Electronics Weekly articles from October 2007

Electronics Weekly archives from October 2007

Features.
October 3, 2007... Near Field Communication (NFC) - a short-range wireless communication technology - is about to change the face of mobile handset usage and mobile applications where 'touch is the new click'. With the recent announcement of the four NFC...

Features.
October 3, 2007... It is generally known that every embedded application contains at least one embedded microprocessor, and in many cases the entire control system can also be created using one powerful microcontroller with the necessary peripherals. As is so...

Features.
October 3, 2007... EBV Elektronik is a semiconductor distributor which can help with all things silicon but, like most distribution companies, it does not have the in-house capacity to provide solutions to many of the system-level challenges facing designers,...

Features.
October 3, 2007... 03oct07TABLE1/2/3/4.jpg To speed up the design cycle and shorten the time-to-market for semiconductor-based designs ranging from motor control to fully-featured digital systems, EBV Elektronik has partnered with chip suppliers, software...

News.
October 3, 2007... Sharp has revealed a display which also scans images and acts as a touch screen.The secret is a photo sensor built into each pixel of the 89mm 320x480 colour display. "Conventional touch screen have a laminated tactile film on top. This is...

News.
October 3, 2007... The IET (Institution of Engineering and Technology) is to collaborate with JANET, the UK's national network for research and education, to allow universities to stream research seminars, conferences and lectures over the Internet. The...

News.
October 3, 2007... Vodafone has been running trials of WiMax technology that potentially competes with the next generation telecoms equipment for mobile broadband services. "We are less anti- WiMax than many other operators and we are watching the technology...

News.
October 3, 2007... Microcontrollers are facing the same technical challenges as microprocessors: power dissipation at smaller geometries and ever-increasing memory requirements, according to Renesas Technology, the world's top microcontroller company. The...

News.
October 3, 2007... The use of MRI scanners in hospitals would have to be banned if the European Union Electromagnetic Fields Directive is enacted, according to a radiation therapy expert. According to Professor Dag Rune Olsen, from the Norwegian Radiation...

News.
October 3, 2007... By Alex Mayhew-Smith alex.mayhew-smith@electronicsweekly.com Engineering staff are definitely getting harder to find in the UK, according to Mark Edwards at Huntingdon-based test and measurement manufacturer Thurlby Thandar (TTi). ...

News.
October 3, 2007... An air interface specification for ultra mobile broadband (UMB) has been published by the CDMA Development Group and Third Generation Partnership Project 2. The specification is for an IP-based mobile broadband standard with peak download data...

News.
October 3, 2007... Analyst iSuppli has reduced its forecast for global semiconductor revenue growth this year, although chip revenue is up, the memory industry is improving and the outlook for electronic equipment markets is on the rise. The market research...

News.
October 3, 2007... The crunch will come next year for the Japanese semiconductor industry when it has to decide what to do about 32nm manufacturing. "We have to make the decision next year," JJ Yamaguchi, executive vice-president and member of the board of...

News.
October 3, 2007... The EU is considering three more exemptions for the RoHS Directive. The exemptions would be included in the amended annex to the Directive and is for the use of lead and cadmium in specific applications. The first proposed exemption is...

News.
October 3, 2007... Anglia has signed a UK and Ireland distribution agreement with analogue semiconductor manufacturer Zetex. It covers power and signal management applications. Pictured (l to r) are: Martin Brown, divisional marketing manager at Anglia Frank...

News.
October 3, 2007... Telent, the communications engineering services firm that was once a part of Marconi, saw its shares gain over 21 per cent to reach 586p after news broke that the firm is to be acquired by a specialist pension fund manager for [pounds...

News.
October 3, 2007... Danny Miller is managing director of distributor Future Electronics (EMEA) How would you describe the role of the component distributor in the UK electronics market of 2007? Every Western European country has been affected by the shift...

News.
October 3, 2007... The targeting of the semiconductor industry by the private equity funds has mystified some Japanese semiconductor executives. "We've had a lot of conversations with the private equity companies. We asked them: 'Why are you interested in...

News.
October 3, 2007... Santa Clara-based MontaVista Software has announced v5.0 of its mobile Linux operating system. "Mobilinux 5.0 delivers technologies for configurable dynamic power management, plus a powerful security framework," said company founder and...

News.
October 3, 2007... Siemens has bought into multi-pixel x-ray source technology with the formation of XinRay Systems at North Carolina's Research Triangle Park. Professors Otto Zhou and Jianping Lu of the University of North Carolina invented the carbon...

News.
October 3, 2007... IPWireless has opened a development centre in Aalborg, Denmark, which will develop its TDtv mobile, 3G spectrum TV technology. The centre will develop TDtv terminal designs, MBSFN protocol stacks design, unicast/multicast integration and work...

News.
October 3, 2007... A Bristol entrepreneur is setting up a company targeting the high volume consumer PC market. Nick Weiner, former chief technology officer and founder of Phyworks, is targeting 6 to 8Gbit/s serial interfaces such as USB3.0, PCIexpress3.0...

News.
October 3, 2007... Exception PCB has won a $500,000 contract to supply a Turkish defence electronics business with printed circuit boards. Sales director Garry Myatt (pictured) said: "This contract is a prime example of how we are adding value in this area."

News.
October 3, 2007... Mobile WiMAX is progressing with great urgency as the industry scrabbles to gain a place for the high bandwidth wireless technology among the longer established wireless technologies and their enhancements. "There's a huge determination in...

News.
October 3, 2007... Bristol start-up Silicon Basis is commercialising its FPGA technology, SiTela, for the consumer markets. "We have the density and power consumption to get into consumer, wireless and mobile markets," said Rob Beat, the founder. "For these...

News.
October 3, 2007... Tektronix has introduced software that allows engineers to peer inside data link chips. High-speed interconnects use pre-emphasis at the transmit end of a link, and equalisation at the receive to get data through channels which are...

News.
October 3, 2007... Near Field Communication (NFC) is set to make a major impact as a short-range wireless comms technology in mobile applications and Innovision Research & Technology is launching the NFC Innovation Awards, the first UK competition aimed at...

News.
October 3, 2007... Cambridge-based design firm Plextek has been appointed as approved third party design house by Taiwan-based Win Semiconductor, which was one of the first pure-play GaAs foundries and processes 6in. wafers to offer volume production of GaAs...

Features.
October 3, 2007... 03oct07NMI1a This shows the potential distribution of random discrete dopants in a 35nm Mosfet 03oct07NMI1b The current-voltage characteristics of 200 transistors with different random dopant distributions 03oct07NMI12 ...

Features.
October 3, 2007... Adding value without adding cost is notoriously difficult in any sector, but even more so for applications already under enormous price pressure. When asked, respondents may instinctively cite the consumer market as being typical of these...

Features.
October 3, 2007... Is English your native language? If the answer is yes, then the likelihood is that it is also the only language you speak. English speakers are notoriously lazy and we expect English to be spoken wherever we go in the world. Usually it is,...

Features.
October 3, 2007... The Technology Innovation Centre (TIC) at the University of Central England is the first university appointed to train technicians as installers of digital home networks. Those technicians completing the CompTIA-certified training become a...

Features.
October 3, 2007... Oct 11-12: Principles of Antennas - York www.elec.york.ac.uk/cpd Oct 13-14: Systems Engineering Fast-Track - Oxford www.conted.ox.ac.uk/electronics Oct 16-17: 802.16 Physical Layer - Scotland www.steepestascent.com ...

Features.
October 3, 2007... The 'Think Wireless' workshop programme being offered by distribution firm Rutronik rolls into the UK this month with an appearance in London on 16 October, followed by Leeds on 18 October. Specialist lectures on selected technologies and...

Technology.
October 3, 2007... By Steve Bush Following the record breaking flight of Qinetiq's Zephyr solar powered plane (EW 26/09/07), we spoke to Qinetiq technologist Jonathan Dixon to find out what is inside. "Reducing mass is the key," he told EW. "To save the...

Technology.
October 3, 2007... 03oct07ADAU1590.pdf Embargo 01oct07 Analog Devices has released a suite of audio chips for HDTVs. There are a choice of four audio processors and three Class-D amplifiers. The processors include sample rate conversion and...

Technology.
October 3, 2007... 03oct07imagerIBM IBM's CMOS image sensing technology now available through Mosis' multi-project wafer service. "This means that companies working on imaging applications for everything from camera phones to high end digital cameras can...

Technology.
October 3, 2007... Hampshire fuel cell start up Voller Energy is funding the University of Cambridge to develop hydrogen-producing reformers for diesel, bio-diesel, kerosene and JP-8 jet fuel. "As a result of this collaboration Voller will have the rights to...

Technology.
October 3, 2007... London-based material developer OLED-T has announced a greener green phosphorescent OLED material. "The University of Hong Kong has manufactured demonstrators using E255a and has reported a very saturated green colour coordinate of 0.28,...

News.
October 10, 2007... Icera Semiconductor is intending to expand its Cambridge design centre to 75 people by the end of 2008 from the originally planned 25, and has raised enough new money to keep them going until 2009 without an IPO. Asked if the company was...

News.
October 10, 2007... Boundary scan firm XJTAG has won a supply deal with Westinghouse Rail Systems. Westinghouse selected the Cambridge-based company's boundary scan development system to verify the integrity of its prototype hardware designs. Jeff Smith (left), a...

News.
October 10, 2007... Toshiba has demonstrated its first processor based on the Cell architecture. Toshiba's approach to Cell differs from that of development partners Sony and IBM in that it sees the multiprocessor architecture as co-processor technology which...

News.
October 10, 2007... Toshiba intends to sample three-bit-per-cell flash memory by the end of the year, according to Shozo Saito, president and CEO of Toshiba Semiconductor. "Ninety five per cent of our production is two-bit-per-cell, so it's very mature,"...

News.
October 10, 2007... UK-based board developer Sundance Multiprocessor Technology has released its digital video infrastructure platform (DVIP) which has three to 11 fixed-point DSPs, equating to as much as 50,000Mips. Closely coupled Xilinx Virtex4 FX60 FPGAs...

News.
October 10, 2007... The credit card security standard for point of sale (PoS) terminal manufacturers that sell PIN pads and terminals with internal PIN pads, is requiring chip manufacturers to re-spin their chips every year or so as the standard keeps getting...

News.
October 10, 2007... The IP industry has to be more professional in order to grow, according to one of the leading suppliers. "The $1bn IP market should be ten times bigger," said Charlie Janac, CEO of French network on chip IP supplier Arteris, speaking at...

News.
October 10, 2007... Selex Sensors and Airborne Systems in Edinburgh has won two awards in the Cranfield School of Management Best Factory Awards. The firm won best electronics and electrical plant and also received the top award in the supply chain category.

News.
October 10, 2007... AMD has licensed the 3D graphics processor technology behind the Xbox 360 to mobile phone chipset supplier Qualcomm. This is the first evidence that the mobile phone chipset firm is determined to bring desktop PC and game console quality...

News.
October 10, 2007... Cambridge-based power chip start-up CamSemi has revealed its first product, a controller for off-line power supplies between six and 14W. It does not use the firm's flagship 'PowerBrane' MEMS transistor. "When we went to potential...

News.
October 10, 2007... Californian fuel cell membrane firm PolyFuel has revealed a complete fuel cell stack, claiming it can deliver 500W per litre from methanol. "It is the first time, to my knowledge, that anyone has demonstrated a direct methanol fuel cell...

News.
October 10, 2007... RS Components is widening its catalogue and online distribution business to enter the market as a supplier to small volume manufacturers. The broadline distributor, which celebrated its 70th anniversary this month, is looking to extend its...

News.
October 10, 2007... Acal shares drop 9% on back of IT sale to Avnet Shares in distributor Acal dropped almost nine per cent to reach 300p. The fall followed news that the firm is selling its IT business arm to Avnet. The business amassed revenues of around...

News.
October 10, 2007... A team from Cambridge University has won second place in the European Student Autonomous Underwater Challenge. The challenge is to design and build autonomous underwater vehicles to attempt an underwater assault course. The team, mostly...

News.
October 10, 2007... ARM is facing a challenge on the performance of its multiprocessor technology from research in the South of France just as its multicore technology is coming to market. Research at the University of Nice has shown up unflattering results...

News.
October 10, 2007... David Sykes is CEO of wireless and video specialist ProVision Communications What kind of society are we building, with video available everywhere you go? Definitely a good one - mobile communications empowers people, and video...

News.
October 10, 2007... Aiming to create the first billion dollar semiconductor start-up in Japan, Moriyoshi Nakashima has founded flash memory company Genusion. "I want to create a second billion dollar business with Genusion," Nakashima, president of Genusion,...

News.
October 10, 2007... Cambridge-based laser projector start-up Light Blue Optics has attracted $26m in a first round of funding. "This funding round will allow us to accelerate our product development and commercialisation programme towards the high-volume...

News.
October 10, 2007... A spin-out from the University of Linkoping in Sweden has won the start-up award at this year's SAME conference in France for its analogue design tool, beating off competition from five other companies from Belgium and France. AnSyn was...

News.
October 10, 2007... Researchers at the Georgia Institute of Technology have developed a sensor that uses polymer membranes on a silicon disk to measure chemicals in aqueous or gaseous environments. The idea was to get away from vibrating cantilever sensor...

Features.
October 10, 2007... 10oct07xilinxfig1.jpg Caption: ISE 9.1i provides an average 2.5X faster runtimes for tough constraints over ISE8.2i. Strategies to Improve Runtime in ISE 9.1i By Philippe Garrault In recent years, FPGAs have tremendously...

Technology.
October 10, 2007... 10oct07irClassD.jpg 500W of audio from one chip and a pair of mosfets. The 200V chip includes output current sensing, click elimination, and all drive electronics. International Rectifier has released a controller and mosfets for a...

Technology.
October 10, 2007... 10oct07Georgia Georgia Institute of Technology is using heated microscope tips for lithography. The US Georgia Institute of Technology is working on 'thermochemical nanolithography' (TCNL) , a direct-write lithography technique that...

Technology.
October 10, 2007... The MathWorks has introduced Embedded MATLAB, a subset of the its technical computing language. "Embedded Matlab enables users to generate embeddable C code directly from Matlab programs, avoiding the time-consuming and error-prone process...

Technology.
October 10, 2007... 10oct07buffaloZnO.jpg University at Buffalo, New York, chemists have developed a way to deposit zinc oxide onto plastic, coatings for flexible solar cells, LCDs, and sensors are proposed. An arc between zinc electrodes in oxygen forms...

Technology.
October 10, 2007... 10oct07NIST2.jpg Four multi turn coils form a qubit. It actual resides as an electrical resonance in the left-most pair and its associated capacitors. The right pair are needed for symmetry. Depending on the state of the four outer tuning...

News.
October 17, 2007... MPs are clamouring for a return of Government cash that was given to support the closing Atmel fab in North Tyneside. Six hundred jobs will go due to the sale and closure of the fab. The firm has sold the equipment from the fab to TSMC and...

News.
October 17, 2007... Novalia, a Cambridge start-up company specialising in conductive printing, has attracted [pounds sterling]400,000 from venture capitalists Solon Ventures, and an [pounds sterling]85,000 grant from the DTI, and is looking for collaborative...

News.
October 17, 2007... Buxton-based design consultancy dBTech has developed a handheld EMC susceptibility tester, claiming it can locate weakness to individual tracks, and is unlike anything else available. "I had quite a few problems trying to locate circuits...

News.
October 17, 2007... Engineering is one of the least popular career choices among school children. A study by the Institution of Engineering and Technology (IET) found that 90 per cent of 14 and 15 year olds know little or nothing about engineering or technology...

News.
October 17, 2007... Altera and TRS-Star have announced a development kit for automotive infotainment systems. "The Paris platform supports CAN, MOST, USB, Ethernet and SDHC interfaces and features a scalable automotive graphics system with multiple video-in...

News.
October 17, 2007... Board makers are seeing a revival in the UK, especially in embedded technology, with a UK start-up looking to take on large US companies such as Mercury Computer Systems. German board maker Phytec is expanding its presence in the UK for...

News.
October 17, 2007... Abacus Group has entered a UK franchise agreement with Power Integrations, a supplier of high-voltage power conversion ICs. "Local design engineers must deliver power supplies and powered products that meet the latest energy efficiency...

News.
October 17, 2007... 17oct07loof.jpg Manufacturing passive components in Europe is sustainable in the long term, according to the CEO of supplier Kemet. Kemet has acquired ten manufacturing facilities in Europe, including two in the UK, in the last year,...

News.
October 17, 2007... E2v Technologies' shares dropped over 10 per cent to reach 254.5p. The firm recently said its performance in the first half is in line with expectations, despite problems with the weak dollar. The firm is also suffering by a slow down in the...

News.
October 17, 2007... EUV is not shaping up as a method for making next generation ICs, and maybe not even for the subsequent generation, the System and SoC Conference in Prague was told by Rudy Lauwereins, vice-president for nomadic embedded systems at IMEC. ...

News.
October 17, 2007... Jenni Rosser is a cleaner design specialist with Envirowise What is meant by the term 'cleaner design'? Cleaner design is a sustainable approach to design which involves taking into account the environmental impact of a product or...

News.
October 17, 2007... Adoption of XMOS Semiconductor's line of software defined silicon ICs by the consumer electronics industry in Asia is proceeding strongly, according to XMOS CEO, James Foster. "The consumer electronics industry is sold on re-programmable...

News.
October 17, 2007... Microchip Technology helped refurbish the School of Systems Engineering's laboratory at Reading University with a [pounds sterling]40,000 investment. The university department uses Microchip's devices in its teaching and project work. The...

News.
October 17, 2007... Zetex has won a contract with a Chinese customer with a reference design for 12V MR16-compatible LED lamps. "We examined about 30 different MR16s and the majority had 12 or more components. The manufacturer said this was too many and tough...

News.
October 17, 2007... Icera Semiconductor is a "big, hairy, audacious plan", according to one of its venture capital backers, Martin Gibson of Atlas Ventures, which has helped make Icera Europe's best-funded fabless semiconductor start-up company amassing $142.5m in...

News.
October 17, 2007... By Steve Bush steve.bush@electronicsweekly.com University of Leicester spin-out TTE Systems has released its first product: an integrated development environment (IDE) for time-triggered embedded code. "There is no company we are...

News.
October 17, 2007... Southampton-based fuel cell materials firm Bac2 is taking its ElectroPhen material for fuel cell bipolar plates to the Fuel Cell Seminar in San Antonio, Texas this week. CEO, Mike Stannard is pictured with one of the firm's bipolar plates.

News.
October 17, 2007... Bill Jacobs Westminster's main financial watchdog has questioned whether the chips to be embedded in the new generation of e-passports are up to the job. The House of Commons Public Accounts Committee is concerned that the...

Features.
October 17, 2007... Whilst there is no real limit to the number of proprietary wireless communication systems designed to operate in unlicensed parts of the radio spectrum, standards such as Bluetooth and ZigBee answer growing market demands for greater...