Electronics Weekly articles from November 2006

Electronics Weekly archives from November 2006

keith errey toumaz technology.
November 8, 2006... Keith Errey is co-founder and COO of Toumaz Technology Aardvark: 08nov06errey.jpg Have there been times when you wished you?d done something other than founding a fabless semiconductor design firm? Well, I have done many other things apart...

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November 8, 2006... 08nov06bluray.jpg Three engineers at the Warner Brothers studio in California have filed a patent that could stop the market for Blu-ray and HD-DVD players collapsing as the battle between the formats comes to Europe. The idea from Warner...

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November 8, 2006... Processor system developer Celoxica has warned that one of its markets for embedded systems is growing more slowly than expected. However, the hardware and software company is taking advantage of another market, the increasingly popular...

Cyan gives MCU kits to university.
November 8, 2006... Cambridge-based microprocessor-maker Cyan Technology has donated 100 of its eCOG1 1-bit MCU development kits to the University of Essex department of computer science. ?As well as helping us to expand the curriculum on offer and adding to...

FPGA market fragmentation triggers start-up activities.
November 8, 2006... By David Manners david.manners@rbi.co.uk A rash of FPGA start-ups is boosting the programmable industry as suppliers seek to match their tools to the capabilities being demonstrated. Synplicity, the EDA firm specialising in FPGA design and...

Chip firm has process for 16Gbyte MCP device.
November 8, 2006... Samsung has developed a process to manufacture a 16-chip multi-chip package (MCP) of memory. The technology, when applied to 8Gbit NAND flash chips, can allow up to a 16Gbyte MCP. Samsung introduced wafer-thinning technology that it...

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November 8, 2006... 08nov06EAST.jpg Shares in Filtronic gained on news that it had confirmed the appointment of Charles Hindson as CEO. The previous CEO resigned in January and in the summer the semiconductor device manufacturer reported an annual pre-tax...

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November 8, 2006... Nov 9: National Microelectronics Institute Annual Dinner, London. www.nmi.org.uk Nov 14-16: DigiWorld summit, Montpellier, France. www.digisummit.com Nov 14-17: Electronica, Munich, Germany. www.global-electronics.net/?id=20307 Nov 20-22: Low...

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November 8, 2006... By David Manners david.manners@rbi.co.uk Cavium Networks, a Californian firm which makes MIPS microprocessors, is expecting significant business growth in Europe driven by wireline and wireless networking design starts. ?We expect to see...

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November 8, 2006... SiTime, which makes CMOS MEMS replacements for quartz crystal resonators, has started its first manufacturing run and plans to produce a million units by the end of the year. ?Very high volume applications are more appropriate to us,? John...

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November 8, 2006... 08nov06NigelBlakeway Nigel Blakeway, chief operating officer, Omron Electronic Components Business Europe Achieving the right price point is one of the key factors in enabling mass market adoption of new technologies like...

UK broadband recovers following record lowest growth rate in Q2.
November 8, 2006... The UK broadband market has recovered from its lowest quarterly growth rate in Q2 2006. The base of DSL lines grew 8 per cent in Q3 2006, compared to 6.5 per cent at the end of June, according to a report from researcher Point Topic. ...

Fabless ?virtual IO? chip company lands $12m to complete product.
November 8, 2006... VirtenSys, a specialist in PCI Express serial interface device technology, has secured $12m in funding from a group of investors. The Manchester-based company said it can now complete its product development and recruit staff. ...

Silicon-on-insulator key to power trade-off in future chips, says ARM.
November 8, 2006... By Richard Wilson richard.wilson@rbi.co.uk ARM has said that silicon-on-insulator process technology is key to addressing the power consumption versus processor speed trade-off as chip geometries get smaller. In a second move into...

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November 8, 2006... Any technology described as ?cutting edge? usually has VCs (venture capitalists) reaching for their cheque books and ambitious engineers reaching for their CVs. This is a curious state of affairs, as many (most?) fail to reach their potential,...

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November 8, 2006... This year? inaugural Marks & Clerk Nanotechnology Report revealed that Europe? rate of patent filing was alarmingly low in comparison to the US and the Far East - notably so in the electronics sector. This is especially worrying given the...

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November 8, 2006... For decades the power supply industry - especially the board mounted products area - has been considered as slow moving, and indeed an area that suffers from a lack of interest from newly graduated engineers. Now, the industry is facing a...

Handset firm backs open source design.
November 8, 2006... Motorola has cranked up the importance of open source software for future mobile phone design by inviting the growing community of Java Micro Edition developers to establish a complete Java ME software stack for the mobile industry. ?We...

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November 8, 2006... FM broadcasting has long been a staple of audio entertainment for audiences worldwide. Portable device manufacturers are integrating FM receivers in about half of all designs and an FM receiver in any device with a speaker or headset is...

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November 8, 2006... For digital designers, CMOS process technologies have long offered superior performance to older bipolar processes. Substantial benefits of higher speed, lower power consumption, and lower cost have relegated bipolar digital devices to the...

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November 8, 2006... Digi-Key is considering expanding its distribution infrastructure in Europe with the setting up of a technical support centre in the UK for the first time. ?We are looking at localising our approach more,? Mark Larson, president and chief...

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November 8, 2006... Microsoft has announced version 6.0 of Windows Embedded CE, its real-time operating system for embedded systems such as Internet protocol (IP) set-top boxes and industrial automation applications. The firm is also stepping up its plan to...

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November 8, 2006... Vishay has agreed with International Rectifier to acquire its Power Control Systems (PCS) business for $290m. The business manufactures semiconductor products including high voltage Mosfets, Schottky diodes, diode rectifiers, fast recovery...

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November 8, 2006... Powerline comms start-up SiConnect has moved to larger premises at Swindon? Delta Business Park. The company, which will launch its first commercial product before the end of the year, is also at the start of a recruitment drive.

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November 8, 2006... Many people are familiar with Moore? Law, whereby transistor density doubles every 24 months. This increased processing density has been exploited in the microprocessors used in enterprise desktop and server environments, which has seen...

Set-top team plans buy-out to save 25 jobs.
November 8, 2006... The team behind collapsed digital TV set-top box maker Access Devices is looking to save up to 25 jobs by buying the intellectual property (IP) and remaining stock. Tony Walton and Peter Hilton are planning to buy the rights and ?1.5m...

Wireless HDTV networks in standard stand-off.
November 8, 2006... By Nick Flaherty editorial@electronicsweekly.co.uk A consortium of consumer electronics companies is creating yet another specification to remove the cables linking a HDTV set-top box and flat screen TV, this time at 60GHz. The WirelessHD...

Wireless sea water modems transmit up to 300m to unmanned submarines.
November 8, 2006... By Steve Bush steve.bush@rbi.co.uk Livingston-based Wireless Fibre Systems is developing wireless modems that work in sea water. ?Curiously, we believe we are the first company to make a modem using this technology,? CEO Brendan Hyland...

Foundry touts 0.8?m BiCMOS chip process.
November 8, 2006... Zarlink Semiconductor? Swindon-based analogue foundry is offering a sub-?m BiCMOS process technology tuned for fabricating power management chips. The 20V 5GHz WPX/Y analogue bipolar technology also supports CMOS process techniques for...

Scientists hear audio effect from louspeaker capacitors.
November 8, 2006... By Steve Bush steve.bush@rbi.co.uk UK audio researchers have discovered two of what they suspect will be several subtle links between loudspeaker cross-over capacitors and the audio they produce. One is the effect of equivalent series...

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November 8, 2006... IBM has released further details of the water spray cooling system in announced recently (EW 01/11/06). The image above shows the jets which spray water directly onto the back of a die, plus the four hierarchical layers of manifolds that feed...

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November 15, 2006... China? electronics industry is getting its RoHS act together, claims test house Soldetec Global. ?In the last six months, we have seen many more products from China where it is hard to find non-compliant parts,? Soldertec marketing...

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November 15, 2006... RF design jobs Micrel is expanding its semiconductor design team in Scotland to support its RF device and power management business p5 Wireless power Researchers claim that it is technically possible to charge electronic devices...

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November 15, 2006... US-based Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute has developed two methods for placing carbon nanotube patterns on metal surfaces while achieving a low conductive connection. This has previously been a stumbling block as researchers have only been...

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November 15, 2006... As is the way of things on the stock market concerns about one firm tends to affect investors? views of other firms in the same line of business. Last week it was the turn of the UK? fabless chip IP firms to be viewed in a mildly unfavourable...

Nokia to aid US military in field comms study.
November 15, 2006... Nokia is working with the US Army to evaluate the wider use of commercial mobile phone technology such as GSM, W-CDMA and WiMAX in military communications. The five-year project will evaluate how devices and systems can meet the...

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November 15, 2006... According to Fred Zimmerman, executive director at Texas Instruments, there are distinct business user and consumer markets for voice-over-IP phones and it is the consumer market which is agressively driving the need for new features.

TI joins CSR in IP phone chip assault.
November 15, 2006... A few weeks after CSR announced an Internet protocol (IP) phone design based on its own Risc processor, Texas Instruments has licensed the MIPS32 24Kc processor core for integrating into its Gigabit Ethernet IP phone chip. Cambridge-based...

NAND teeters on the brink.
November 15, 2006... By David Manners david.manner@rbi.co.uk NAND flash manufacturers are building massive capacity just as the market is expected to collapse. ?It? very concerning that pricing is down 66 per cent this year, and yet folks are still adding...

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November 15, 2006... Component obsolescence can cause significant problems in military environments, where equipment is often expected to last for several decades and where high performance and reliability are crucial. The role of technology in the field is...

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November 15, 2006... There have been many developments within the connector market over the last decade and the pace of change shows no sign of slowing. However some trends seem to remain constant. The interconnect world is diverse due to a proliferation of new...

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November 15, 2006... 15nov06huomo.jpg Heikki Huomo, chief technology officer of Innovision Research & Technology NFC (near-field communications). Will it really be everywhere, or just ticketing? The most obvious NFC use case is payment and ticketing....

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November 15, 2006... Freescale has finally decided what to do with its ColdFire range of 32-bit microcontrollers and licensed the technology to IPextreme to sell to other system-on-chip makers. The move will reassure the market, which will benefit from further...

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November 15, 2006... Altera has given details of its next generation Stratix III FPGAs. The move to 65nm has allowed for a doubling of transistor counts with the largest device containing 338k logic elements and 17.2Mbit of memory. But the firm will not be sampling...

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November 15, 2006... To provide low-power CMOS application designers with a smooth path from design through physical implementation, and shorter design cycle times, German foundry X-Fab is readying its 0.18micron analogue/mixed-signal CMOS process and design kit....

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November 15, 2006... A completely redesigned compiler for Infineon Technologies? C166 16-bit microcontroller is revitalising 16-bit designs and delaying the migration to 32-bit. Altium has redesigned its Tasking C166 compiler (which also supports...

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November 15, 2006... By David Manners david.manners@rbi.co.uk Start-up Achronix wants to take FPGAs into the performance territory of Asics with a design which it claimed is four times faster than conventional FPGAs. ?You can? compete with Xilinx and Altera...

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November 15, 2006... By Richard Wilson Micrel Semiconductor is expanding its RF and power management IC design team at Livingston in Scotland. ?The emphasis is being placed on creating an advanced R&D function in the UK and also finding a strong RF...

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November 15, 2006... Birstall-based ConnectRFID has become the 400th member of Electronics Yorkshire, which supports firms in the Yorkshire and Humber region. Pictured with his membership certificate is Dr Robert Moore (left), operations manager at ConnectRFID,...

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November 15, 2006... Power can be usefully transmitted wirelessly around a room, claims MIT researcher Marin Soljacic. ?It certainly was not clear or obvious to us in the beginning how well it could actually work,? he said. Beam-based radiative power...

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November 15, 2006... By Steve Bush steve.bush@rbi.co.uk University of Dundee display spin-out Quantum Filament Technology claims to have made significant advances with its cathode material for use in field-emission displays. ?We have suddenly had a...

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November 22, 2006... Multi-billion dollar private equity fund investment in the semiconductor industry was greeted with mixed reactions at Europe? Electronica exhibition in Munich last week. It has been suggested that Freescale? purchasers see a way to make...

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November 22, 2006... By Richard Ball richard.ball@rbi.co.uk Dual core processors will become the de facto standard in embedded systems in the next two years, driven by Intel, and mirroring the moves in PC design. With the prospect of as many as 90 per cent of...

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November 22, 2006... Rutronik has extended its distribution agreement with fellow German company Infineon Technologies to include the UK, Ireland, Spain and Portugal. According to Jezel Hardern, Rutronik? country manager for the UK and Ireland, it is the local...

Ofcom forecasts bright future for dynamic spectrum access.
November 22, 2006... Dynamic spectrum access (DSA) and mesh wireless networks are expected to have ?a significant impact on the use of new spectrum? within the next decade, according to a report from communications regulator Ofcom. Ofcom? Technology Research...

Chip competitors unite to develop reference design.
November 22, 2006... By Richard Wilson reporting from Munich Distributor EBV Elektronik has introduced its first reference design platform to be developed with four of its semiconductor suppliers. There are also indications Texas Instruments is the next big...

Universal remote control display shows only relevant commands.
November 22, 2006... Cardiff-based Pelikon is providing the electroluminescent display in One For All? Kameleon III range of universal remote controls (pictured above). ?This is the third generation of products we have worked on with One For All,? said Pelikon...

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November 22, 2006... By David Manners reporting from Munich Altera is in danger of losing the benefit of an entire process node with the revelation that it will not be in production on 65nm until 2008, and the assertion by Xilinx that it will have its first...

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November 22, 2006... Toumaz Technology has been named as start-up of the year by the National Microelectronics Institute (NMI) at its tenth Anniversary Awards. Originally spun-out of Imperial College, London, Toumaz develops RF, analogue and mixed signal...

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November 22, 2006... Manufacturers of handheld and other battery-operated products say that achieving raw performance is no longer their number one issue; it is now ?performance within energy budget?. As wireless mobile products provide an increasing range of...

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November 22, 2006... It used to be so simple. We could develop a board and just leave some space for the power. Then all you needed to do was take out a scientific calculator to find out how much current was required on the 5V and, usually, the +/-12V or +/-15V. In...

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November 22, 2006... Monitoring of various voltage rails has been a mainstay on many systems for decades. Knowing whether a voltage rail is above or below a certain threshold, or within an operating window, is crucial to operational reliability and safety. There...

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November 22, 2006... Bill Miller is CEO of organic LED microdisplay company, MicroEmissive Displays (MED) I understand version two of your display is coming out next year. How is it different and what is your target market? The new display has the same...

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November 22, 2006... EDA vendors Cadence Design Systems and Mentor Graphics are going head-to-head in their efforts to help new start-ups across Europe. Cadence has set up a start-up programme to work with small companies and management buyouts, echoing the...

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November 22, 2006... Talented analogue design engineers are required by Linear Technology which has recruited ten in the last six months for its first European design centre based in Munich. ?We started recruiting design engineers for the Munich design centre in...

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November 22, 2006... Talented analogue design engineers are required by Linear Technology which has recruited ten in the last six months for its first European design centre based in Munich. ?We started recruiting design engineers for the Munich design centre in...

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November 22, 2006... Continuing to ride a strong wave of consumer demand for electronic products, Semiconductor Industry Association (SIA) president George Scalise said today during a webcast that global semiconductor sales will reach $321bn in 2009. Projecting a...

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November 22, 2006... Murata is putting a new emphasis on developing technology for the European market through alliances and joint ventures. ?We are already working with universities in Europe, including the UK,? Dick Oram, the company? UK MD told EW. The passives...

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November 22, 2006... By Richard Wilson reporting from Munich Founder of International Rectifier, Eric Lidow, received a special award for lifetime achievement and he headed the roll-call of honours at this year? Elektras - Electronics Weekly? European...

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November 22, 2006... Qualcomm is aiming for growth by moving to address the consumer electronics market with its Snapdragon platform, announced last week, which will offer processing power teamed with wireless connectivity. ?We?ve been solely focused on...

Methanol cell membrane claims 200mW/cm2 record.
November 22, 2006... Californian fuel cell firm PolyFuel is claiming a record for its latest methanol membrane. ?The ultra-thin membrane delivers over 40 per cent more power than any fuel cell membrane previously available. When used in direct methanol fuel...

Start-up lands Virgin deal for 1.6m window displays.
November 22, 2006... Seamless display tiling start-up Screen Technology has been chosen by commercial display supplier Digital Screen Networks (DSN) to provide large displays to Virgin Megastores (illustrated right). ?All sixteen of Virgin? Megastores are...

Transparent inkjet conductor method uses antimony tin oxide to cut costs.
November 22, 2006... By Steve Bush steve.bush@rbi.co.uk A UK consortium has developed a process for inkjet printing transparent conductors for displays, aiming to cut costs compared with indium tin oxide (ITO). The inkjet-able material is antimony tin oxide...

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November 29, 2006... Distributor of the Year Abacus Group Judges Comment ?Traditionally one of the most competitive categories, this year? winner stood out not only for its business success but also for the way it has implemented an ambitious plan to...

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November 29, 2006... RS Components recognised the impact of RoHS on the electronics industry as early as 2003. A project team was established with three main objectives: to educate customers about the legislation, to disseminate trustworthy product compliance...

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November 29, 2006... Capacitive touch screen technology based on charge transfer Quantum Research has developed custom microcontroller-based sensor ICs to implement a touch screen technology called QField. QField uses Quantum? patented charge transfer sensing...

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November 29, 2006... PSP games console from Sony Wherever you go you can take the Sony PSP games console with you, it is entertainment in your pocket. At home or on the move it opens up a world of possibilities from high quality 3D games to full-length feature...

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November 29, 2006... DeepStream Technologies, which is based in Bangor, North Wales, is a manufacturing start-up which has developed a patented technique for integrating 3D digital sensor components into existing product designs, to extend product lifecycles with...

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November 29, 2006... Capricorn SoC for automotive graphic displays Toshiba? Capricorn 64-bit Risc-based system-on-chip (SoC) device incorporates an integrated graphics controller and as a result it can reduce component count in automotive graphic display...

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November 29, 2006... Farnell InOne made its mark on the European electronics market this year with the development of its online services and its support for customers who were coming to terms with the European Directive on RoHS. The Leeds-based broadline...

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November 29, 2006... Identicom ID badge with embedded tri-band GSM. Triteq designed a worker protection device that takes tri-band GSM, battery and power management technologies and applies them to an ID badge for the protection of employees. Each unit...

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November 29, 2006... ChannelCore64 FPGA IP core Almost all radio receivers need to extract one or more relatively narrow channels from a much wider input spectrum in a process called down-conversion. Until now, the approach has been to use specialist DDC...

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November 29, 2006... National Semiconductor has continuously made a commitment to invest in its people. The programmes introduced encompass the full spectrum of engineering needs to drive the business forward. The company has established a comprehensive programme...

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November 29, 2006... Eric Lidow, the founder of International Rectifier, has been a director since its inception in 1947, and was CEO until March 1995. Although now 93 years old, he still plays an active role in the industry. Eric Lidow was born in...