfaces for electronic gadgets sometimes require three states for control. A single-axis joystick has states to define motions to the right, to the left, and with no motion. Similarly, a timer has control buttons that allow the timer...

News.
March 5, 2008... 05mar08EDNnat.tif Octal continuous-time sigma-delta ADC targets ultrasound and industrial applications By Paul Rako National Semiconductor is the first to bring to market a high-speed, continuous-time sigma-delta converter. The...

Features.
March 12, 2008... By Alison Steer Wireless receiver design requires extreme care in dealing with noise sources that affect the analogue-to-digital converter (ADC). High sensitivity receivers, such as those in satellite or basestation applications demand the...

Technology.
March 12, 2008... 12mar08probe in aard.... Researchers at the US National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) NIST researchers tried a technique called inelastic electron tunnelling spectroscopy (IETS) to look inside a molecular junction. ...

Technology.
March 12, 2008... 12mar08necklace1 A sensor necklace that sends the date and time a tagged pill is swallowed to a wireless device 12mar08necklace2 Georgia Tech assistant professor Maysam Ghovanloo (left) and graduate student Xueliang Huo test their...

News.
March 12, 2008... Quicklogic has integrated an image enhancement algorithm into its FPGAs to improve the battery life of mobile phones and drive FPGAs into the high volume mobile market. The Visual Enhancement Engine technology was developed by London-based...

News.
March 12, 2008... A UK study is bidding to be the first anywhwre in the world to use the electronic properties of diamond in a new class of very high performance RF devices.Berkshire-based Diamond Microwave Devices (DMD) is working with the London Centre for...

News.
March 12, 2008... A new project is bidding to take the UK to the forefront of diamond electronics, using the material in very high performance RF devices. Berkshire-based Diamond Microwave Devices (DMD) is working with the London Centre for Nanotechnology to...

News.
March 12, 2008... electronicsweekly.com first for design & technology news since 1960 12.03.08 No. 2326 * FEATURES 10 * PRODUCTS 27 * CLASSIFIED 31 * JOBS 36 UK cuts diamond for use in RF systems Inside News By Steve Bush ...

Features.
March 12, 2008... High efficiency step-down DC-DC converters implement synchronous rectification to achieve the high efficiency requirements of computing applications. The driver and power-train must be optimized for specific operating points. Advancements...

Features.
March 12, 2008... With heightened public awareness of the energy efficiency of all energy-using products, one debate that is often at the top of the agenda is innovation versus legislation. Many parties believe that the only way to reduce energy consumption...

Features.
March 12, 2008... Power supply manufacturers of all types and sizes have come to recognise that charging batteries using external power sources is big business. Some manufacturers do little else, while others specialise in building power supplies and chargers...

Features.
March 12, 2008... Recent news from power supply companies engaged in patent infringement lawsuits, and the level of attention those trials have reached within the power community have generated reactions and concerns about the way the US Patent System is...

News.
March 12, 2008... Intel is up against it with its shares falling by a third in the last three months, with the enterprise computing market expected to soften, and with NAND flash prices falling like a stone just when the chip maker is in the expensive phase of...

News.
March 12, 2008... James Gourlay is chief technology officer and founder of Design LED, the Livingston-based specialist in printed light-guides and embedded LEDs. QCan you describe in two sentences the essence of your printed light-guide manufacturing...

News.
March 12, 2008... NXP Semiconductors saw a 1.4 per cent rise in full year sales to [euro]4.629bn, but the semiconductor company still sees soft business conditions across the market. It expects a 9 to 13 per cent sequential decline in first quarter sales this...

News.
March 12, 2008... 12mar08MagmaShield.jpg AT DATE 2008 this week, the semiconductor design community heard Magma Design Automation claim to have the first full-chip mixed-signal design, analysis and verification tool. Called Titan, it integrates analogue...

News.
March 12, 2008... US computer board maker Curtiss-Wright Controls Embedded Computing is on the look out for more UK companies, following its purchase of Livingston-based Pentland Systems for $2.3m. "We are on the acquisition trail and anticipate acquiring...

News.
March 12, 2008... A former icon of the UK's semiconductor manufacturing industry changed hands for a euro last week when Zarlink Semiconductor agreed the sale its Swindon-based semiconductor foundry to French manufacturer MHS Electronics. In the 1960s the...

News.
March 12, 2008... Georgia Institute of Technology claims to have proved molecule-sized gold structures can be magnetic, insulating, and conducting as well as change their shape with an electric field. "The findings are important predictions that could some...

News.
March 12, 2008... Upgradable scopes capture 1Gsample records on all channels simultaneously By Dan Strassberg Agilent Technologies' latest series of high-performance real-time-sampling DSOs (digital-storage oscilloscopes) can be purchased with or...

News.
March 12, 2008... 12mar08fujitsuCarbon.jpg in Aard... A cross-section of Fujitsu's nano-scale carbon composite, showing carbon nanotubes supporting graphene layers, with a top view of the graphene inset. BOX 12mar08fujitsuCarbonDiag.jpg A...

News.
March 12, 2008... AVX has introduced varistors for automotive circuit protection. Designated 'Automotive Series' the VC13, 14, 15 and 20 devices operate from -55 to 125[degrees]C, are rated up to 25J in a 2220 case, and are specified against 'load dump' and...

News.
March 12, 2008... Circuit dia in pdf in aardvark 12mar08ZETEX1320.pdf Last month, Zetex released three power LED driver chips capable of supplying 1.5A of current. Electronics Weekly has decided to look deeper into the technology. There are three white...

Supplements.
March 19, 2008... 19mar08DISTthurlby.jpg The PL series of DC power supplies from TTi combine the benefits of stable digital control with true analogue controls for voltage and current. So the hybrid supply like a traditional analogue controlled power...

Features.
March 19, 2008... Moore's Law is given undue credit for the shrinking size of electronic systems and products. True, the claimed doubling of transistor density within integrated circuits every 18 months or so has had a key role to play. But other technologies,...

News.
March 19, 2008... Elektra Awards 2008 are launched this week. Companies are invited to enter one of the 13 award categories to win the opportunity to receive an award during Electronica week in November. Established as an annual highpoint of the electronics...

News.
March 19, 2008... The move to 32nm process technology could see a change in the way chips are designed, according to UK-based EDA tool supplier, Pulsic. "For the wider market the technology could go one of two ways," said Mark Waller, v-p of R&D at...

News.
March 19, 2008... 19mar08microNMR The US National Institute of Standards and Technology and the University of California have made an NMR (nuclear magnetic resonance) sensor on a chip for analysing tiny samples of fluid. "It may have wide application as a...

Features.
March 19, 2008... Renewable energy generation and the efficiency of products that consume power are in the spotlight due to the increasingly environmentally conscious nature of the world's population. Technology in the electronics sector has advanced quickly and...

Features.
March 19, 2008... Product Innovation Awards Semiconductor Product of the Year Semiconductor technology is the lifeblood of innovation in the electronics industry, and this year we are inviting suppliers to enter what they see as their single most...

Features.
March 19, 2008... Every electronic module requires a power supply. This key component of any design ensures reliability, a long service life and sufficient performance. This very core element is based on passive components such as resistors, inductors and...

Features.
March 19, 2008... The task of specifying a connector is not simply a matter of selecting the right power or current capability there is an ever growing array of connector options available for a wide range of applications. When considering a particular...

Features.
March 19, 2008... 19mar08Syfer1.jpg Factory shot 19mar08Syfer2-3.jpg CAPTION: BME vs PME at x500 magnification Low fire MLCCs bring reliability to component specification By Angie Ellmore Product designers in the communications...

Products.
March 19, 2008... Front page lead product 19mar08 peregrine.jpg 19mar08 bel.jpg 19mar08 SMI.jpg 19mar08 omnetics.jpg . 19mar08 conec.jpg A further development of the M12x1 connector family aimed at engine systems offers new...

News.
March 19, 2008... Silicon Labs has donated a development kit for its 0.9V C8051F9xx microcontroller family to Electronics Weekly, and we thought we would pass it on to one of our readers. To have a chance of winning the kit, you must describe, in no more...

News.
March 19, 2008... Digital TV set-top box company TVonics has been bought by Contact Holdings, which owns a number of manufacturing and packaging companies. Three year old TVonics has built a business supplying digital TV receivers and recorders to the UK market....

News.
March 19, 2008... That hoary old chestnut of a proposal that Europe's Big Three semiconductor companies should merge has arisen again, only to be greeted with derision by Europe's leading semiconductor analysts. "The bottom line is there's no merit in it",...

News.
March 19, 2008... RF Engines from the Isle of Wight has won the South East England Development Agency (SEEDA) business award for innovation & creativity. Pictured (l to r): host Mishal Husain from the BBC, John Summers and Eddy Fry, from RFEL and Dean Drew from...

News.
March 19, 2008... 19mar08FLAME3 Etching a parabolic structure enhances light extraction and directionality. A very low power micro LED being developed by the Tyndall National Institute in Cork could potentially run of two coin cell batteries for 80...

News.
March 19, 2008... DSP hardware from Buckinghamshire-based Sundance Multiprocessor Technology was used in Qinetiq's Portable Humanitarian Mine Detector (PHMD) project. PHMD attempted to combine a conventional demining pulse induction metal detector - an MD8...

News.
March 19, 2008... 19mar08AVXmirror.jpg in aard Caption: Mirror construction cuts inductance to under 1nH because current splits symmetrically into the two slugs AVX has released 'mirror' construction capacitors to lower the profile of its multi-anode...

News.
March 19, 2008... Renesas Technology believes the need for intelligent motor control in new types of energy-efficient systems will push the adoption of 32-bit microcontrollers for motor drive circuits. Energy-saving motor controller design has been important...

News.
March 26, 2008... Scientists at the University of Arizona have developed what they claim is the first updatable, 3-D holographic display. Viewable without special eyewear, the 4A4-in. prototype features a photorefractive polymer between two pieces of...

Products.
March 26, 2008... 26mar08 lambda.jpg Avago Technologies has a MMIC low noise amplifier (LNA) designed for mobile and WiMAX basestations where the supply current can be adjusted to optimise power consumption and gain. The MGA-13516 and MGA-14516 are...

Features.
March 26, 2008... Pragmatic economist Professor John Kay, a member of Scotland's Council of Economic Advisers, is convinced that countries should develop on existing strengths. "They should ask themselves: 'Why would we be better at that industry than anyone...

Features.
March 26, 2008... Oscilloscopes have evolved from displaying analogue signals to analysing a mix of digital, analogue and serial signals. These instruments help engineers to visualise the behaviour of their designs by providing powerful triggering mechanisms,...

Features.
March 26, 2008... 26mar08JTAG1-3.jpg Figure 1. Above, the comparative internal register structure for a traditional CPLD, i.e. serial vector formats vs. the more complex but generic registers used in IEEE.1532-compliant parts. Using JTAG not just for...

Features.
March 26, 2008... Commercial radio technology has reached an inflection point similar to the transition from analogue to digital which created a range of new digital technology. Now we are moving from single carrier technologies, where we transmit one digital...

Features.
March 26, 2008... Traditional, vendor-defined instrumentation, with a fixed hardware configuration, is being superseded by a new approach one that is PC-based, with software defining the functionality of a set of modular instruments. The pace at which new...

Features.
March 26, 2008... Being early to enter into a new standard for instrumentation control can seem a daunting prospect for any company and particularly for the small and medium test and measurement companies. In the case of the LXI standard, the attendance of...

Features.
March 26, 2008... Serial data bus architectures are widespread and have supplanted parallel designs for higher-speed applications. In particular, serial data bus architectures such as PCI-Express, XAUI, RapidIO, HDMI, and SATA provide order of magnitude greater...

News.
March 26, 2008... National Semiconductor is claiming the lowest guaranteed input bias current, 20fA at room temperature, for its LMP7721 precision amplifier. "The device yields maximum system sensitivity and accuracy from photodiode and high-impedance...

News.
March 26, 2008... graphic is at: e find attached the link to the graphic: http://www.osram-os.com/osram_os/EN/About_Us/We_shape_the_future_of_light/Designing_tomorrow_today/Beyond_Tomorrow/More_info/index.html Practical organic-LED (OLED) lighting has moved...

News.
March 26, 2008... James Foster is CEO of XMOS Semiconductor, the Bristol-based developer of proprietary semiconductor IP aimed at wireless systems design 1) Describe in two sentences the business model being adopted at XMOS. A: We are developing the...

News.
March 26, 2008... Image sensor technology took centre stage in London last week and technology from Europe and Israel demonstrated the growing importance of imaging technology in so many of today's products. Scottish reconfigurable chip designer Spiral...

News.
March 26, 2008... by David Manners Lime Microsystems prepares to announce its first wireless transceiver this month as it gets first chips back from the foundry. The Guildford-based wireless IC specialist has developed a reconfigurable transceiver which...

News.
March 26, 2008... Mirifice has signed an agreement with Comstar, Russia's largest broadband and Internet TV operator, to deliver its service monitoring software system, called MiriMON, on to the operator's digital TV boxes. This comes as the Bath-based...

News.
March 26, 2008... Scientists at the University of Arizona have developed what they claim is the first updatable, 3-D holographic display. Viewable without special eyewear, the 4A4-in. prototype features a photorefractive polymer between two pieces of...

News.
March 26, 2008... CyberOptics UK, which supplies sensing systems for electronics assembly equipment, has become the 500th member of Electronics Yorkshire, which promotes growth of electronics business in Yorkshire and Humber. Sean Langbridge (right), MD of...

News.
March 26, 2008... By Richard Wilson BitWave Semiconductor claims to have the first programmable CMOS RF transceiver, which is a software configurable device for operation across all channels in the frequency bands between 700MHz and 3.8GHz. This means...

News.
March 26, 2008... Europe is soon to get a single mobile TV technology standard and it will be DVB-H. It may not be there yet but its progress seems inevitable. The European Commission has added the DVB-H standard to the EU List of Standards, which it sees...

News.
March 26, 2008... By Richard Wilson Xilinx is claiming a halving of run times with the latest release of its ISE Design Suite for FPGAs. Now in version 10.1, the suite consists of separate tools supporting not only FPGA logic designs, but also embedded...

News.
March 26, 2008... UK manufacturer DeepStream Technologies is expanding its operation in Bangor, North Wales and recruiting technology staff to support forthcoming orders. "I can't name the companies. They are very large blue chip companies," CEO Mark...

News.
March 26, 2008... Quantum modelling has been used to assess the feasibility and benefits of creating carbon nanowires for interconnections in chips fabbed on a 45nm process. "With this study, we have provided a road map for accurately comparing the...

News.
March 26, 2008... Atmel has released an analogue mop-up chip for low-cost MP3 players. "The AT73C209 supplies the required voltages and currents to all the sections of these portable devices taking energy from a single alkaline battery, and also provides a...