Electronics Weekly articles from May 2007

Electronics Weekly archives from May 2007

News.
May 16, 2007... By Steve Bush steve.bush@rbi.co.uk Work is about to start on the E30m Plastic Electronics Technology Centre (PETeC) at NETPark in County Durham. The aim of the project is to build factories that produce square kilometre quantities...

News.
May 16, 2007... Link Research, which manufactures wireless camera systems for live television broadcasts, picked up a Queen's Award for international trade this month. The Watford-based firm's wireless HDTV system has been used in sports events such as the...

News.
May 16, 2007... Wages in the electronics industry have increased by nine per cent over the last two years to an average of [pounds sterling]39,540 according to a salary survey conducted by EW. Survey respondents received an average pay rise of 3.2 per cent...

News.
May 16, 2007... Zetex Semiconductors has increased its presence in the Asian market with the setting up of its first sales office in Taiwan. According to Hans Rohrer, Zetex CEO: "The Taiwan market is key to us due to its important role in the design of...

News.
May 16, 2007... By Richard Wilson richard.wilson@rbi.co.uk Anglia saw its sales jump by 17.5 per cent in 2006 with strong business from its semiconductor lines. The Wisbech-based component distributor reported sales of $65m. According to Anglia's...

News.
May 16, 2007... Dialight positive about business this year Shares in LED lighting specialist Dialight will benefit from a positive business statement at last week's AGM from its chairman Harry Tee. "We are pleased to report demand for our component...

News.
May 16, 2007... By Steve Bush steve.bush@rbi.co.uk Cambridge-based laser projector firm Light Blue Optics (LBO) is to develop a range of display products with aerospace specialist Thales. "Under the agreement, LBO will provide Thales with...

News.
May 16, 2007... A version of the FreeRTOS operating system is available certified to comply with IEC 61508. SafeRTOS is a portable, pre-emptive real-time kernel, predominantly written in C, with no restriction on the number of tasks or priorities that you...

News.
May 16, 2007... The National Physical Laboratory (NPL) is to look into electromigration in high-density interconnect. "As the I/O pad diameter [on die] drops below 100[micro]m, current densities will exceed 104A/cm2, where mass diffusion effects undermine...

News.
May 16, 2007... Silicon Hive has announced a series of processor cores for video signal processing applications, which are available for licensing. Called HiveFlex VSP2200, the cores target high-definition TVs with high-quality video displays. The...

News.
May 16, 2007... C-MAC MicroTechnology has launched a range of solid-state Ku band amplifier modules. A power amplifier and a low-noise amplifier have been developed for the satellite comms, positioning systems and defence markets. "The launch of our...

News.
May 16, 2007... Silicon Hive has announced a series of processor cores for video signal processing applications, which are available for licensing. Called HiveFlex VSP2200, the cores target high definition widescreen TVs with high quality video displays....

News.
May 16, 2007... By David Manners david.manners@rbi.co.uk The debate continues about the effects of a mass pull-out by chip firms from basic process R&D in Europe over the last six months. Philippe Geyres, CEO of Oberthur Card Systems, who was a...

News.
May 16, 2007... Passives firm Walsin Technology has extended its European distribution deal with Arrow Electronics to include the UK, Ireland, Nordic countries and Baltic states. Arrow's Chris McAneny is pictured (left) with Alphonse Willems from Walsin...

News.
May 16, 2007... By Richard Wilson richard.wilson@rbi.co.uk NXP Semiconductors and Kestrel Wireless have developed an RF chip to tackle DVD theft from high street shops. The firms are proposing an RFID chip which can be radio activated to disable...

Features.
May 16, 2007... Multi-core processors are now a reality which embedded system developers must face. Many embedded developers are beginning to realise the shortcomings of traditional development approaches when faced with multi-core architectures. A key...

Features.
May 16, 2007... If you want to earn the maximum amount of money working in the electronics industry then be an executive manager, working in the components sector, based in London. According to the 2007 salary survey, conducted by Electronics Weekly and...

News.
May 16, 2007... 1) How would you describe the role of a repping company? Reps now need to get under the skin of their principals and their customers to a much greater extent than ever before, to provide the sharp, detailed support that principals and...

News.
May 16, 2007... An era in which semiconductor companies will simply put up the shutters and walk away from the market is looming. "I expect we're going to see companies closing and going out of business," said Malcolm Penn, CEO of Future Horizons at the...

Features.
May 16, 2007... By Dave Taylor As a hiring manager, you will rightly be expecting wonderful things from prospective candidates hopefully more than a few smart answers at interview. However, have you fully considered the company's and your own performance...

Features.
May 16, 2007... 16may07peopleTRITEQ.jpg Product design firm Triteq has appointed Andrew Larkins as operations director where he will be responsible for project management, process improvement, recruitment, training and consultancy activities. Larkins...

Features.
May 16, 2007... There is an absence of electronics design and manufacturing companies in the latest Financial Times survey of the UK's best places to work. The one exception is test and design systems firm National Instruments which stands out as the only...

Features.
May 16, 2007... A vaunted software expert when asked whether he would advise his children to follow a mainframe computer software career, concluded he would recommend law or medicine. "Those are jobs where you can live and work in a county town or even small...

News.
May 16, 2007... Cambridge-based Camcon has been given [pounds sterling]200,000 towards developing an electromagnetic engine valve. Invented by company founder Wladyslaw Wygnanski, Camcon's technology is bistable and stores much of its own actuating energy...

News.
May 16, 2007... An article in our 9 May edition mistakenly linked the Bowman communications and data system to "friendly fire" incidents. This is not the case. Bowman provides tactical situational awareness, and should not be confused with an ID friend or foe...

News.
May 16, 2007... Samsung has a digital TV receiver chip which is designed to allow TVs for the US market to receive both vestigial sideband broadcasts and quadrature amplitude modulation (QAM) cable signals. The S5H1411 is a 65nm chip which is claimed to...

News.
May 16, 2007... STMicroelectronics has finished the formation of its flash memories group. "We will be ready for any initiative we will take," said ST's COO Alain Dutheil at the company's investor day in New York last week. That was taken to be a reference to...

News.
May 16, 2007... By David Manners david.manners@rbi.co.uk TechnoConcepts of Boston, which is developing a re-configurable RF front end for software defined radio (SDR) systems, has a design in which its RF front end is plugged into a re-configurable...

News.
May 16, 2007... Scientists at Research Centre Julich and the University of Hamburg have made a discovery which could lead to applications in spintronics. They discovered that magnetic moments in thin metal films can only take on a particular order. The red and...

News.
May 16, 2007... Sun Microsystems is trying to boost competition to Apple's iPhone with software based on its Java technology. JavaFX Mobile is a mobile phone software system for next generation phones with more multimedia capability. Sun will license it to...

News.
May 16, 2007... By Melanie Reynolds melanie.reynolds@rbi.co.uk US-based Zensys is seeking to push its proprietary Z-Wave wireless technology further into the market by making the technology IP-addressable and licensing it to other chip manufacturers....

News.
May 16, 2007... By Nick Flaherty editorial@electronicsweekly.com Standards for powerline communications chips will take another 12 to 18 months to agree, but that will open the door to a volume market in consumer equipment such as TVs, DVD players and...

Technology.
May 16, 2007... Dallas Semiconductor has used ferroelectric RAM in what it claims is the industry's most accurate real-time clock (RTC) chip. "By replacing the parallel-address SRAM with an I2C FRAM, the pin count is reduced and the battery is eliminated...

Technology.
May 16, 2007... Optek Technology has developed a full-colour surface-mount LED package, aimed at architectural lighting as well as mood lighting in homes, shops, cars and planes. "The OVSPRGBCR4 package was designed with a high flux output, low thermal...

Technology.
May 16, 2007... 16may07Cadence.pdf Cadence has announced a kit to assist with low-power chip design. "Typically designers don't go for as much low power as they could," marketing director Neil Hand told EW. Dubbed the Low Power Methodology Kit, it...

Technology.
May 16, 2007... SonicMaster2 form field-programmable analogue array firm Anadigm is an "all-analogue" bass frequency signal processing chip for sub-woofers. "It offers a module solution with an enhanced feature set that can be easily and quickly adjusted via a...

Technology.
May 16, 2007... Argonne National Laboratory in Chicago has developed an improved cathode material for lithium ion cells, which significantly increases cell capacity. "It has double the positive electrode capacity compared with cells on the market today,"...

News.
May 16, 2007... Three laboratories at Northumbria University have been refurbished to include design, test and measurement technology from Agilent Technologies. The labs will be used for research and teaching of microwave communications, microwave holography,...

News.
May 23, 2007... By David Manners david.manners@rbi.co.uk Icera is to open a design centre in Cambridge and hopes to recruit 25 engineers there before the end of the year. It is also on course to sample 65nm versions of its wireless baseband...

News.
May 23, 2007... By David Manners david.manners@rbi.co.uk MicroEmissive Displays (MED) is looking to increase the number of applications it can address for its near-to-eye microdisplay technology. "Our displays are sufficiently low-powered to be...

News.
May 23, 2007... MIPS Technologies believes its latest processor core has the performance to attack ARM's Cortex-A8 core in the embedded market for both handhelds and set-top boxes. The MIPS32 74K core is the company's first fully synthesisable 32-bit...

Technology.
May 23, 2007... 23may07SharpSensor - may be too boring Sharp has developed battery-powered distance measuring sensors. Aimed at sanitary ware, including taps and soap and towel dispensers, an external standby pin can cut power to 5[micro]A[subtyp.] ...

Technology.
May 23, 2007... 23may07Wolfson.pdf ---------- figure 1 Edinburgh-based Wolfson has created an architecture to scrub jitter from S/PDIF digital serial data streams with unprecedented thoroughness, it claims. "I believe it is uniquely ours," product...

News.
May 23, 2007... As part of a plan to expand business in the military and defence electronics market, FPGA firm Altera has chosen Firefly Technology to representative it in the UK and Ireland. "Growing our presence in the military and defence market is a...

News.
May 23, 2007... E2v Technologies has agreed to acquire Swiss automotive sensor specialist MiCS MicroChemical Systems for [pounds sterling]5m. Of particular interest to E2V is MiCS MicroChemical's silicon-based air quality sensors which are used in...

News.
May 23, 2007... Telecoms services company Telent saw its share price jump last week to pass the 500p level following an encouraging news as sales revenues. Although marginally down on last year at [pounds sterling]309m, company CEO Mark Plato commented: "We...

News.
May 23, 2007... Premier Farnell has launched an international design competition called Live Edge - Electronic Design for the Global Environment. Electronics engineers, students and academics are invited to submit designs for an electronic product which...

News.
May 23, 2007... By Richard Wilson richard.wilson@rbi.co.uk NXP Semiconductors has sold a wireless product line as plans to consolidate the chip business take shape. The company's cordless and voice-over-IP (VoIP) phone chip business has been sold...

News.
May 23, 2007... Zuken has seen significant sales of its Cadstar Windows-based desktop PCB design tool in the UK electronics design and manufacturing community. The software tool company has recognised Quadra Solutions as its top European distributor for the...

News.
May 23, 2007... May 22-24: Medea+ design automation conference, Grenoble, France. http://tima.imag.fr/ May 31: Texas Instruments is running a training sessions on its DaVinci processors at the Hilton Hotel, Swindon. www.ti.com/training Jun...

News.
May 23, 2007... By David Manners david.manners@rbi.co.uk For the first time, Taiwanese foundry TSMC will get into volume production on a process node at the same time as the leading integrated device manufacturer (IDM), Intel. "It looks as if we...

News.
May 23, 2007... Bedford-based contract manufacturer MRP has bought a boundary-scan test system from JTAG Technologies. Pictured on the production floor are Nick Fairhead (left), sales director of MRP, and James Stanbridge, sales manager for JTAG Technologies.

Features.
May 23, 2007... A lot is made of the choice of processor core for a deeply embedded microcontroller, but some increasingly common criteria for selecting a processor core are seriously misleading. There are several criteria being promoted in the industry that...

Features.
May 23, 2007... A common challenge facing many semiconductor companies is the push for higher data transmission speeds to drive ever higher system performance. When dealing with clock circuitry in processor and bus design, there are several design issues...

Features.
May 23, 2007... The design trend of incorporating embedded boards and operating systems into increasing numbers of multimedia, point of sale, spectrum analyser and digital signage products has created new opportunities in the embedded board market. Sales...

News.
May 23, 2007... Chris Woods is executive chairman of contract manufacturer ACW Technology Ltd 1. It was an interesting move setting up your own Chinese facility. Is getting permission a complex process? Yes! To ensure that we maintain our high...

News.
May 23, 2007... The Plastic Electronics Technology Centre PETeC), to be set up at NETPark in County Durham, looks like a very English approach to an emerging technology. "We will not be doing production but we will be understanding the cost basis and...

Features.
May 23, 2007... Are you keeping an eye on the job ads? Keeping a look out for that one job that tweaks your interest? Yes? Well you are in good company. It seems that the majority of engineers are constantly keeping an eye out for that one special job. ...

News.
May 23, 2007... By Steve Bush ITW has launched a touch switch technology that can not only be vandal-proof, but bullet proof and works with metal, ceramics, stone and plastics. "A half inch thick stainless steel plate can be made into a switch that...

News.
May 23, 2007... NOTEBOOK MARKET BATTLE HOTS UP WITH PUMA LAUNCH The Intel vs AMD battle for the notebook market has intensified with a planned 2007 launch of a series of chip-sets and low-power microprocessors, called Puma, which will compete with Intel's...

News.
May 23, 2007... Despite its relatively modest income levels India is emerging as a major force in the global television market in terms of domestic consumption as well as in production of sets, according to a report from iSuppli. It estimates that India's...

News.
May 23, 2007... The Intel vs AMD battle for the notebook market has intensified with a planned2007 launch of a series of chip-sets and low-power microprocessors, called Puma, which will compete with Intel's Santa Rosa notebook chips. Puma uses a processor...

News.
May 23, 2007... By Steve Bush steve.bush@rbi.co.uk A4-sized electronic-paper displays and a full-colour OLED stand out as the most interesting technology announcements at this week's Society for Information Display (SID) conference in the US. ...

News.
May 23, 2007... The problem of interconnect between the CPUs in a multiprocessing cluster is a familiar one in data centres and advanced SoCs. It is a far less familiar problem for the designers of mobile phone handsets. But they'd better get used to it. ...

News.
May 23, 2007... AMD is cranking up the microprocessor race with Intel by saying it will have a four-core-to-a-die PC processors on the market this year. By contrast Intel's current 'QuadCore' processors are formed from a pair of dual core die in one...

News.
May 23, 2007... By Steve Bush steve.bush@rbi.co.uk An RFID wireless tag with embedded memory from Cirencester-based Innovision Research and Technology has been used in a system to help visually-impaired people when buying items in shops. The...

News.
May 23, 2007... The UK's first centre of excellence for metrology for micro- and nanotechnologies was opened this month in Loughborough at the Systems Engineering Innovation Centre. It is part of the Government's programme to support greater collaboration...

News.
May 23, 2007... Power module company Vicor is planning to enter the power semiconductors market through its fabless chip subsidiary, Picor. Already supplying Vicor with ICs and selling active filters, Picor will introduce a number of power ICs, including a...

News.
May 23, 2007... Spansion and TSMC are to develop 40nm flash processes for Spansion's Mirrorbit MNOS flash products based on the technology developed by Saifun of Israel. Spansion and TSMC have already collaborated on 110nm flash development, and TSMC is...

News.
May 23, 2007... Interest in using the 40GHz spectrum band is insufficient to warrant licensing it at present, according to a report by Quotient and Indepen for communications watchdog Ofcom. The report found a low level of interest in the 10, 28 and 32GHz...

Technology.
May 23, 2007... By Steve Bush steve.bush@rbi.co.uk Researchers from the US, Norway and Russia claim to have discovered the root of one-over-f (1/f) noise in electronics. Better sensors could result. "Our theory establishes the origin and lower...

Technology.
May 23, 2007... 23may07robotsAndAnts.jpg Dr Torbjorn Dahl of the University of Wales, Newport and one of the Pioneer robots that he hopes will form a self-organising cluster. These are expensive robots for research and Dahl is pragmatic. "If we find we...

Technology.
May 23, 2007... 23may07OLED... are rubbish pics same images, but better, to arrive early Thurs# OLED-T has developed a portfolio small-molecule OLED materials for plastic displays. "They can be evaporated at 300[degC]. Some previous-generation...

News.
May 30, 2007... By Steve Bush Glasgow-based Exxelis has secured [pounds sterling]50,000 from Scottish Enterprise Glasgow's Small Company Innovation Scheme (SCIS) to fund the roll-out of its LCD backlighting technology. "We have a microstructured film...

News.
May 30, 2007... By Steve Bush steve.bush@rbi.co.uk Thorn Lighting in County Durham is leading a project to develop OLED materials and device architectures for large area white lighting applications which could replace fluorescent tubes. "The...

News.
May 30, 2007... Margaret Hodge, Minister of State for Industry and the Regions, has been visiting C-MAC MicroTechnology at its Great Yarmouth facility. The firm was recently the first European company to win a MIL-PRF-38534 Class K Space accreditation.

News.
May 30, 2007... The Government has gone out to tender for electronics companies to come forward with "demonstrations projects" to trial the technology needed to bring in road pricing and congestion charging. Transport Secretary Douglas Alexander has placed...

News.
May 30, 2007... By Melanie Reynolds melanie.reynolds@rbi.co.uk US-based communications software firm Aricent has acquired an R&D centre in Southwood, UK, from Nokia Siemens Networks with 100 employees specialising in GSM and EDGE. The deal was...

News.
May 30, 2007... By David Manners david.manners@rbi.co.uk Air Semiconductor, the Swindon-based wireless start-up, is looking for more staff to help develop its first products for the mobile phone and handheld device market. "We're looking for...

News.
May 30, 2007... Based at the Aston Science Park Birmingham, the Solid State Lighting Research Centre is open for business and is offering its LED test lab to industrial customers. "It is Europe's biggest LED lighting test centre," project manager Alex...

News.
May 30, 2007... Lattice Semiconductor is sampling 90nm non-volatile FPGAs. "We have doubled capacity compared with the previous generation, to 40,000 look-up tables, and increased speed by 25 per cent," Stan Kopec, v-p of marketing at Lattice, told EW. ...

News.
May 30, 2007... The credibility of the IEEE standards body has been called into question by analyst firm Ovum following its decision to certify 802.11n draft 2.0 products. "The IEEE is now giving in to the commercial interests from the vendor community...

News.
May 30, 2007... Semiconductor sales through distribution, an important indicator for the state of the European chip market, are growing more quickly than sales from OEM suppliers, according to DMASS, the European distributor and manufacturer association. ...

News.
May 30, 2007... By Nick Flaherty editorial@electronicsweekly.com An Israeli start-up has put a Linux computer on a USB stick to act as a security system for notebook PCs and expects other applications to come. The Yoggie Pico uses a 520MHz...