Electronics Weekly articles from May 2005

Electronics Weekly archives from May 2005

Management buy-out plan for ST's SoC initiative.
May 4, 2005... The fate of the intellectual property in GOSPL, the discontinued re-programmable, re-usable SoC initiative at STMicroelectronics, has not yet been announced by the company, but the investment community is talking about the possibility of a...

Linear controls on/off switches.
May 4, 2005... Linear Technology has released a push button on/off controller chip which includes debounce, power supply enable and a processor interface. Offered in an 8pin 2x3mm DFN package, the LTC2950 operates over a 2.7V to 26V input voltage range and...

Wireless variant of Agere network.
May 4, 2005... Agere Systems has added a wireless access variant of its TrueAdvantage network processing platform with the unveiling of a wireless-specific software package. "It is production-quality software supporting 2, 2.5 and 3G," Christine Severns,...

Credit firm tips European wireless for 2005.
May 4, 2005... The performance of telecoms equipment manufacturers this year will depend on how much of their market is in the wireless sector, and in which countries, according to credit rating firm Standard and Poor's. "The 2004 winners were those exposed...

Heading here.
May 4, 2005... Spirent's shares fell over 20 per cent to around 43p following a warning about first half profits. Brokers cut their guide price for the firm as the company said customers had delayed the release of capital spending budgets.

Heading here.
May 4, 2005... Marconi saw its shares slip in the middle of the week following the news that it would not be getting a slice of BT's contracts for its 21st Century Network project. Although the fall last Wednesday was only about 6 per cent on the week, the...

Heading here.
May 4, 2005... Mentor Graphics has made a crucial update to Catapult C, its high level synthesis tool, adding the option of SystemC as a design language. Until now the tool used ANSI C++ for entering designs, with Verilog or VHDL as the output. With the new...

Semiconductor prospects are good, analyst tells chip forum.
May 4, 2005... The semiconductor industry may think things are bad, but it's wrong. That was the message at Future Horizons' annual International Electronics Forum in Malta this week. "The perception of the industry is that the market's very bad," said...

Philips and Freescale jump on FlexRay bus.
May 4, 2005... Philips and Freescale have agreed to share technologies they have developed for FlexRay, the next-generation high-speed automotive bus standard. The companies will use a common protocol engine, and a common SystemC-based reference software...

Scottish Enterprises to reveal plans for future early technology funding.
May 4, 2005... Scottish Enterprise is to reveal its plans for early stage technology funding on June 6. The Government organisation will reveal if it is to continue with its successful Proof of Concept funding, which is at the end of its initial phase, with...

Solectron to cut workforce outside US.
May 4, 2005... Electronics contract manufacturer Solectron is to reduce its global workforce by 3,500 people between now and Q3 2006. The firm has three sites in the UK: in Newport, Gwent; Dunfermline, Fife; and South Ockendon, Essex. The firm has yet to...

Heading here.
May 4, 2005... The RSA has marked the implementation of the WEEE Directive into UK law by installing a figure made from recycled electronic equipment outside the City Hall on London's South Bank. The seven metre high figure will be on display for 28 days and...

ON Semiconductor plans Asian move with translation layer manufacturing.
May 4, 2005... ON Semiconductor is to transfer its proprietary manufacturing processes for the translation layer to unspecified Asian foundries so creating an open process architecture for others to use. "Translation layer integration is an esoteric...

University of Oxford reveals compact read cell for MRAM.
May 4, 2005... The University of Oxford claims to have a more compact read cell for magnetic RAM (MRAM). "It is an offset read protocol and uses a single transistor per line," said inventor Dr Chris Padbury. According to Padbury, conventional MRAM read...

Distributor to run design-in acquisition independently.
May 4, 2005... Avnet looks set to add another chip design-in business to its worldwide distribution activities following its acquisition of UK-based Memec for $676m. The distributor, which already operates three separate semiconductor businesses in Europe, is...

Heading here.
May 4, 2005... Der Editor David Manners' report of Intel's commentary on lack of investment in nanotechnology (Nanotechnology investors could face implosion' but UK is likely to escape, EW 27/4/05) should spark concern even in the UK. The UK holds a key in...

Micro refrigerators cool ?germanium to 200mK.
May 4, 2005... This cube of germanium on a silicon nitrate membrane can be cooled to about 200mK by four chip-scale refrigerators (the four small light blue rectangles at the midpoints of the membrane perimeter). The 25[micro]m x 15[micro]m refrigerators,...

PC first to get PoE approval.
May 4, 2005... Chesterfield-based DSP Design has gained PowerDsine approval for its Poet 6000 Power-over-Ethernet (PoE) PC, the first PC to do so. "It is a huge marketing advantage if you get on PowerDsine's approve list of vendors," DSP's sales director Don...

Heading here.
May 4, 2005... May 9: Smart ecoDesign course for the electronics sector with Seeba, in Farnham. www.cfsd.org.uk/seeba May 10-12: Sensor and Test 2005, Nuremburg, Germany. www.sensor-test.com May 10: Seminar on how semiconductor start-ups can win business in...

Optical fibre has four cores to detect curvature and angle of disturbance.
May 4, 2005... Researchers at Heriot-Watt University are developing a movement and force measuring optical fibre which can deliver direction as well as strain data. "It is a special fibre with four cores," Dr Jim Barton told EW. "This is unusual, but it can...

Heading here.
May 4, 2005... The EPSRC is calling for proposals for the second tranche of Science and Innovation Awards. Together with the higher education councils for England and Scotland, the organisation envisages "being able to make approximately five awards of around...

China looms large in Premier Farnell strategy.
May 4, 2005... Premier Farnell has identified China as the next big opportunity for its catalogue and online distribution business. The distributor's European and North American businesses are not matched by a similar scale of business in south east Asia....

This is not a fatal blow to the UK's oldest telecoms manufacturer.
May 4, 2005... Editor's comment Any talk of Marconi looking to return value to shareholders as a reaction to last week's 21st Century Network disappointment has inevitably been interpreted as the beginning of moves to sell the company. But failing to win one...

PXI is pride of the fleet.
May 4, 2005... here is nothing revolutionary about networking benchtop test instruments. The concept of networking test instruments with each other and then with PCs was defined 30 years ago with the creation of the general purpose interface bus (GPIB). Such...

Sounding out frequencies.
May 4, 2005... ot many test instruments need to be sensitive to frequencies between 315GHz and 360GHz, but if you are building a device to observe natural phenomena that happen to give off signals in this range, you have not got much choice. Take, for...

Clare Instruments puts safety first in practical testing training course.
May 4, 2005... Electrical safety testing specialist Clare Instruments is offering a range of dedicated test and measurement training courses covering practical electrical safety testing. The one day Safety in the Testing Environment' looks at the requirements...

HUTT images better than X-rays, ultrasound or MRI units.
May 4, 2005... High-resolution Ultrasonic Transmission Tomography (HUTT) offers 3D images of soft tissue that are superior to those produced by existing commercial X-ray, ultrasound or MRI units, claims the University of Southern California. Professor...

Heading here.
May 4, 2005... Zenph Studios of North Carolina claims to have developed software that analyses recorded piano music to such a fine degree that the resulting high-definition MIDI data can be used to convincingly repeat the recital on a performance-grade MIDI...

Grow diamonds 'in a few days'.
May 4, 2005... Microwave plasma has been used to grow gem-quality diamonds in a few days. University of Alabama at Birmingham and Carnegie Institution of Washington scientists have patented the idea. "It is able to grow the diamond 100 to 200 times faster...

Hamsters groove on MIDI project.
May 4, 2005... worth a look It is worth typing in the long URL to hear hamsters make music at: http://instruct1.cit.cornell.edu/courses/eceprojectsland/STUDENTPROJ/2002to 2003/lil2/ with the assistance of Levy Lorenzo's university MIDI project. Each...

Glass chassis allows electronics to be built directly onto satellite structure.
May 4, 2005... A California-based firm is proposing to use glass for the chassis of sub-1kg satellites. The idea is to build fuel tanks, valves, gas passages and thrust directors into the chassis, rather than adding them later. "We can incorporate...

Bookham sees revenues jump 9% in Q3 results.
May 11, 2005... Optical component manufacturer Bookham Technology saw its revenues and margins improve in the third financial quarter. However, net loss for the quarter jumped to $129.6m, which included costs of $100m from acquisitions and restructuring...

8-bit devices push MCU sales ahead in 2005.
May 11, 2005... Embedded microcontroller sales will grow six per cent around the world this year, according to US-based market researcher The Information Network. This follows a strong year in 2004 when sales jumped by 22 per cent to $18bn. The 8-bit MCU...

XP looks to US with product push.
May 11, 2005... Power supply firm XP is planning a series of product launches this summer as it moves to grow its manufacturing business in the US and China. Currently just over half its business comes from selling its own manufactured AC-DC power supplies and...

CDT syndicate to develop larger organic LEDs.
May 11, 2005... Cambridge Display Technology (CDT) is establishing a design and manufacturing syndicate to develop larger area organic LED displays. The displays will use a technology known as top-emission, where light exits through a transparent cathode...

SM drum core power inductors.
May 11, 2005... Pulse has introduced five series of surface-mount drum core power inductors aimed at DC-to-DC conversion and filtering. Both shielded and unshielded types are available, with the shielded types offering more inductance, but lower saturation...

Class-D audio amp for LCD TVs.
May 11, 2005... Philips has introduced a Class-D audio amplifier aimed at LCD TVs, a partner for its TDA15500 and TDA15600 single-chip TV circuits. The TDA8931T is a 1x20WRMS device which runs off a single 12 to 35V supply, or &6 to &17.5V. In single supply...

Russia gets house in order for technology expansion.
May 11, 2005... Russian big business is under control, taxes are being collected, and the oligarchs are turning their attention to the high-technology sector, according to the Russian trade organisation Electronintorg. Russian software exports will top $1bn...

8-key sensor IC kicks for touch technology.
May 11, 2005... Southampton-based Quantum Research Group (QRG), which develops capacitive touch technology, has developed a low-power, eight-key touch sensor IC. The QT1080-ISG consumes 40[micro]A at 3V in low power mode, and is designed for use in devices...

FPGA supplier in bid to simplify DSP design.
May 11, 2005... Xilinx has released version 7.1 of its System Generator for DSP development software, and the XtremeDSP Virtex-4 SX35 development kit, for digital communication system design. Xilinx said the new tools provide a development path from system...

TTPCom throws weight behind 3G mobile drive.
May 11, 2005... TTP Communications will continue its focus on 3G mobile comms during the next year and expects its AJAR applications framework, protocol stack and chip IP to "drive the majority of new orders". "We are confident we have the right technologies...

A year ago chip scaling was written off, now everyone is talking 90nm success.
May 11, 2005... What a difference a year makes. At last year's Future Horizons International Electronics Forum (IEF) the prospects for scaling semiconductor IC manufacturing processes seemed dire. "Scaling is already dead, and no one has noticed it's not...

Don't dumb down Directives.
May 11, 2005... viewpoint By Graham Mays Rather as it is foolhardy to think one can combat law breakers by making more laws, the plethora of EU Directives and standards now imposed on industry does apparently little to help us meet urgent needs or improve...

Machine talk grows up.
May 11, 2005... achine to machine (M2M) wireless communications is enjoying a particularly high profile at the moment - a situation it has not had the pleasure of experiencing before. Until now it was considered to be rather a niche market but the number of...

Here, there, everywhere.
May 11, 2005... here are you? My guess is that you probably know and you have little need for a technology to answer that question. So what is going to drive the take up of location-based services (LBS)? "Consumers can know nothing about technology but they...

At home with Ethernet.
May 11, 2005... thernet networking could be coming into the living room, bedroom and kitchen as networking system suppliers identify Ethernet local area networking in the home as an emerging market for their hardware and the silicon which drives it. The US...

System-in-package is key to integrating systems in mobile goods.
May 11, 2005... System-in-package (SIP) is increasingly being seen as a key technology for integrating complex systems in mobile products. The mobile phone operators all have SIP in their roadmaps because it offers a potentially cost-effective route to...

Industry predicts double digit growth for 2005 chip market.
May 11, 2005... Intel is expecting double digit growth for the chip industry this year, in line with last December's forecast from UK analysts Future Horizons. At a US analysts' meeting Paul Otellini, Intel's CEO-in-waiting, said, "We're well on our way to our...

Secure future for Marconi in global firm, says analyst.
May 11, 2005... Marconi's future will be more secure as part of a larger global company rather than as an independent equipment manufacturer, according to consultant firm Ovum. The comments come a week after the supplier failed to make BT's preferred list of...

Radio chopper.
May 11, 2005... Derby-based radio specialists Team Simoco have donated radio equipment to North West Air Ambulance (NWAA). The TSP handsets donated are compatible with other UK Search and Rescue services. Andy Gamble, business development manager for Team...

CSR revenues leap with chip sales in Far East.
May 11, 2005... Cambridge Silicon Radio (CSR) saw first quarter revenues jump 80 per cent on the back of strong demand for its Bluetooth chipsets, particularly in the Far East. As a result the chip supplier is looking to recruit engineers and sales staff....

Bluetooth special interest group to investigate ultra-wideband potential.
May 11, 2005... Combining Bluetooth and ultra-wideband (UWB) wireless technologies in a common standard is to be investigated by the Bluetooth special interest Group (SIG) together with the two industry bodies developing UWB. "It has been apparent that members...

Heading here.
May 11, 2005... James Bell has been appointed to the newly created position of business director, at Farnell InOne in a similar move the distributor has also named Stephen Makepeace as the first joint managing director of Farnell InOne and the BuckHickman...

Freescale moves to unified memory architecture.
May 11, 2005... Freescale Semiconductor has moved to a unified memory architecture to knock cost out of its combined DSP-MCU range. Called digital signal controllers (DSCs), the 16-bit range includes the MC56F81xx introduced last year and a 60Mips part a year...

US designed antenna is half height of monopole with the same performance.
May 11, 2005... A University of Rhode Island researcher has designed antennas that perform as well as monopoles but are under half the height, and the US Navy agrees with his claims. "There has been a lot of demand for third party validation," inventor Rob...

Radio forum requests information.
May 11, 2005... The Software Defined Radio (SDR) Forum has issued a request for information on reconfigurable technology in handsets. "It is designed to provide us with insight into the current state of the technology as well as requirements for future...

Pixel cluster method cuts ultrasound image noise.
May 11, 2005... The University of Oxford medical vision lab has patented a way of extracting extra information from heart ultrasound scans. "Medical images present many difficulties in image processing because of their typically high noise level," said Isis...

PC flies unmanned helicopter.
May 11, 2005... Israeli firm Steadicopter is claiming a breakthrough for its unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV). "This is the first system that can guide a helicopter through its entire flight without any human intervention," said company CEO Amir Rochman. "There...

C64x climbs the DSP ladder.
May 18, 2005... exas Instruments (TI) has introduced a DSP at the top end of its performance ladder. Architectural changes have added 20 per cent more processing per cycle than its previous leader, the C6415T, but more importantly 12 times the I/O capability....

Chip firm promotes multiband-OFDM for Bluetooth ultra-wideband combo.
May 18, 2005... Combining ultra-wideband (UWB) with Bluetooth makes more sense if the multiband-OFDM approach to UWB is used, according to US fabless semiconductor firm Staccato Communications. This follows last week's announcement that the Bluetooth Special...

Heading here.
May 18, 2005... Do you use Asics or FPGAs? If so Celoxica and Electronics Weekly would like to hear from you in our survey covering the market. Last run in 2003, the survey previously showed that high gate count designs are not the sole preserve of Asics. Over...

Real-time clock ticks power drain.
May 18, 2005... Intersil has introduced the ISL1208 real time clock (RTC) which includes the firm's InterSeal which stops power drain until VDD is first applied. "The InterSeal feature is an obvious benefit for products that might be stored for some time...

Heading here.
May 18, 2005... RC10 Pilot is an FPGA-based embedded system teaching and evaluation board from Abingdon's Celoxica. "Expressly built for designers, teachers and students who want to pilot C-based design and synthesis, the RC10 represents a breakthrough in FPGA...

Jennic ready to cash-in on wireless chips.
May 18, 2005... Sheffield fabless chip firm Jennic is moving into the final stage of a plan to emulate the success of UK--based Bluetooth transceiver firm CSR in the ZigBee and 802.15.4 market. "We have an emerging market, a product, some alpha partners, we've...

Switching to lead-free is a big challenge to be faced.
May 18, 2005... Switching to lead-free and RoHS compliant manufacturing is the largest business threat facing UK-based companies over the next 12 months. Chris Hunt, business development manager at contract manufacturer SMS Electronics, told EW some customers...

Chip verification software reflects change in IC design.
May 18, 2005... Chip verification software with support for assertions, code coverage and transaction level modelling has been unveiled by Mentor Graphics. Dubbed Questa, the tool supports multiple languages, including Verilog 2001, SystemVerilog, VHDL, PSL...

Skills councils plan to merge.
May 18, 2005... SEMTA, the skills council for science, engineering and manufacturing technologies, is to merge with the skills council for the metals industry, MetSkill. The councils said the merger will "build on the best of both organisations" and that "all...

UMA mobile handsets to hit sales of 100m in 2010 sales.
May 18, 2005... Global sales of UMA (unlicensed mobile access) mobile handsets which can connect to both cellular and WiFi networks are likely to exceed 100 million units during 2010, according to ABI Research. The technology is not yet commercially available,...

Centre for Integrated Photonics takes microfluidics products into production.
May 18, 2005... The Centre for Integrated Photonics (CIP) at Martlesham Heath has moved into the microfluidics business and is manufacturing products on its own production lines in East Anglia. "We're taking orders," Stephen Holton, CEO of CIP, told EW, "they...

Electronic lock based on piezo actuator uses 66 times less power than solenoid.
May 18, 2005... Berkshire-based Codelocks has produced a lock based on a piezo actuator from Servocell of Essex. "It uses piezo electrics for the first time in a stand-alone electronic lock and provides a battery life of over 500,000 operations," said...

IP company reveals next step for reconfigurable processor.
May 18, 2005... Bristol-based IP firm Elixent has revealed first details of the next generation version of its reconfigurable algorithm signal processing architecture, D-Fabrix. "This offers twice the performance density and a one third reduction in power...

Routing tool allows analysis and intervention in process.
May 18, 2005... EDA firm Silicon Design Systems (SDS) has introduced a routing tool allowing designers to analyse and intervene during the process. According to the firm, the tool, called K-Route, differs from existing route tools which do not allow for...

Campaign to persuade women back to science.
May 18, 2005... A national campaign to persuade qualified women to return to careers in science, engineering and technology (SET) has been launched by the UK Resource Centre for Women in SET (UKRC). According to recent DTI research, only 25 per cent of women...

Micron grabs back DRAM market position.
May 18, 2005... Micron Technology has regained its place as number two supplier of DRAM, behind Samsung, according to US analyst iSuppli. Micron's sales dropped only two per cent to $1.1bn in Q1 compared to Q4, overtaking Hynix, whose sales fell nine per cent...

Heading here.
May 18, 2005... Book-to-bill ratios for March 2005 Semiconductors (Industrial Market) 0.94 Passives********************0.93 Electromechanical****************0.98 Total************************0.94 Comments "Starting with the good news -- average...

EDA company rebrands FPGA and PCB layout products for licensing.
May 18, 2005... EDA firm Altium has re-branded a number of products under the umbrella name Altium Designer. The firm, which specialises in Windows-based software, said existing product names such as Protel, Nexar and CircuitStudio remain, but "these brands...

Survey predicts firms' IT spend to increase 31%.
May 18, 2005... Small and medium-sized firms are likely to significantly increase their IT spend this year, according to a KPMG survey. Almost half the firms surveyed said they expected to significantly increase their IT spend over 2004. The increase is...

Audio compression company to expand IP business after management buyout.
May 18, 2005... Belfast--based audio compression specialist Audio Processing Technology (APT) has identified an opportunity to expand its intellectual property (IP) licensing business following a management buyout. The buyout from former owner, Solid State...

Chip forum told how to do business in China: get yourself a good lawyer and watch your IP.
May 18, 2005... IEE/FSA Intenational Executive Semiconductor Forum A good part of the first day of the IEE/FSA (Institute of Electrical Engineering/Fabless Semiconductor Association) International Executive Semiconductor Forum last week was taken up with how...

Health of UK manufacturing is wealth of our nation.
May 18, 2005... viewpoint By Eamonn Walsh Losing manufacturing in the UK is not just about losing jobs in manufacturing companies. The knock-on effect this has on other industries was evidenced by Rover's demise -- far more jobs in supporting infrastructure...

FPGAs turn up the heat.
May 18, 2005... o predict the "death of the microprocessor" seems a little extreme but this is exactly what Malachy Devlin, CTO of FPGA firm Nallatech, believes could happen in high performance computing. Whether the applications are military, involve medical...

Embracing a technology.
May 18, 2005... ystem-on-chip (SoC) is alive and kicking despite many premature reports of its demise. The causes of death were expected to have been excessive current leakage, astronomical cost and a high percentage of re-spins at the 90nm process node. Now,...

The structure of design.
May 18, 2005... a more flexible alternative to full custom design, structured Asics are intended to reduce time-to-market and lower NRE (non-recurring engineering) costs. The design is based on a range of predefined circuit elements, or slices, which gives it...

Heading here.
May 18, 2005... Small and medium-sized firms are being offered support for the transition to lead-free manufacturing required by the EU RoHS Directive from consultancy Soldertec. The RoHS rules ban lead and five other substances from consumer electronic...