Electronics Weekly articles from November 2008

Electronics Weekly archives from November 2008

Products.
November 5, 2008... Renesas has licensed Yitran's high speed 150kbit/s power line communications technology for its family of narrowband communications devices. "Addressing smart metering, smart home and street lighting applications, the high data rate...

News.(Interview)
November 5, 2008... 05nov08MarkLarson.jpg Mark Larson, president of online and catalogue distributor Digi-Key, talks to EW about the growth in online distribution, business conditions in the European market and new product lines. Will your component...

News.
November 5, 2008... DeepStream Technologies has demonstrated that it is possible to make a success of manufacturing electronics components in commercial volumes in the UK. The North Wales-based sensor manufacturer is planning to almost double its workforce by...

News.
November 5, 2008... Analogue applications, such as testing, calibration, and general system operation, often require a sine waveform of accurate amplitude and frequency, with low THD (total harmonic distortion). Some applications demand that the generator of...

Features.
November 5, 2008... 05nov08Emerson.jpg Three factors driving intelligent power conversion By Conor Quinn Year after year, the evolution of the power industry has been driven by the need to deliver intelligent, cost-effective power conversion...

Features.
November 5, 2008... 05nov08ericssonfig1.jpg 05nov08ericssonfig2.jpg 05nov08ericssonfig3.jpg 05nov08ericssonphoto.jpg Digital Converter Powers MicroTCA Systems By Patrick Le Fevre The Micro Telecommunications Computing Architecture...

Features.
November 5, 2008... 05nov08powerone1.jpg Digital Power Managers can interface with system-level controllers Green design for point-of-load power conversion By Dennis Brondi The increase in energy consumption that has resulted from the...

Features.
November 5, 2008... 05nov08SplitPi 2 jpgs and a pdf By Tim Crocker It is not very often that a new power supply topology comes along, particularly one that smoothly passes from step-up to step-down, and is inherently bi-directional. Dubbed...

News.
November 5, 2008... Motorola's plans to re-energise its mobile phone business could rest on the success of its strategy to adopt a Linux-based operating system for next-generation handsets, including smartphones. While Motorola may have lost ground in the...

Features.
November 5, 2008... 05nov08fairchildfig1.jpg 05nov08fairchildfig2.jpg [Please use diagrams small ( 1 column) as not sure of resolution] Figure 1. Gate driving loss vs. conduction loss according to output load Figure 2. QSYNC measurement ...

Features.
November 5, 2008... 05nov08XPfig1.jpg Al transformer with a number of windings that connect to the secondary of the power transformer Fractional-turns transformers improve the efficiency of AC-DC supplies By Gary Bocock Fractional-turn...

Features.
November 5, 2008... One of the parameters of an isolated DC-DC converter is the range of the input voltage over which the converter can operate. For the industry-standard "bricks" available for the nominal 48V input telecoms market, this range is usually 36V to...

Features.
November 5, 2008... 05nov08linear.jpg Buck-boost converter schematic High power 3.3V bus in Li-ion handheld devices By Bruce Haug Generating an output voltage that is always above or below the input voltage can easily be accomplished by a...

News.
November 5, 2008... ARM has reported what its CEO Warren East called "the best quarterly revenue performance in its history". The microprocessor developer was also far from downbeat about future prospects despite current global economic concerns. "Earnings growth...

News.
November 5, 2008... Texan researchers are mimicking the physical and biological characteristics of a pterosaur to create a "pterodrone" - an unmanned aerial vehicle that flies, walks and sails like the historical original. "The next generation of airborne...

News.
November 5, 2008... Young engineers are being invited to put their views on the state of engineering in the UK to MPs via a website forum. The House of Commons Innovation, Universities, Science and Skills Committee has launched the website to hear the views of...

News.
November 5, 2008... Atmel believes that the best way to improve microcontroller performance is to off-load interrupts and data transfers to an on-chip event manager and DMA, so that is what it has done with its latest AVR XMEGA 8/16-bit microcontroller. ...

Features.
November 5, 2008... Introduction to boundary scan Xjtag is running a series of free "Introduction to boundary scan" training workshops at its Cambridge headquarters. The full-day sessions will run throughout the autumn and winter and are designed to provide...

News.
November 5, 2008... Intel will take the wraps off its 32nm microprocessor technology at the IEEE International Electron Devices Meeting (IEDM) in San Francisco in December. Information released so far indicates the firm is using second-generation high-k...

Products.
November 12, 2008... 12nov08RDS.jpg Review Display Systems ahs introduced a single board computer which measures only 102x146mm and will fit behind a standard 5.7 inch format display. The Intel Atom-based computer board has power consumption of 14W. ...

Features.
November 12, 2008... 12nov08wimaxtest.jpg Caption: MIMO receiver testing Uncovering test role in supporting LTE and Mobile Wimax By Jennifer Stark 3GPP LTE (long term evolution) and Mobile Wimax are perhaps two of the most widely publicised...

Features.
November 12, 2008... Figure 1. Multicore processors enable parallel measurement algorithms. Using parallelism in test to reduce cellular measurement times By David A. Hall and Steven Bird As mobile phones increase in both cost and complexity, the...

Features.
November 12, 2008... 12nov08RFtest1.jpg [Quality may be poor can only use SMALL] Figure 1. Test for a combined WLAN and WiMAX front-end module extends from S-parameter measurements through harmonic measurements. The OFDM modulation scheme of WLAN and...

Features.
November 12, 2008... Taking the Graft out of DFT Dominic Plunkett explains how the latest boundary scan developments are helping to overcome the test-probe access challenges of array packages such as BGAs and CSPs The latest boundary scan tools and...

News.
November 12, 2008... 12nov08siliconFibre.pdf 12nov08siliconFireFlattened.jpg and 2 US researchers from Clemson University have made silicon-cored optical fibre using techniques compatible with mass production. There are two main advantages in silcon...

Features.
November 26, 2008... Manfred Schwarztrauber received the Award from Richard Wilson, Editor of Electronics Weekly, with host for the evening Jeff Stelling. TTems, business development manager Jason Arnold received the Award from Georg Steinberger, v-p comms...

Products.
November 26, 2008... 26nov08Vishay Vishay has released an ESD diode array to protect USB-OTG ports against transient voltage signals. The device provides three lines of protection at 5.5V working range, and one line of V[subBUS] protection at up to 12V...

News.
November 26, 2008... 26nov08Q5markrobinson.jpg Mark Robinson, CEO at component distributor Advanced Power Components talks to EW about consolidation in the market and the importance of skills in a downturn 1. How would you describe APC's business in 2...

News.
November 26, 2008... Yury Magda describes how a simple, low-cost ADC can be controlled using a computer serial port Visual C# app controls ADC This design idea describes a simple and low-cost ADC that you control using the serial port of a PC running...

Features.
November 26, 2008... Power consumption constraints have probably compromised more product design plans than any other factor. When a promising concept is in development, balancing that design's great new functional goals against the sobering facts of power...

Features.
November 26, 2008... For the past 10 years, virtual platforms have been heralded as a solution to the problem of ever growing software content related to chip design. Software development has moved front and centre on the critical path for chip development....

Features.
November 26, 2008... This year's nominee for the Lifetime Achievement Award is a man who has played a leading role in the European electronics industry during the past 30 years - a period which has seen Europe grow in importance as a major electronics market for...

Features.
November 26, 2008... The judges were impressed by the winner's combination of ground-breaking technical innovation and a business model which is successfully marketing the company's products in a global market. Back in October 2001, EnOcean GmbH was founded as...

Features.
November 26, 2008... According to the judges the winning company impressed by the way it had approached the challenges of the market by creating a global operation which can address customers in Europe. In 2008, TT electronics created a global electronic...

Features.
November 26, 2008... Once again the judges were impressed by the number of very strong entries in this category. The overall winner stood out because of its level of technical innovation and its success in bringing first products to market in less than two years....

Features.
November 26, 2008... According to the judging panel - in what has been a challenging year for the industry the overall winner stood out for its technical credentials and success in a very competitive market EBV Elektronik, which is part of the Avnet group of...

News.
November 26, 2008... How bad is it? Despite the opinion of those who love to wallow in gloom, it is not all bad in the chip industry. The finance sector is a disaster, automobile manufacturing a basket case, but the semiconductor industry, so far, does not...

Features.
November 26, 2008... The judging panel said that traditionally this is one of the more varied and interesting awards categories, and the winner stood out for the way it improved memory, speed and trigger performance to new levels. Features of the 2.5GHz to...

Features.
November 26, 2008... 26nov08elektraPOWER Power Systems Product of the Year Sponsored by Anglia Vicor - VI Brick DC-DC converter According to the judging panel, never has there been more emphasis placed on top quality power system design and the...

Features.
November 26, 2008... 26nov08elektraSTUDENT.jpg Student Engineer of the Year Sponsored by Omron Nazish Aslam In the view of the judges the award this year goes to a student at the University of Edinburgh, who has excelled in academic research and...

Features.
November 26, 2008... 26nov08elektraSEMI.jpg Semiconductor Product of the Year Sponsored by Publitek Marketing Communications Analog Devices - ADIS 16355 Inertial Measurement Unit The judges decided that the winning entry in this category...

Features.
November 26, 2008... 26nov08elektraWIRELESS.jpg Wireless & Telecoms Design Award Sponsored by Gleichmann Sunrise EnOcean - a self-powered wireless sensor According to the judges, the winner has developed an innovative wireless sensor technology...

Features.
November 26, 2008... 26nov08elektraR&D.jpg Research & Design Award Sponsored by Premier Farnell Codeplay Software The judges felt the overall winner stood out because of the originality of its programming model which allows single-core software...

Features.
November 26, 2008... 26nov08elektraEMBEDDED.jpg Sponsored by Silica Embedded System Product of the Year QNX Software Systems - Aviage Acoustic Processing Kit The judging panel believed the winning entry clearly demonstrated how an optimised...

Features.
November 26, 2008... 26nov08elektraPASSIVES.jpg Passive & Electromechanical Product of the Year Sponsored by RS Ebm-papst Automotive & Drives - the S-Force cooling fan The judges felt this product was a clear winner given the performance...

Features.
November 26, 2008... 26nov08elektraFABLESS.jpg Sponsored by Toshiba Fabless Semiconductor Supplier of the Year Neotion The judging panel felt this relatively young company has demonstrate the potential of its technical approach to the difficult...

Features.
November 26, 2008... 26nov08elektraENVIRO.jpg Sponsored by TDK-Lambda Environmental Award Diodes (Zetex Semiconductors) According to the judging panel - they were especially impressed by the level of commitment to environmental issues across many...

News.
November 26, 2008... Anew blueprint for EC backing for the European semiconductor industry is being thrashed out by the European vice-president for enterprise and industry Gunter Verheugen, along with the CEOs of STMicroelectronics, NXP Semiconductors and Freescale...

News.
November 26, 2008... IBM and university researchers will try to simulate and emulate the brain's abilities for sensation, perception, action, interaction and cognition, and rival its low power consumption and compact size. Ultimately, the team hopes to rival...

News.
November 26, 2008... OLED lighting start-up PolyPhotonix is to build its first production line in County Durham. The production line at the Printable Electronics Technology Centre (Petec) in Sedgefield will produce lighting panels using OLED intellectual property...

News.
November 26, 2008... Microoled and CEA-Leti claim to have made an OLED display with the smallest pixels yet. "Compared with competing products in the same mechanical package we can achieve five times more pixels. This achievement in the world of microdisplays...

News.
November 26, 2008... Is the writing on the wall for Wimax? It is looking increasingly likely that Wimax could be squeezed by a rapid move to the 3G upgrade technology known as LTE for the next generation of broadband mobile technology. Qualcomm's decision to...

Features.
November 26, 2008... RICA IC to run on TSMC fab in April Spiral Gateway, the Edinburgh-based start-up developing a dynamically reconfigurable processor, is to run its next IC on a multi-project wafer (MPW) at TSMC in April. The company's first silicon, a...

Features.
November 26, 2008... David Stewart, founder and chief executive officer of Edinburgh-based CriticalBlue, speaks to Ann Steffora Mutschler about how it is tackling multicore programming Multicore opportunity for Edinburgh start-up Are multicore and...

News.
November 26, 2008... There should be a new paradigm to succeed Moore's Law for semiconductor industry progress, Rich Beyer, CEO of Freescale Semiconductor, told the CEO Forum on the opening day of this month's Electronica exhibition in Munich. Whereas Moore's...

News.
November 26, 2008... The Printable Electronics Technology Centre (Petec) in County Durham has been built to create printable plastic electronics intellectual property which is ready to move in to commercial production. "We have set ourselves up to fill the gap...