Electronics Weekly articles from October 2004

Electronics Weekly archives from October 2004

Europe key area for Ignios tools.
October 6, 2004... New firm Ignios believes Europe is the key market for its real-time system management tool for complex, multi-core devices. "Europe is a very important market for us because of the strong focus on system design," said Rick Clucas, Ignios CEO...

Celab names managing director.
October 6, 2004... Celab has named a new managing director following its acquisition by US power group C&D Technologies earlier in the year. C&D Technologies paid $12m for the Hampshire-based power systems manufacturer in May. It retained its local management,...

Designers seek out cheaper silicon for 3G mobile phones.
October 6, 2004... The pressure to reduce cost and the constantly changing standards for 3G mobile are forcing designers to look elsewhere for suitable silicon technology for their basestation designs. "We see a truly dramatic demand for an aggressive decrease in...

US cools carbon nanotube growth.
October 6, 2004... Central Michigan University has grown multi-walled carbon nanotubes on a dendrimer-based catalyst at 175[degrees]C, claimed to be the lowest-reported temperature to date. "This is the first instance of growing nanotubes from a dendrimer at...

FPGAs break down the complexity gridlock.
October 6, 2004... FPGA devices offer execution speed and gate capacity that rivals many Asic implementations and fosters the growth of EDA tools in that market, says Gabe Moretti long as engineers could use only a PLD or an FPGA to implement relatively...

Proposed CE-mark rules force design change.
October 6, 2004... Compliance with the next European Union directive designed to protect the environment is going to require "a fundamental change in how industry does business," according to test company, RFI Global Services. "A strategic change is needed for...

Potential of broadband should be silicon.
October 6, 2004... For too long communications technologies such as Ethernet and DSL broadband have played second fiddle in the semiconductor market simply because they are not wireless technologies. For years semiconductor firms trumpeted their wireless chip...

US fund to tackle Internet attacks.
October 6, 2004... The Center for Internet Epidemiology and Defenses (CIED) has been formed in California with $6.2m in US government funding to tackle "epidemic-style attacks". According to CIED co-head Vern Paxson: "To stop whole classes of pathogens requires...

Advanced course for PCB designers.
October 6, 2004... dvanced Designer Certification (CID+) is an advanced module of the Designers Certification Programme for PCB designers from international standards body, the IPC. The entry-level CID qualification, established for several years, assesses...

Electron pulse accelerated to speed of light in 1mm.
October 6, 2004... Imperial College researchers have used a laser and plasma to accelerate a pulse of electrons from zero to just under the speed of light in 1mm. "A conventional accelerator would take 10m," said lead scientist Professor Karl Krushelnick. The...

IBM claims top spot in 'most powerful' computer league.
October 6, 2004... IBM is claiming the first BlueGene/L computer has surpassed NEC's Earth Simulator to become the world's most powerful supercomputer. "Using the industry-standard LINPACK benchmark BlueGene/L system attained a sustained performance of...

MIPS extends instruction set architecture so host processor handles video/audio functions.
October 6, 2004... MIPS Technologies has extended its instruction set architecture with dedicated signal processing support, including single instruction, multiple data (SIMD) capability. The firm's aim is to remove dedicated logic for video and audio...

ARM plans to ; put parallel execution units in next architecture.
October 6, 2004... ARM's next architecture will have parallel execution units for signal processing tasks thanks to the Neon extensions. Compared to version six of its instruction set, as used in the ARM11 processor, the firm has also extended the bit width of...

Anadigm reshapes its analogue array tool.
October 6, 2004... Field-programmable analogue array (FPAA) firm Anadigm has added further building block firmware to its tool suite. "They were all driven by customer requirements," v-p of marketing Nathan John told EW. The firm calls all its building blocks...

Scottish optical disc drive firm secures [pounds sterling]2m for product push.
October 6, 2004... Dunfermline-based optical disc drive company Infinite Data Storage (IDS) has pulled in [pounds sterling]2m of additional investment, to take its products into full production. "This is the third series venture capital round we have been out in...

TI eyes market for VoIP over WLAN phone.
October 6, 2004... Texas Instruments is targeting its voice-over-Internet-protocol (VoIP) over wireless LAN (WLAN) mobile phone platform at the healthcare, retailing, manufacturing and university campus market. VoIP on WLAN networks will also be aimed at the...

Development boost for micro-fuel cells.
October 6, 2004... A $3.6m grant to develop "free standing" carbon nanotube electrodes for micro-fuel cells has been awarded by the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) in the US. The award has been made to a joint venture partnership of...

Semiconductor bosses verdict on sales slump: 'It's an inventory correction, not a downturn'.
October 6, 2004... A number of CEOs have expressed concern about a soft third quarter for semiconductor sales which has sent tech stocks sliding. Is the semiconductor downturn starting or is it just an inventory correction? "End product demand is still healthy...

Intelligent flat and flying robots move house in Essex.
October 6, 2004... The University of Essex has moved the academic and research staff of its electronic systems engineering department into a purpose built, five-storey building with over 3,000m2 research and teaching space. The Network Centre, as it is called,...

IMEC seeks partners to use nanotechnology for CMOS.
October 6, 2004... Belgian research organisation IMEC is seeking industrial partners with which to extend the life of CMOS using nanotechnology. "Although single devices have been demonstrated, there has been little effort in using nanotechnology building blocks...

Bigger place, more staff for embedded design firm.
October 6, 2004... Display Solutions is moving to larger premises and recruiting staff in response to an expansion of its embedded computer design and manufacturing business. The new facility, which becomes operational at the end of the month, includes a system...

Cingular sells its Mobitex division.
October 6, 2004... US telecoms operator Cingular Wireless has agreed to sell its Mobitex wireless packet data division to account management firm Cerberus Capital Management for an undisclosed sum. Cingular Interactive's Mobitex network covers 93 per cent of the...

Fairchild CEO eyes takeover targets in Japan and Europe.
October 6, 2004... Kirk Pond, CEO of Fairchild Semiconductor, is on the prowl again for takeover targets in Japan and Europe in pursuit of Fairchild's focus on power devices. Power devices now represent 75 per cent of the company's sales revenues. "Europe is very...

Ultra-wideband too fast for rivals.
October 6, 2004... Ultra-Wideband (UWB) faces no serious competition when it rolls out as competing technologies offer slower ways of data transfers, according to the latest report from research firm In-Stat/MDR. The report said other technologies only offered...

Mentor tools up chip entrepreneurs in Bath.
October 6, 2004... Mentor Graphics has agreed to provide EDA tools to chip entrepreneurs through the university partnership SETsquared. SETsquared is part of an enterprise partnership between the universities of Bath, Bristol, Southampton and Surrey which...

Agilent scoops lead in real-time scope race.
October 6, 2004... Agilent Technologies has taken a lead in the real-time oscilloscope race with the first 13GHz bandwidth scope and probing system. Previously the fastest real-time scopes were 6GHz units from Agilent and LeCroy and a 7GHz Tektronix oscilloscope....

SuperH team returns to STMicroelectronics.
October 6, 2004... The Bristol-based microprocessor development team of SuperH will return to STMicroelectronics following the ending of the CPU licensing joint venture with Renesas Technology. Renesas has taken ownership of the assets and Japanese development...

RFI Global doubles size with Basingstoke opening.
October 6, 2004... Test house RFI Global has opened its headquarters at Ashwood Park in Basingstoke which has double the number of laboratories. The move was prompted by a need for more space. "We ran out of desk space," said Stephen Kirk, managing director of...

Scotland to shut purse on Proof of Concept funding.
October 6, 2004... Scotland's Proof of Concept fund for start-up technology firms is coming to an end. The [pounds sterling]33m fund, which was started in 1999 and set up to run for six years, closed its doors to applications for its final round today (October...

Electronics design help reborn after DTI fund cut.
October 6, 2004... The Electronic Design Programme, through which SMEs get low-cost design help from universities, has been reborn following the loss of its DTI funding. Now called the Electronic Design Partnership, "we have made it into a not-for-profit company...

Near-field optics sees applications.
October 6, 2004... Near-field optics may escape into the real world following an experiment at Sandia Labs in New Mexico which rendered a 10nm movement detectable by the un-aided eye. It is thought to be the first time near-field manipulation has been exploited...

Production costs hit PCB firm Coretec.
October 6, 2004... The cost of manufacturing in the UK has been cited by Canadian PCB manufacturer Coretec as a major reason why it has called in the administrators to wind up its UK operations. "The cost structure with respect to manufacturing in the UK combined...

Silicon industry must be more aggressive in broadband, forum told.
October 6, 2004... The silicon industry is missing a trick by failing to take the lead in the broadband market area, according to Tim Johnson of UK research company Point Topic. "The silicon industry needs to take a more aggressive role and lead," said Johnson,...

One millionth DAB chip at TI.
October 6, 2004... The one millionth digital radio baseband chip for DAB digital radio receivers has been shipped by Texas Instruments (TI). TI baseband chips have been used in radios manufactured by Acoustic Solutions, Cambridge Audio, Hitachi, Intempo, LG...

Camera phones to click 5 megapixels with CMOS-based sensors 'next year'.
October 6, 2004... CMOS-based sensors will lead to cameras phones capable of taking over 5 megapixel still images next year, according to Jason Liu, product manager at US firm OmniVision. Liu said the firm was talking to mobile phone companies about the use of...

Perfect lens not focus of material.
October 6, 2004... Negative refractive index material will never make the proposed 'perfect lens' but they will lead to better imaging system, said Purdue University and MIT following mathematical analysis. "Through a rigorous mathematical analysis we have shown...

Brunel targets 100 start-ups.
October 6, 2004... Brunel Enterprise Centre (BEC), the commercial arm of Brunel University, is expecting to launch 100 start-ups and spin-offs over the next five years. It has a [pounds sterling]4.5m arrangement with Close Venture Management to support spin-off...

Automotive C coding gets rules facelift.
October 6, 2004... When MISRA-C was launched in 1998, the UK automotive coding guidelines for C in vehicle systems contained 128 rules for writing good C code. Although a number of development tools support it and many compiler vendors have changed their library...

Addicted to analogue.
October 13, 2004... The analogue market is a pretty good place to be at the moment because of its formidable barriers to would-be competitors and the fact that it is also in an up-cycle. David Manners spoke to the CEO of Intersil Rich Beyer o have a billion...

Five minutes to successful interviews.
October 13, 2004... Be positive, be enthusiastic. Sell yourself, sell your skills and sell your potential, John Spencer gives his advice he first thing to remember is that most interviewers want candidates to succeed because then they have solved a problem. To...

Is there commitment?
October 13, 2004... It was the DTI's dismissive approach to the 2002 House of Lords report "Chips with Everything" which first prompted firms to express concern over the Government's true commitment to the UK electronics industry. In the last two years Government...

It's all geek to me.
October 13, 2004... The problem of attracting children and women into engineering is an image thing. But the geek stereotype may be more than simple exaggeration by the media. Alex Mayhew-Smith looks at the problem cience and technology continues to suffer...

Volunteering for work.
October 13, 2004... Ever fancied working in Mongolia or The Gambia? Some of these places are crying out for people with specialist skills to work in hospitals or to lecture and teach locals. Melanie Reynolds finds out how to qualify with the VSO ever...

Plan and prepare for your dream job.
October 13, 2004... Whatever reason causes you to look for a new job opportunity, preparation is vital for success, says Martin Crapper the general economic climate continues to improve, there are more reasons why you might find yourself entering the job...

CVs: when the written word needs impact.
October 13, 2004... Do you put your profile first or hit them with your career summary section? Neil Dickins on the art of CV writing Vs are as individual as the people who write them, so it would be foolish to prescribe an unwavering format for the "perfect"...

Values ruled; by swings of job market.
October 13, 2004... Supply and demand swings the job market - if you have a skill that's in demand then so are you. Technology has a great impact on people's value says Simon Withers hile there is no such thing as a typical engineer, one factor about his or...

Oscillator uses smallest Finfets.
October 13, 2004... IMEC has built a 41-stage ring oscillator (right), with what it claims are the smallest Finfets yet. The devices have a physical gate length of 25nm and a fin width of 10nm. Stage delay in the oscillator is 60ps running at 1.5V, said IMEC....

Smart sticking plaster takes remote ECG measurements.
October 13, 2004... Belgian research group IMEC is working on a body sensor contained within a sticking plaster. Part of its Human++ research programme, the "smart sticking plaster" would contain sensing, signal processing and comms functions. Applications include...

Researchers hit 230GHz with low-complexity SiGe:C BiCMOS.
October 13, 2004... To keep a wedge between ever improving RF-CMOS and incumbent III-V compound semiconductors, IMEC has knocked the cost out of SiGe:C BiCMOS, producing 230GHz ft (190GHz fmax) 0.13[micro]m heterojunction bipolar transistors (HBT). "It is very...

Buyers beware the lure of China-sourced chips.
October 13, 2004... China is such a large source of commodity ICs that buyers and dealers cannot ignore it, but the perils of buying China-sourced chips can be great and the risks are getting worse. "The nature of electronic components makes them very alluring to...

'We only take risks on billion dollar prospects' only.
October 13, 2004... Without the prospect of achieving a stock market valuation of a billion dollars, venture capitalists are not particularly interested in semiconductor start-ups, a conference organised by University of Bath and the National Microelectronics...

Fabless semiconductor firm seeks funding for debut broadband chip launch this year.
October 13, 2004... Icera Semiconductor, the fabless chip company, aims to have its first products out this year, and will go for another funding round. Icera co-founder Simon Knowles told the SETsquared high-tech investment conference at the University of Bath...

University start-up incubator has room for 15 chip designers.
October 13, 2004... The University of Bath has room for another dozen engineers wanting to start-up commercial IC operations using its facilities, which include chip design tools and business contacts for getting venture capital funding, and help with finding...

Human body network transmitter consumes only 0.5nJ per bit sent.
October 13, 2004... Belgian research organisation IMEC has developed a body-area network transmitter which consumes only 0.5nJ per bit sent. "The best [similar] commercial devices we have found so far are one to two orders of magnitude higher per bit," project...

Rescued PCB firm recruits staff to cope with demand.
October 13, 2004... PCB manufacturer Circatex has taken on more staff to cope with increasing orders only four months after a management buy-out saved the company from administration. The Tyneside-based company had suffered severe cutbacks in staff from around 600...

VLIW multimode architecture.
October 13, 2004... Surface acoustic waves (SAWs) can be used as a non-destructive tool for in-line monitoring of plasma damage of low-k dielectrics. Low-k dielectrics are essentially foams which are strongly susceptible to physical and chemical damage upon plasma...

Synopsys opens design centre in Dubai science park.
October 13, 2004... Synopsys is to open a design centre in the Dubai Silicon Oasis (DSO), the Gulf's semiconductor chip science park. "We are in the process developing a leading centre for advanced electronic innovation, design and development, and are committed...

Number of active high-tech funders falls dramatically.
October 13, 2004... High-tech start-ups in the UK have declined dramatically in the last three years with the number of venture capital deals declining from 70 a month in 2000, to ten or twelve a month this year. There are fears that the stock market setbacks of...

UK parallel processor firm doubles device's performance to 50Gflops.
October 13, 2004... UK parallel processor developer ClearSpeed has hit 50Gflops performance with its latest device, which is due for production early next year. Designated by the firm its "first commercial device", the CSX600 handles double precision floating...

CSR offers embedded Bluetooth software for Symbian mobile OS.
October 13, 2004... CSR has introduced a version of its embedded Bluetooth software stack which is optimised for the Symbian mobile phone operating system. The Cambridge-based firm also offers a range of up to 17 profiles intended to simplify designing the...

ARM must develop its brand to reach $1bn.
October 13, 2004... ARM has to develop a brand name for itself if it is to achieve its aim of becoming a billion dollar revenue company, the SETsquared conference at the University of Bath was told. "To go from $150m to $1bn we need to make the brand grow bigger...

'Electronics in good shape but skills base being eroded,' says Intellect.
October 13, 2004... The electronics industry has a future in the UK but in a different form to that which companies have known in the past. This conclusion was reached at 'The Future of the UK Electronics Industry: The Shape of Things to Come' event held last week...

Set-top box company brings forward investment plans.
October 13, 2004... Strong orders for Amino Technologies Internet-enabled TV set-top boxes has prompted the Cambridge-based firm to bring forward investment plans. The firm will invest [pounds sterling]500,000 in expanding operations this year instead of next...

Norwegian PCI company acquires Transtech DSP.
October 13, 2004... High Wycombe-based Transtech DSP has been bought by VMetro, the Norwegian developer of VME and PCI-bus test and analysis systems. The firms said Transtech's signal processing boards were often combined in systems with VMetro's data recording...

13 million DAB units to be sold by 2008.
October 13, 2004... Almost 30 per cent of UK homes will have at least one DAB digital radio by 2008, according to the Digital Radio Development Bureau (DRDB). This will mean a total of 13 million units will have been sold, giving a market value nearing [pounds...

Europe to decide on lead-free exempt products.
October 13, 2004... Europe will decide which equipment and components will be exempt from the lead-free directive later this month. Flip-chips, servers, fluorescent tube backlights, and more, will be affected. "I shall be presenting a report to the TAC [Technical...

Data download drives mobile flash.
October 13, 2004... Next year's introduction of high speed HSDPA mobile networks in Japan will increase demand for NAND flash memory in handsets, according to ABI Research. The firm said HSDPA (high speed downlink packet access) will require new handsets with more...

Industry body criticises Government report.
October 13, 2004... Industry body Intellect has hit out at a Government report which fails to use the IT sector as a key indicator of economic performance in the UK. "Intellect cannot understand how the Treasury has managed to overlook the importance of IT when...

Working abroad information day.
October 13, 2004... The VSO (Voluntary Services Overseas) is holding an information day in London on 30 October with the aim of answering all the questions about working overseas in one day. Placement advisors will be able to talk about the opportunities which are...

Mobile operators hope for [pounds sterling]3bn 3G VAT rebate.
October 13, 2004... UK 3G mobile phone network operators have been offered hope of a tax rebate on the price of their licences following referral of the case to the European Court of Justice in Luxembourg. Four years ago O2, Orange, T-Mobile, Vodafone and 3 paid...

Jennic to broaden wireless outlook as fabless chip maker.
October 13, 2004... Sheffield-based silicon intellectual property (IP) firm Jennic is changing tack with its wireless products, and becoming a fabless chip maker. "This has been requested by customers wanting us to provide chips or wafers," company founder and...

One minute write time for gratings in fibre core.
October 13, 2004... Aston University's photonics research group has found a way to write diffraction gratings directly into the core of optical fibres, without photo-sensitisation or a phase mask, with a process which takes only a minute. "You don't need to...

Fab membership increases in UK.
October 13, 2004... The UK's National Microelectronics Institute now represnets the interest of every wafer fab in the UK and Ireland. "Overall we've had an excellent year with membership numbers up 50 per cent," said chief executive Derek Boyd. He hopes to...

NEC translates Japanese talk.
October 13, 2004... A translation machine that converts Japanese or English phrases into the other language has been developed by NEC. The handheld unit takes just one second to translate and is being readied for a Japanese launch. Combining speech recognition,...

Shortlists for EW Awards.
October 13, 2004... Shortlists for the European Electronics Industry Awards 2004 are published this week. Hundreds of companies across Europe and around the world entered the Awards which are organised by Electronics Weekly. A panel of independent judges selected...

Lack of support concerns firms.
October 13, 2004... Industry executives are concerned about the level of support from Government aimed at fostering a strong electronics design community in the UK. According to the CEO of one UK start-up, compared to business support schemes available in China,...

Electronics tops UK patent applications list.
October 20, 2004... Electronics firms have dominated the UK Patent Office's list of most patents granted. Four of the top five firms awarded patents were electronics firms in 2003, with NEC holding the highest number of patents. Ericsson came 7th and Motorola 8th....

Materials expertise warnings.
October 20, 2004... UK fabs could suffer from a lack of fundamental materials expertise as they try to implement 90nm and 65nm processes, according to the head of Southampton-based silicon R&D firm Innos. Steve Byars says the last 15 years has seen CMOS fabs...

Researchers refine nano self-assembly technology.
October 20, 2004... This image, derived from STM data, shows heptamers of C60 (large pale lumps) occupying precise positions in a hexagonal template (yellow surface), generated on a silicon surface (red) by non-covalent bonding between two different types of...

Beware 'too good to be true' offers.
October 20, 2004... Can buyers rely on what is written on certificates of conformance when the issues of component obsolescence or counterfeiting could be making them valueless? Roy Atterbury finds product obsolescence problems here is a general concern in the...

Tool locates chip defects.
October 20, 2004... EDA software that can calculate yields from a chip making process is being introduced by Cadence Design Systems. The Encounter Diagnostics tool can locate the root cause of defects in a process, said the firm "Many IC products do not reach...

Swedish researchers warn of mobile phone tumour.
October 20, 2004... Swedish researchers claim that long term use of mobile phones can lead to a tumour near the ear. The Karolinska Institute in Stockholm said that 10 years or more use of mobiles doubles the chance of acoustic neuroma, a benign growth. Results...

Engineer awards in the Midlands.
October 20, 2004... The IEE has set up the Midlands Engineer of the Year Awards for the first time. The awards will be presented to the best engineer and the best student engineer. A panel of judges, made up of a team from industry, academic and professional...

Chinese firm sets up Swansea R&D.
October 20, 2004... Chinese company Golden Prosperity (UK) is to set up an R&D operation at the Technium centre in Swansea. The company produces an 'electronic paste' which is used by the electronics industry for connectors and other devices. The R&D in Wales will...