Electronics Weekly articles from October 2006

Electronics Weekly archives from October 2006

News.
October 4, 2006... Data transmission over fibre was the talk of the industry last week with three separate announcements of ?world? first? achievements. Bell Labs, the R&D arm of Lucent Technologies, announced the transmission of ten channels of 107Gbit/s...

Sharp outlines project to become fabless chip firm.
October 4, 2006... By David Manners reporting from Germany Sharp Microelectronics is to become a fabless semiconductor IC company and is already putting out more than half its wafers to silicon foundries. Asked if Sharp would eventually go fabless,...

Europe lagging behind in quest for fabless chip model industry.
October 4, 2006... Europe is failing in its attempts to spawn a fabless semiconductor industry, according to figures published by the Fabless Semiconductor Association (FSA). Europe? relative failure in the fabless industry is shown by the fact that European...

Test facility for Melexis.
October 4, 2006... The Prime Minister of Bulgaria has inaugurated a new test facility in the country set up by Melexis, the Belgian fabless semiconductor firm specialising in automotive ICs. Sergey Stanishev, the Bulgarian PM, opened the 12,000m? site which...

Chipidea plans 65nm bid to target radio front-ends.
October 4, 2006... By Steve Bush steve.bush@rbi.co.uk Portuguese mixed-signal IP firm Chipidea is moving its programmable sigma-delta (??) modulators to 65nm to target the multi-mode radio front-end market. ?This is 65nm pure digital CMOS. In the future we...

Products.
October 4, 2006... Electrocomponents saw its shares gain over nine per cent to reach 263.5p when it said there had been an improvement in first-half earnings with sales up nine per cent and profit was up more than 10 per cent. The firm added that 15 per cent...

Training scheme tipped for awards.
October 4, 2006... A training scheme started by Axis Electronics to answer a shortage of skilled staff has reached the final of the National Training Awards 2006. Paul Tipping, finance and HR manager at Bedford-based Axis, said: ?Inability to increase...

Distributor to build German share following acquisitions.
October 4, 2006... By Richard Wilson richard.wilson@rbi.co.uk Abacus has confirmed its plan to increase market share in the German component market as the broadline distributor puts in place its pan-European business structure. ?There is work to do in Germany...

News.
October 4, 2006... Chris Merrick has been appointed chief mareketing officer at Operax, the quality of service networks firm. He was previously with Silicon Valley based enterprise @Road, where he was responsible for global product marketing for field service...

News.
October 4, 2006... Oxford Instruments Plasma Technology has recruited Mark Vosloo as sales and customer support director. He has previously worked for Photonic Materials and a US subsidiary of Linos. Gurjot Singh has become CEO and president at LynuxWorks. He...

News.
October 4, 2006... The current option scandal raging in Silicon Valley is the third wave of misfortune to sweep over the tech industry. First, we had the bursting tech bubble in 2000 and 2001, where over a trillion dollars in market capitalisation was wiped...

News.
October 4, 2006... The semiconductor is moving away from the boom bust cycles towards steady growth, according to the head of one leading UK chip companies. ?We used to do this 16, 17 per cent growth per year and then went through this correction,? said...

News.
October 4, 2006... Richard Balanson is CEO of supercapacitor company Maxwell Technologies What does Epcos? decision to exit supercapacitor production mean for the market? Epcos played a leading role in the ?evangelistic? phase of the development of the...

Problems hit RFID roll-out worldwide.
October 4, 2006... By Melanie Reynolds melanie.reynolds@rbi.co.uk Standards, skills shortages, spectrum, and health worries are a few of the issues holding up the worldwide rollout of radio frequency identification (RFID) technology, according to a DTI Global...

MathWorks generates synthesisable HDL code.
October 4, 2006... By Steve Bush The MathWorks has introduced a package which automatically generates synthesisable HDL (hardware description language) code from models generated in the firm? Simulink and Stateflow software. Called Simulink HDL Coder, it...

Motorola spectrum bid.
October 4, 2006... Motorola is one of the firms bidding for a licence for the spectrum bands 412-414MHz paired with 422-424MHz which can be used for private business radio or public access mobile radio systems. The single round, sealed bid auction is due to...

Spanish firm puts antennas in ICs.
October 4, 2006... Spanish antenna firm Fractus has developed technology to put short-range antennas inside ICs. ?Using our technology we can provide very small antennas with performance similar to external [off-chip] antennas,? lead engineer Dr Jordi Soler...

LCD technology structurally controls crystals.
October 4, 2006... Georgia Tech has developed a way to align liquid crystals in LCDs without ?rubbing?. Normally, a polyimide polymer layer on the inside of the display glass is rubbed during manufacture, which modifies its surface and causes the crystals...

Processor core provider throws down multi-core challenge to Intel and AMD.
October 4, 2006... By Nick Flaherty editorial@electronicsweekly.com Despite opening up their interconnect for multiple processors on a chip, Intel and AMD need to do more to meet the performance and power requirements future systems will need, according to a...

Boundary scan firm offers free development kit.
October 4, 2006... Boundary scan company XJTAG is promoting its test products in the UK with the offer of a free development kit to contract manufacturers, worth ?3,500. ?We want to make XJTAG the number one boundary test supplier in the UK and speed up the...

CEM broadens services with repair firm buy.
October 4, 2006... Contract electronics manufacturer AWS Electronics has acquired Jantec Electronic Services, a contract service and repairs firm. Paul Deehan, MD of AWS, said the company provides ?services that extend into the full product life cycle such as...

Features.
October 4, 2006... Makers of equipment for the broadcast market are at a cusp in the technology curve, with system-on-chip (SoC) designers looking to displace the FPGA makers in one of their strongest markets. The traditional curve of technology development...

Features.
October 4, 2006... 04oct06Aldec1.bmp Hybrid co-verification system with integrated HDL simulator and processor debugger 04oct06Aldec2.bmp Software/hardware simulation domains synchronised by the Event2MHz SoC bridge For today? projects it is no longer...

News.
October 4, 2006... Sensor in motion An integrated SoC design can reduce the number of components in infrared sensor design, writes NS Geethesh and Martin Cornish from Cypress Semiconductor Infrared radiation exists in the electromagnetic spectrum at a...

Features.
October 4, 2006... DMB versus DVB-H for mobile video has proved to be the most popular topic recently on ForumOxford, the University of Oxford? online forum for discussing next generation mobile applications. ForumOxford has grown to become an active discussion...

Features.
October 4, 2006... A one-day conference on engineering and technology vocational skills is to be held by the Engineering and Technology Board (ETB) on 12 October 2006 at the Hilton London Metropole. Current policy on engineering and technology vocational skills...

Features.
October 4, 2006... David Snider, an engineering professor at the University of South Florida, has combined art with engineering to engage the interest of students of both disciplines. Snider, who has received a grant from the National Science Foundation for...

Features.
October 4, 2006... Oct 11-13: Analogue Modelling with Verilog-A - Bracknell www.cadence-europe.com/education Oct 12: The Art of Designing for EMC - Leatherhead shop.era.co.uk Oct 12-13: Advanced FPGA Implementation - Bournemouth ...

Features.
October 4, 2006... The Institute for System Level Integration (iSLI) believes the requirement for rapid prototyping and software definable architectures will further the penetration of FPGAs into the DSP communication market in the next five years. Hence it is...

Roll-up displays get mathematical boost from child?s flick bracelet.
October 4, 2006... University of Cambridge structural engineers have got to the bottom of the maths behind children? flick bracelets, and future roll-up displays could benefit. At the centre of the research are springy metal structures that are stable in two...

Massively parallel co-processor boosts dual-core to 102Gflops.
October 4, 2006... By Richard Wilson richard.wilson@rbi.co.uk ClearSpeed Technology has gained a reputation as a leading-edge developer of microprocessor acceleration technology. Already counting IBM, Intel and AMD amongst its technology partners, the...

UWB modulation technology cuts complexity of receivers.
October 4, 2006... US scientists have developed an alternative UWB modulation scheme. At data rates up to 1Mbit/s it removes the need for multi-channel receivers and broadband delay lines. The development, from Dr Dennis Goeckel and doctoral student Qu Zhang...

News.
October 11, 2006... By Alex Mayhew-Smith alex.mayhew-smith@rbi.co.uk MicroEmissive Displays, the polymer on silicon microdisplay company based in Edinburgh, will launch a second version of its display next year when its facility in Dresden is ready to supply...

News.
October 11, 2006... Oct 12-14: ECIT seminar on wireless and security technologies, Queen? University Belfast. www.ecit.qub.ac.uk Oct 15-20: Equip Auto 2007, Paris. www.equipauto.com Oct 16-18: VLSI-SoC 2006, Nice, France....

MIT makes turbine from silicon wafers.
October 11, 2006... Researchers at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) are working on a 20mm2 gas-turbine engine made of silicon wafers. ?The resulting device could run 10 times longer than a battery of the same weight can, powering laptops, cell...

Audio codec firm grows design team.
October 11, 2006... By Richard Wilson richard.wilson@rbi.co.uk Dialog Semiconductor is expanding its Swindon-based design group specialising in analogue audio codecs. The company has around 30 designers at Swindon, and according to CEO Jalal Bagherli it will...

Scottish electronics continues decline.
October 11, 2006... Despite booming markets in Europe and Asia, the long decline in Scotland? exports of electronics and electrical goods has not yet bottomed out. Scottish exports of electrical and electronics goods have plunged by over 66 per cent in the...

ST?s design centre hits 20 in Bristol.
October 11, 2006... By Nick Faherty editorial@electronicsweekly.com STMicroelectronics is this week celebrating 20 years of its design centre in Bristol. The building was opened by Inmos in 1986 before the company was bought by ST in 1989, and has housed the...

Antenova signs global distribution deal with Digi-Key.
October 11, 2006... Cambridge-based dielectric antenna firm Antenova has signed a global distribution agreement with US distributor Digi-Key. The antennas will be available for purchase directly from Digi-Key and will feature in its print and online...

EU cash will take parallel processing to consumers.
October 11, 2006... By David Manners david.manners@rbi.co.uk A group of high-tech European companies, backed by EU funding, is to pursue parallel processing for the consumer world using the Cell microprocessor co-developed by IBM, Toshiba and Sony,...

Products.
October 11, 2006... Amstrad saw its shares decline by over 23 per cent to reach 150.5p. The slide began when Amstrad said delivery of its set-top boxes to BSkyB will be delayed until the second half. The firm added that current figures have been hit by lower...

Scotland needs commercial skills to boost high-tech firms, says agency.
October 11, 2006... By Alex Mayhew-Smith alex.mayhew-smith@rbi.co.uk Scotland must develop its commercial skills if its electronics firms are to be successful, according to Pat Daisley, manager of the electronics team at Scottish Enterprise. ?There are highly...

Amplicon turns networking experience to security business.
October 11, 2006... Amplicon has launched a business division to address the market for networked security systems. The creation of the security automation division is part of a plan to increase revenues to ?10m within three years. ?I have set a target of ?1m...

GSM mobile acts as front door key.
October 11, 2006... Technology which allows a mobile phone to remotely open a door has been developed by Netherlands-based firm Waleli, which intends a roll-out across Europe. When pressed, the ?GSM doorbell? rings the resident? mobile phone via the GSM...

Ofcom to legalise MP3 transmitters.
October 11, 2006... Ofcom has published draft regulations to legalise wireless transmitters for MP3 players. Wireless FM transmitters such as the iTrip allow MP3 players to transmit audio to in-car entertainment systems and other radios. Despite their low...

Mergers don't work in the chip industry.
October 11, 2006... One of the hoariest old stories in the chip industry is that Philips Semiconductors and Motorola Semiconductors would merge. It surfaced year after year and now will never happen because Philips Semiconductors has been bought by a private...

THOMAS WESSEL european MD Analog devices.
October 11, 2006... Thomas Wessel is managing director for European sales and marketing at Analog Devices The power consumption of DSPs is making the battery life of DAB radios a joke. Is there anything that can be done to make it a few mA? The basic...

News.
October 11, 2006... Fears for the second half of the semiconductor year are greatly exaggerated, say analysts who not only think it? going to be good, but also think that good times are here to stay. ?People have been expressing concern about a significant...

News.
October 11, 2006... Fears for the second half of the semiconductor year are greatly exaggerated, say analysts who not only think it? going to be good, but also think that good times are here to stay. ?People have been expressing concern about a significant...

ARC aims architecture at HDTV.
October 11, 2006... Configurable processor designer ARC International has developed a standard architecture aimed at high definition TV (HDTV). The VRaptor Media Architecture is a version of ARC? high end 750D core. ARC has added instructions to handle...

MCUs stripped for action in cars.
October 11, 2006... Freescale has launched a family of low cost 16bit microcontrollers for automotive applications. The MC9S12XS family is a stripped-down version of the S12/S12X family that sells over 100m units a year. At under $2, the family will be...

Bluetooth counterfeit trademark raid spotlights importance of enforcement.
October 11, 2006... By Melanie Reynolds melanie.reynolds@rbi.co.uk Companies must not only register their trademarks in countries such as China, but they must enforce them if they are to protect their brand reputation and business, according to copyright...

IET president sets out agenda in inaugural address.
October 11, 2006... Sir Robin Saxby, the founding CEO of ARM, was inaugurated as the president of The Institution of Engineering and Technology (IET) last week and pledged to make the IET more collaborative, international and careers-oriented. ?We need to...

Features.
October 11, 2006... Bluetooth has evolved from a basic file transfer technology to a part of everyday life, featured in handsets, headsets, keyboards, stereos, cars and games consoles. However, future wireless applications will require an ultra fast wireless...

Features.
October 11, 2006... Engineers are, by necessity, innovative. There is a constant need for new answers to everyday problems but at the leading edge of technology there are no textbook answers. It is an engineering necessity to know ?how to invent?. Invention...

Single optical fibre transmits data 160km at 14Tbit/s.
October 11, 2006... By Steve Bush steve.bush@rbi.co.uk Japanese telecoms firm NTT has transmitted data at 14Tbit/s over a single 160km optical fibre. ?The value of 14Tbit/s greatly exceeds the current record of about 10Tbit/s and claims the record of the...

Intel to put Imagination graphics IP in PCs.
October 11, 2006... By Richard Wilson richard.wilson@rbi.co.uk Imagination Technologies has signed a collaborative agreement with Intel which will see the deployment of its graphics and video IP cores in Intel PCs and mobile computing systems. As part of the...

Sharp to integrate wireless comms on mobile display.
October 11, 2006... By David Manners david.manners@rbi.co.uk Sharp is looking at integrating wireless comms functions such as WiFi and Bluetooth into its flat panel displays for mobile phones. Sensor technology could also be integrated into the LCDs based on...

US scientists stumble across joined-pentagon ?Bucky egg?
October 11, 2006... An egg-shaped fullerene, or ?Bucky egg? has been made by US scientists. ?It was a total surprise,? said Christine Beavers, a chemist at University of California, Davis. The molecule (left) was made by heating mixture of carbon and...

Concerns for current leakage drives IBM off the Moore?s Law roadmap.
October 11, 2006... By David Manners and Ed Sperling david.manners@rbi.co.uk After years of innovating single-chip development, IBM is beginning to take detours off the Moore? Law roadmap. The decision is largely based on the end of classical scaling, which...

Features.
October 11, 2006... There was a rare outbreak of agreement at the Design Automation Conference this year when the FPGA tools company Synplicity announced a free, non-proprietary IP encryption flow and the idea got the thumbs up from EDA companies, IP vendors, and...

Products.
October 11, 2006... The original intention of WiMAX was to replace broadband cable networks such as DSL. With the adoption of the 802.16e-2005 standard, broadband mobile radio applications can now also be implemented. This has become possible through extensions at...

Features.
October 11, 2006... With the aerospace industry? move toward more electric aircraft, on-board electrical power systems must be designed and manufactured to the highest quality standards. Even when designing and manufacturing to precise specifications, however, it...

News.
October 11, 2006... Norwegian wireless Internet device firm Radionor Communications has signed with distributor Arrow to provide engineering support for its WiMAX and WLAN products. Pictured with sample products are Atle S?grov, Radionor? founder (left) and...

On validating and analysing digital RF chipset interfaces.
October 11, 2006... The physical layer test requirements for digital chipsets are the same as those for analogue chipsets, but traditional analogue test and measurement equipment is not suitable for digital RF design validation. When you validate digital RF...

Design with optocouplers for high common mode rejection.
October 11, 2006... Electrical noise has long been the nemesis to designers of high frequency circuits. This is particularly a challenge in industrial automation due to significant noise generated from equipment such as motors and mechanical switches used in those...

NEC readies its 54cm mono LCD for the medical market.
October 11, 2006... NEC will ship samples of its 54cm (21.3in.) monochrome UXGA medical LCD at the end of the month. The NL160120AM27-13A, ?boasts the highest luminance level in the UXGA and above monochrome class at 1700cd/m2?, claimed the firm. NEC has...

ARM steers Cortex processor towards high-reliability action.
October 11, 2006... ARM has launched a processor aimed specifically at high-reliability applications like car braking and steering. Called the Cortex R4F, ?It takes the R4 [see box] and pushes it into particular product spaces where the R4 couldn? quite reach,?...

Yogitech adds SystemVerilog support for a mixed language first.
October 11, 2006... Italian EDA firm Yogitech has added SystemVerilog support to its eVC tool. The result is what it claims is the industry? first mixed-language OCP (open core protocol) ?universal verification component? (UVC). ?Supporting both e and...

Fully autonomous robotic fish controlled by onboard sensors.
October 11, 2006... By Steve Bush steve.bush@rbi.co.uk The University of Essex has developed another generation of robotic fish with improvements over the one shown at the London Aquarium last year (EW12/10/05). ?We have produced G10 and G11 [pictured]...

News.
October 18, 2006... By Alex Mayhew-Smith alex.mayhew-smith@rbi.co.uk An electronics knowledge transfer network (EKTN) was brought into being last week with ?3m of funding from the Government after years of delays and false starts. A bid to run the EKTN was put...

News.
October 18, 2006... Private equity companies now appear to be sizing up Atmel for a takeover bid, with ousted founder and CEO George Perlegos said to be actively encouraging such a move. The world? third largest mutual fund, FMR, now owns around 12 per cent...

News.
October 18, 2006... The Science Museum is running an exhibition (October 21- February 25) on the history of computer games, from the PDP-1 of the 1960s to the latest consoles. Liverpool winger Steve Heighway is pictured playing ?Pong? on the Videomaster games...

Products.
October 18, 2006... By David Manners david.manners@rbi.co.uk Actel is going into the system management business using its Fusion line of flash-based FPGAs and the MicroTCA (Micro Telecom Computing Architecture) board standard. ?There are functions which are...

Products.
October 18, 2006... Shares at Abacus inched forward last week to reach 170.5p, a high point for 15 months. The component distributor has been finding ways to expand in mainland Europe and last week said it had put a sales team of 17 sales and marketing staff in...

Products.
October 18, 2006... LETTERs Dear Editor I thought your article Scotland needs commercial skills in EW was a classic (EW 11/10/06) and I totally agree with Pat Daisley. The man is a star. Commercial skills are sadly lack?ing in many electronics...

News.
October 18, 2006... By Alex Mayhew-Smith The Alba innovation centre in Scotland will open its new incubation unit with a full complement of companies this autumn. The centre is intended for a mixture of hardware and software firms, high growth technology...

News.
October 18, 2006... By Melanie Reynolds reporting from Paris Fixed wire broadband is as popular as ever despite the majority of industry talk currently being centred around wireless, according to Texas Instruments (TI). ?There is no slow down in DSL,? said...

News.
October 18, 2006... RoHS restrictions are contributing to a slowdown in semiconductor demand in China, according to iSuppli. The analyst firm has cut its semiconductor market growth forecast for China in 2006 from 18 per cent to between 11 and 15 per cent....

News.
October 18, 2006... Qinetiq has won two orders for Talon robots and spare parts worth $42.8m from the US Government. The robots are in service in Iraq and Afghanistan where they are being targeted. ?Insurgents have been intensifying their attacks on the...

Tools use FPGAs to integrate designs and reduce costs for fabless start-ups.
October 18, 2006... By Richard Wilson reporting from ESS, Birmingham The next generation of fabless SMEs starting up across the UK can reduce design cycles and cost with the combination of FPGA-based hardware with design tools which integrate hardware,...

CBI presses for procurement overhaul to boost innovation.
October 18, 2006... By Nick Flaherty editorial@electronicsweekly.com The employer? organisation, the CBI, has called for a UK equivalent of the US Advanced Research Projects Agency (ARPA) to make the most of the UK? ?150bn spending on procurement each year. A...

Software recycling scheme targets OEM archives.
October 18, 2006... A route to minimising software development time for electronics OEMs, while maximising the return from developed software, has been launched by Proven Software Solutions. The idea is to resell software sitting in OEMs? software archives...

Contract firm acquires plant in Malaysia.
October 18, 2006... Electronics contract design and manufacturing firm TES has acquired a manufacturing plant in Penang, Malaysia from AV Industries and intends to initially invest ?1m. TES said the investment would increase the plant? capability and capacity...