I’ve never been quite sure what a ‘platform’ is. The word gets used a lot – in fact it’s in nearly every press release I see – but I’ve always thought it a bit like ‘ecosystem’ – vague, woolly and bolloxy. However now there’s a book out which explains the platform concept rather well. Called ...
A team of German thermal clothing designers have developed a way of controlling your body temperature using a smartphone app. Called Vulpés, the are offering the first thermo-regulating beanies and heated insoles on Kickstarter. Based in Lubeck, they have developed a mobile application to connect the Vulpés apparel to a smartphone which can be used ...
Smart clothing heats head and feet with a smartphone
Solar cells made from lead-halide perovskites could be improved following the discovery that photons are recycled within them. Perovskites photo-voltaics are new and fast-improving which, according to Imperial College last year, rose in efficiency from less than four per cent in 2009 to over 20 per cent, on par with traditional solar cells. Now a team ...
Perovskite solar cells reveal another advantage
There was once an entrepreneur who named his company after a famous explorer. The explorer, said the entrepreneur, had thrown light on the Dark Continent and the entrepreneur’s business was involved in making lights for automobiles so he was throwing light on dark highways. After four years researching LEDs the company had a great success ...
Fable: The Entrepreneur Who Saw The Light
IDT has added to its power management products with the introduction of a dual-phase digital power controller that can help customers optimize, monitor and control high-power supply systems. The second-generation ZSPM1363 digital PWM controller delivers high performance and excellent transient response, making it ideal for addressing the growing demands in the telecommunications, server, storage, FPGA ...
IDT adds to power management portfolio
In the coming decades the improvement and choice of land vehicle powertrain will mainly be dictated by emissions conformance which will mean a cost/performance compromise. This will result in popularity moving from conventional to pure electric as laws tighten and technology improves, writes Dr Peter Harrop, chairman, IDTechEx Pure electric is already the norm for ...
Electric vehicle cost penalty may be decisive
Head over to Andy Workshop for a wealth of Gadget Master material, including how he built his own frequency counter (originally looking for a simple tool for another project, he was side-tracked into building one himself). Thus began the “Nanocounter” (see right). “I somehow managed to persuade myself that it’d be a fun and educational project ...
Measure the accuracy of Andy’s Android-friendly frequency counter
Scientists at the University of Glasgow have created a very low cost gravity meter which could be used to monitor volcanic activity using commercial MEMS device technology found as accelerometers in smartphones. The result they says is a sensitive detector capable of measuring minute changes in gravity, and at significantly lower cost than traditional gravity ...
Glasgow researchers build “smartphone” gravity meter to measure volcanos
The US Insurance Institute for Highway Safety (IIHS) have assessed headlights on 31 ‘mid-sized’ cars and given only one of them a ‘good’ rating – a Toyota Prius with LED headlamps. 82 cars were tested over all as some were tried with more than one headlight option. The rest were: ‘good’ (1 car) acceptable (11), ...
LED headlights score top, and bottom, in US tests
One wonders what the RSPCA might think of this one – radio-controlled beetles. Technologists at Nanyang Technological University in Singapore and the University of California at Berkley are using electronics to control beetles in flight. Electrodes are put on beetles’ legs, optic lobes and flight muscles and controlled by radio signals which make the beetles ...
Researchers have determined that quantum rather than classical physical behaviour is responsible for superconductivity in high-pressure hydrogen sulphide, a result which could benefit the design of high-temperature superconductors, said the University of Cambridge. Last year, German researchers identified superconductivity in H2S at -70°C, said to be the highest temperature yet. To get it working, the ...
High-temperature superconductivity yields another secret
Imagination Technologies has created a number of IoT development boards under the Creator brand which are now being sold by Mouser Electronics. Imagination used Kickstarter to fund the initial supply of the Creator products which are now available from Mouser Electronics. These include the Creator Ci40 IoT hub and Ci40 kit (now available for pre-order) ...
Mouser brings Imagination’s IoT design boards to market
Both Foxconn and Sharp now say the deal is done and there will be a signing ceremony on Saturday. It’s been a marathon. When, in 2012, Foxconn started negotiating for a stake in Sharp, Sharp’s shares stood at 550 yen. The deal has now been done at 88 yen per share. Foxconn is to get ...
Patient Foxconn Finally Bags Up Sharp
Raspberry Pi 3 has got its own ABS plastic case. Although the Raspberry Pi 3 LED indicators are now on the opposite side of the board, the case from supplier Cyntech Components uses a light-pipe so that the LEDs can be viewed when the case is closed. Security is a key requirement when the Raspberry ...
Raspberry Pi 3 has extendable case for add-on boards
Ultrasonic piezoceramic sensors are used in the field of motorsport, where teams risk disqualification if they cannot efficiently balance performance and fuel consumption, writes Charlie Dowling Sensors are vital in a wide variety of level and metering applications as they allow the measurement of key attributes such as distance, flow, liquid level and volume. This is ...
Why motorsport likes piezoceramic sensors
The Linux Foundation, the organisation working on open source software initiatives, is offering developers an open source compliance course which is available for free. It is designed to provide software developers with knowledge about legal and licensing issues for building and using open source software. According to the Linux Foundation, complying with open source licences ...
Linux developers offered free compliance and copyright training
Wuerth is adding to its Ethernet modules with LAN transformers for speeds of up to 10 Gbit/s. The transformers support Power over Ethernet (PoE) up to 100 W and currents up to 1 A per channel. Würth Elektronik eiSos is the only manufacturer worldwide to offer 10-Gbit LAN transformers with an extended temperature range (-40 ...
Wuerth transformers operate up to 10Gb/s
The European Investment Bank Is to provide £500 million to reinforce electrical connections between wind, wave and tidal renewable energy schemes and the national power network. The transmission link will supply equivalent electricity to meet the needs of around 2 million Scots. The new investment is the largest investment in the electricity network in the ...
Caithness gets £500m EIB transmission investment
Ricoh has launched a voltage regulator, the RP155Z, with a special pin-selectable dual-voltage level output set within a range of 1.6V and 3.6V. The capability to shift voltage levels between one of the two preset output voltage levels makes it ideal for battery-powered applications with SD memory and SIM cards as well as devices requiring ...
Ricoh voltage regulator has dual-voltage level output
Canadian IP developer InventionShare has developed a number of digital IP blocks which process analogue signals. The company calls its IP ‘Circuit Seed’ and says they deliver ‘unprecedented precision without precision parts; ultra-linear operation over an extreme dynamic range (>106); low noise, ultrahigh speed (analog at logic speed) and extreme low voltage (down to ~0.1V ...
Digital IP blocks process analogue signals
Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory (LLNL) is to use IBM’s TrueNorth neurosynaptic chip in a system for evaluating machine learning. The system can process the equivalent of 16 million neurons and 4 billion synapses using 2.5W. It can infer complex cognitive tasks such as pattern recognition and integrated sensory processing far more efficiently than conventional chips. ...
IBM TrueNorth synaptic processor anticipates exascale computing
Thanks to Splash Data for this one – the ten worst, and most popular (defined as used by the most people at the same time), passwords: 123456 password 12345678 qwerty 12345 123456789 football 1234 1234567 baseball
Arrow Electronics is selling a hardware and software platform for developing IoT applications. Arrow developed the ARIS board, which is based on the Renesas Synergy development framework, with the Italian design house Reloc. The Renesas Synergy Platform offers developers the benefit of qualified hardware and software, and Arrow said the aim with the ARIS board ...
Arrow uses Renesas Synergy to speed IoT development
Lumileds’ HR30 lighting led has been designed with robust packaging and materials to protect it from harsh environments, including chlorine and sulphur, and maintain output for 100,000 hours at 105°C. Chemical plants, power generation facilities and swimming pool buildings are potential applications. Chemical resistance is partially attributed to its gold-plated lead-frame and it has been tested ...
Lumileds hits 100,000hr at 105°C with harsh environment LED
With Gordon Brown on board, what can go wrong? Chuck in Ben Bernanke and Jean-Claude Trichet, and you ask yourself would you trust a financial forecast from this group? All three, plus two more, make up the Global Advisory Board of the world’s biggest asset ($1.43 trillion) management company PIMCO (Pacific Investment Management Co) and ...
Cree has announced ‘high-density’ version of its CXA2 lighting CoB leds. Packing more die into the same space, and swapping from to aluminium nitride (from Al oxide) substrates, has allowed the firm to roughly double the light available from each diameter. The parts are identified by a CXB prefix. CXB1520, for example, is the first ...
Cree gets ~6,000 lm from 9mm diameter LED
Happy Birthday Arduino. The development board and prototyping system first saw the light of day on 29 March 2004, at the Interaction Design Institute Ivrea in Ivrea, Italy. Traditionally based on Atmel AVR microprocessors, the Arduino can now be considered twelve years old. And what a widely used system it has proved, coming in many ...
Happy Twelfth Birthday Arduino!
Linear Technology has introduced a constant frequency peak current mode synchronous step-down DC-DC converter with temperature-compensated ultralow DCR current sensing and clock synchronisation. The LTC7130’s unique architecture eases compensation and offers the ability to directly parallel multiple ICs for higher current capability. It also enhances the signal-to-noise ratio of the current sense signal, enabling the ...
LTC launches 20V, 20A monolithic synchronous step-down regulator
The British autoland programme is now taking shape. Electronics companies have some orders – equipment is being manufactured, target dates have been given. Britain is now in an unchallenged position as leader in this important new phase of aircraft operation. So, 56 years ago, started a story in EW’s edition of September 14th 1960. The ...
Britain Leads World In New Phase Of Aircraft Operation
There has been a string of recollections about Andy Grove and there was an occasion in London which showed his quality. Grove had been engaged in a marathon Q&A session with journos and then said he had to go on to his next meeting. There was no formal wrap-up he just walked out of the ...
silicon moves into its end game, we are seeing some tortured marketing. It seems that TSMC’s 10nm process will have a minimum feature size of 20nm. The discrepancy between the number on the node and the minimum feature size is nothing new, but a 100% difference is becoming the new normal. At the last honest ...
Ten years ago, half a dozen years on from the 3G auctions, everyone was getting fed up with the slow roll-out of 3G and the poor, unreliable, spotty service. Michel Mayer, then CEO of Freescale, which was still in the wireless business at that point, was vocal in his condemnation of the network operators. “The ...
The Promise That Was Never Kept
Tektronix has expanded its line of USB real-time spectrum analysers. Adding to the existing 6.2GHz RSA306 (centre in photo) there are four new models across the RSA500 (left) and RSA600 (right) series of analysers, covering 9kHz to 7.5GHz with 40MHz acquisition bandwidth, -161dBm/Hz displayed average noise and up to +30dBm input. Through a USB 3.0 ...
USB spectrum analysers hit 7GHz and -161dBm/Hz
The week after next is the first anniversary of the iWatch. There are still no sales figures from Apple. Everyone kind of assumes it’s been a flop. Its price has been cut. The reason is probably not anything to do with the iWatch per se – the whole concept of adding electronics functions to watches ...
Once again rumours are swirling that Carlo Bozotti is about to be replaced. This time a replacement is being named – Marco Patuano, the president of Telecom Italia. When Bozotti took over in 2005, ST had revenues of $8.88 billion for a profit of $3 billion. In 2015 it had revenues of $6.9 billion and ...
EW called for volunteers who have never coded to run through the first exercise in the micro:bit guide for children – the Don’t steal… exercise. There are no children in Electronics Weekly Towers, so an adult bravely stepped up. She has experience writing web pages in HTML, but none in any programming language. And, having ...
EW test – micro:bit might lead to frustration
Cardiff-based LED lighting firm Sedna, which lists Formula 1 among the brands that use its products, has partnered with Cardiff University and the local Cardiff Formula Racing Team on a night racing initiative.
LED there be light for Formula Student UK racing
UK firm’s APC HiRel and QinetiQ have worked together to create PSU modules for theExoMars Trace Gas Orbiter. The Lander, a test bed for future space missions, has VPT SV series isolated power supplies and filters. VPT dc-dc PSUs were also supplied for the lander’s UHF transceiver and will be fitted to the 2018 mission Rover. ...
UK supplies PSU for ExoMars space mission
When it comes to delivery of next-gen services, new 5G spectrum rules are urgently needed to prevent Europe from falling behind, writes Denis Keseris, of Withers & Rogers. As global competition intensifies in the race to establish new standards to support the delivery of next generation 5G services, new spectrum rules are urgently needed to ...
Comment: New 5G spectrum rules urgently needed for European innovation
Once upon a time there were two rich guys who were brothers-in-law who decided to start a business. Trouble was they didn’t know what to make. The tried, and failed, to make a rice-cooker and a self-heating cushion but had some limited success with a megaphone. Still casting around for a volume product they decided ...
Bosch UK believes the internet of things (IoT) could be an opportunity to encourage more woman to be recognised for electronics system design. As part of a campaign with the hashtag #BetweenUsWeCan the German company is running an online competition for women designers to come up with new applications of the IoT. Dr Steffen Hoffmann, ...
Bosch says women will design the next IoT apps
Tektronix has introduced a range of slim-line flexi oscilloscope probes for high-speed signals that put a fast – in one case 20GHz – 0.4pF 100kΩ amplifier less than 4mm from the probe tip. “Efficient test and debug of standards from LPDDR4 to MIPI D-PHY and C-PHY requires probes that minimise signal loss to cope with ...
Tek probes in tight corners at up to 20GHz
Review Display Systems (RDS) is supplying two wide viewing angle WXGA (1,280×800) TFT panels from Tianma NLT Europe. “These days more and more industrial applications are requiring high resolution, compact wide screen panels for their systems, which is why Tianma NLT has introduced 7in and 10.1in WXGA designs,” said RDS. Viewing angle on the 7in TM070JDHG30 and ...
High-resolution wide-angle 7in and 10in industrial displays
The industrial semiconductor market will post a 2014-19 CAGR, of 8% as revenues rise from $43.5 billion in 2014 to $59.5 billion in 2019, reports IHS. Commercial aircraft, LED lighting, digital video surveillance, climate control, traction and medical devices are driving most of the global demand for industrial semiconductors, said IHS. The greatest semiconductor growth ...
Industrial semis to grow 8% CAGR 2014-9
The Apple/FBI story has given everyone a lot of food for speculation. John McAfee had his moment in the spotlight when he said he could hack the phone in a month. Then Ed Snowden chucked in his twopennyworth suggesting that the FBI either de-cap the chip to reveal the password or de-solder the flash memory ...
FBI Quits Legal Route, Hires Hacker
Like Apple Pay, the NFC-based system uses tokenisation, i.e. that when you tap your phone for a small payment your associated account details aren't transmitted
Android Pay contactless payments touch the UK
The UK has done well in the latest survey of the world’s best universities by Quacqarelli Symonds (QS) of Hampstead. Four UK universities rate in the top ten: Cambridge at No.3, Oxford at 6, UCL at 7 and Imperial College at 8. Outside the top ten, top UK performers King’s College London at No.19, Edinburgh ...
UK Has Four Universities In World Top Ten
Distributor element14, which owns an evaluation kit design firm, is behind the production engineering of the BBC’s micro:bit educational embedded computer, and NXP provided several components including a processing core. Our role in the project was to take the prototypes for the BBC micro:bit, which were based on the ARM mbed reference designs in the mbed hardware ...
BBC micro:bit partners talk about their contributions
Socionext, the Fujitsu-Panasonic SoC jv – has brought out a single-chip SoC that can process decoding of 8K resolution HEVC video. Volume production is set for November. Socionext’s SCH801A was developed in cooperation with NHK (Nippon Hoso Kyokai Japan Broadcasting Corporation), and has successfully performed decoding of 8K test streaming data. Hardware makers will be ...
Socionext has single-chip 8k HEVC video decoder
A-level students, Brad Stalker of the Energy Coast UTC (University Technical College) in Cumbria and Sudhakar (‘Sud’) Sivaneswaran of Sutton Grammar School have won the opportunity to compete, along with over 1,700 other students from around the world, in the Intel-sponsored International Science and Engineering Fair 2016 (ISEF), which this year is held in Phoenix, ...
Livery company sponsors winning students for international engineering competition.
A Nixie Pi. It's a good Nixie-related example of a young enthusiast doing exactly the kind of things a Raspberry Pi was designed for.
Clocking on with a Nixie Pi project
Japan’s Ministry of Economy Trade and Industry has set up an industry panel to study driverless cars, reports the Nikkei. The Ministry is reported to be concerned that driverless car technology in Japan lags US and European technology. The Japanese panel will consist of car manufacturers and car parts manufacturers. Among the six car manufacturers ...
Japanese Ministry sets up driverless car panel
Q1 revenue declines are expected at Taiwan’s three top foundries, TSMC, UMC and Vanguard, reports Digitimes Research. The three foundries are forecast to have collective Q1 revenues of $7.24 billion a drop of 2.7% q-o-q and 14.3% y-o-y. It would be the fifth sequential quarter of declines. Utilisation rates at TSMC, UMC and VIS will ...
Taiwan foundries to take Q1 revenue hit
MACOM has brought out dual 28Gbps Clock and Data Recovery (CDR) devices with integrated laser driver for SFP28 short reach (SR) or long reach (LR) module applications. MACOM’s dual reference-free CDR devices feature multi-rate retiming, with the MASC-37028 retiming from 24Gbps to 26.5Gbps and the MASC-37029 retiming from 25.5Gbps to 28.1Gbps. The flexible output drive ...
MACOM launches 28Gbps CDR chips
Thanks to Future Horizons for this one – the top ten fabless companies: Qualcomm Avago/Broadcom MediaTek AMD nVidia Marvell HiSilicon Spreadtrum Realtek Dialog
Keeping track of the companies signing up for Android-related licensing agreements with Microsoft.
Getting to the bottom of Microsoft’s Android licensing
According to Ars Technica Apple may buy Imagination. Apple has an 8.4% stake in the GPU developer which also owns MIPS. Imagination’s shares have gone up nearly 20% on the rumour. At the moment Imagination is valued at $870 million which would hardly dent Apple’s off-shore cash pile.
Apple in talks to buy Imagination
You have to be careful about the claiming to lead the world in technology. Plastic technology was one of the things the UK was going to lead the world in. Plastic Logic was invited to Davos to show off its technology as a key emerging technology. A UK government strategy document observed: “Currently the UK ...
An uninterruptible power supply has been designed for the Raspberry Pi by German company Olmatic. The power supply, which is called the S.USV pi basic, can be adjusted so that the charging current can be 300mA (standard), 500mA, or 1A, depending on requirements. The power supply connects through the J8 connector on the Raspberry Pi ...
Raspberry Pi avoids power failure with its own UPS
The BBC micro:bit can have the same impact its predecessor, the BBC Microcomputer, had in the 1980s by instilling a passion for coding in a new generation of British school children, according to processor developer ARM. The pocket-sized computer, which is built around an ARM-based NXP microprocessor and Bluetooth chips from Nordic Semiconductor, is being ...
BBC Micro:bit can inspire a generation, says ARM CEO Segars
The wonderful BBC has sent Electronics Weekly a micro:bit. We only turned it on 10 minutes ago, and already we are impressed. I am guessing we have been sent a teachers pack, which has a micro:bit, plenty of excellent-looking documents, batteries with a holder, and a piezo sounder plus crocodile clips. Straight out of the ...
Viewpoint: Hands on the the BBC micro:bit
The University of Bath has installed a unique Nano-Lithography printing system for nano-engineered semiconductors. Based in the University’s Department of Electronic & Electrical Engineering, the PhableR 100 Nano-Lithography System is capable of printing very high resolution periodic patterns at a low-cost meaning new electronic devices that exploit the properties of nano-scale features can be more ...
Bath University installs nano-litho tool
A battery-free wireless doorbell uses a Cherry energy harvesting switch that operates wirelessly and without a battery.
Wireless doorbell rings with kinetic energy
The LED lighting market will be worth $34.64 billion, says Digitimes Research, accounting for 31.3% of total lighting market value. LED light bulbs will account for 28.2% of all types of light bulbs (penetration) in 2016 and the penetration will be 32.8% for LED projection lamps, and 17.3% for LED light tubes, says Digitimes. 52.3% ...
LED lighting market to top $34bn
IQE saw 2015 revenues ups 2% to £114 million for an operating profit up nearly three times at £21 million and a profit after tax up 10x at £20 million. £21.2 million cash was generated which was 41% up on the previous year and debt was reduced by 25% to £23.2 million. Photonics sales were ...
EnSilica has launched a Kalman Filter acceleration IP core for use in situational awareness radar sensors for advanced driver assistance systems (ADAS), such as electronic stability control systems, pre-crash impact mitigation, blind spot detection, lane departure detection, and self-parking. The Kalman Filter acceleration IP core is part of EnSilica’s emerging automotive IP portfolio that also ...
EnSilica launches Kalman acceleration core for ADAS radar sensors.
It’s a sadder world without Andy Grove. When he walked into a room it was as if you’d drunk a glass of champagne – you felt an excitement, an expectation. Energy bubbled out of him. His Q&A sessions were remarkable, The tougher the question the more he relished it. He never seemed to forget a ...
Worldwide interest has been created by the airfield bird dispersal system “Sappho,” being developed by The Trix Electrical Co.Ltd in collaboration with the Ministry of Aviation. The system utilizes specially recorded bird alarm and distress calls. So, 56 years ago, started a story in EW’s edition of September 14th 1960 The story continues: Recordings ...
Coilcraft is introducing low-loss power inductors that will operate from 2 to >5MHz at the Applied Power Electronics Conference (APEC) in California. Called the XEL40xx series, the lowest dc resistance in the range is 2.5mΩ while the highest current is 28.5A, all in 4 x 4mm with heights down to 1.2 mm. Soft saturation characteristics, said ...
APEC: Power inductors stretch beyond 5MHz
Fairchild is revealing a 100V mosfet with maximum on-resistance of 4.2mΩ at 10Vgs and Id=44A, or 12mΩ at 6Vgs and Id=22A. Called FDMS86181, it is a ‘shielded gate’ mofet. “FDMS86181 is the first part in a new generation of mosfets and it delivers substantial improvements in efficiency, reduced voltage ringing and electromagnetic interference for power supplies, motor ...
APEC: Fairchild improves 100V mosfets
Cree is claiming a first, with a single LED delivering nearly 1,600 lm at 134 lm/W with “similar colour quality as an incandescent light bulb”. It is a lab demonstration. “Cree is focused on improving spectral content and the efficacy of warmer colour temperatures,” said Cree co-founder John Edmond. According to the firm, a current technology ...
Cree claims record CCT, CRI, lm/W combination
Quarterly reporting of company results could be on the way out. The Investment Association, whose members own a third of the shares in the FTSE, is to publish a report later this week which is to recommend an end to the quarterly reporting practice. The IA believes the practice reduces management focus on long-term thinking ...
Rohm is claiming industry’s shortest minimum on-time for a synchronous buck converter aimed at 48V vehicles. It’s aim is to allow 48V to 3V (or 5v) conversion at over 2MHz to avoid interference with AM radio bands. “To meet these market needs for high input, low output, and high switching frequency it is necessary to shorten ...
20µs minimum on-time for automotive dc-dc
Let's talk about graphene and the roll it will play in the future of electronics, specifically how it will effect electrical contacts
Only Connect: Graphene contacts in electronics
A photo of a gold ion trap has one the Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council (EPSRC) science photography competition. ‘Microwave ion-trap chip for quantum computation’, by Diana Prado Lopes Aude Craik and Norbert Linke of the University of Oxford, shows the chip’s gold wire-bonds connected to electrodes whose electric fields trap single ions 100µmicrons ...
Quantum computer photo wins EPSRC prize
Imec has expanded its iSiPP device portfolio to support 50Gb/s non-return-to-zero (NRZ) lane rates which are an important milestone for the realization of high data rate silicon integrated optical interconnects for high density, high bandwidth, low power telecom and datacom transceivers, as well as for low cost large volume applications such as sensors or LiDAR. ...
Imec enhances 50Gb/s silicon photonics
Wearables unit shipments grew 171.6% in 2015 over 2014 and by 126.9% in Q42015 over Q4 2014, reports IDC. 27.4 million wearables were shipped in Q4 and 78 million in 2015. “What is wanted is continued innovation and development,” says IDC’s Ramon Llamas. “The market can only get so far with ‘me too’ and ‘copycat’ ...
Triple-digit growth for wearables units
Here comes the Koov, an educational kit for robotics and programming. It's the latest offering from Sony.
Sony Koov robot sells hello to schoolkids
Not for the first time a major WiFi chip player has decided to exit the market because of commoditisation. Back in 2003, Intersil, at that time No.1 in WiFi chips, pulled out of the market saying it was becoming commoditised and there were better returns to be had in high performance analogue. However, there was ...
The Commoditisation of WiFi Chips (Again)
In my ignorance I wasn’t aware ants were known for their strength with tugging skills. Who knew? Well Stanford University certainly did, and the MicroTugs demonstrate it. Reasearchers in the Biomimetics & Dexterous Manipulation Laboratory have studied the behaviour of ants, and how they can use adhesive connections to carry more than you would expect. ...
MicroTugs ant robots pull above their weight
Robots will take to the great outdoors in the Peak District as part of the UK’s inaugural Robotics Week from 25th June to 1st July 2016. Sheffield Robotics will be hosting an international field robotics challenge for young researchers and developers working in robotics and agricultural technology. The challenge will focus on the development of ...
Outdoor robot design challenge open for entries
Eight years ago, the then CTO of NXP, was contemplating that perennial bugbear of the electronics industry – complexity. He boiled it down to a simple choice: Spaghetti or Asparagus? He reckoned that the industry was moving from spaghetti-like electronics systems design to asparagus-like systems design. “Systems have become very complex. In terms of the architectural ...
A quantum computer has been built that can find prime factors, potentially signalling the beginning of the end for cryptography that relies on the multiplication of large prime numbers. Such computers have existed before, but without scalability – there was no reasonable path to enough quantum bits (qubits) to tackle encryption-scale numbers. The new computer, designed ...
Dark at the end of the tunnel for RSA encryption
Siemens has set up a networked team of industrial security specialists based in Europe and the US to monitor industrial facilities all around the world for cyber threats, warn companies in the event of security incidents and coordinate proactive countermeasures. According to Siemens: “The increased networking of industrial infrastructures as part of Industrie 4.0 (IoT) ...
Siemens provides IoT security watchdog
PhotonStar LED Group, a UK-based designer and manufacturer of smart LED lighting systems, has secured a patent from the UK Intellectual Property Office for technology which adds a security key to wireless nodes. What is called “a secure commissioning” patent, it will be used in the firm’s Halcyon and halcyonPRO2 wireless networks for internet of ...
UK firm gets key IoT security technology patent
In 2015, nine product categories within the optoelectronics, sensors/actuators, and discretes (O-S-D) marketplace reached record-high sales compared to seven in 2014 and six in 2013, reports IC Insights. Figure 1 shows that in 2015, five sales records were achieved in optoelectronics and four in the sensors/actuators market (including total sensor sales and MEMS-based semiconductors, which ...
Nine O-S-D product categories hit records in 2015
A group of companies wants to encourage greater inventiveness in the design of integrated MEMS (micro electro-mechanical system) devices. A MEMS design contest aims to encourage over the next two years the design of devices which integrate MEMS and mixed-signal CMOS blocks. The competition is being sponsored by Cadence Design Systems, Coventor, X-Fab and Reutlingen University. Open to researchers ...
MEMS designers have opportunity to compete
China had two companies in the top five applicants for patents last year. The World Intellectual Property Organisation (WIPO) confirmed that under its PCT (Patent Cooperation Treaty) system which protects an invention in 148 countries without immediately conferring a patent – but which is often the prelude to a full patent application – Huawei was ...
Huawei tops 2015 patent application league
The SEMI book-to-bill ratio for February was 1.05. February bookings were $1.26 billion, 3.7% lower than January’s $1.31 billion and 3.9% percent lower than the February 2015 bookings level of $1.31 billion. February billings wereb $1.20 billion, 1.3% lower than January’sv $1.22 billion, and 5.9% lower than the February 2015 billings level of $1.28 billion. ...
SEMI book-to-bill trends positive
As SEPAM pointed out very recently, the level of patent filing in China has stepped up massively. On Tuesday (March 15th) SEPAM commented: “In the case of China the Employee Inventions Act ensures a huge financial incentive for employees to disclose inventions to their employers. Big firms like Huawei and ZTE are now simply swamped ...
China Steps Up Patent Applications
As we all know ST’s results have been getting worse and worse. Reasons have been suggested – loss of Nokia, exiting risky growth markets, financial myopia. But now, ST’s 20-F filing with the US SEC reveals the real reason for the company’s decline. Back in 2013 the company awarded CEO Carlo Bozotti a bonus of ...
Google has updated its Android design guidelines. Does this mean Android will be adopting some iOS-style navigation elements?
Android apps to borrow iOS style bottom navigation
Infi-Tex is developing coatings for fibres that can be woven into sensing fabrics. “Resistance varies with the pressure of 1N from 100M to a few ohms,” CTO Professor Cyril Hilsum told Electronicws Weekly at the Wearable Technology Show in London. The inorganic variable-resistance material, developed by David Lussey, has so far been integrated into wool ...
UK company develops woven sensors for smart clothing
CECO is a module from iSocket Systems is designed to connect “virtually anything in a home or outside the home, regardless of the location or Internet availability”, said the firm at the IoT Connect Show in London this week. Aimed at companies and makers developing smart home equipment and apps, it has wireless interfaces for ...
Thread + 3G gateway for IoT smart home app developers
IoT - A whitepaper on providing a visual interface and storage in power- and cost-constrained applications.
Real world IoT implementations – Adding graphics and storage to power-constrained applications
Renara Batteries, part of the Swiss Swatch group, has developed a lithium iron phosphate Li-ion rechargeable coin cell that can be charged more times than traditional types. Planned in the popular 2032 size (2mm thick, 32mm dia), it has been developed alongside a more traditional rechargeable 2032 cell for wearables such as watches and smart ...
Rechargeable coin cell lasts for more cycles
ADI has bought SNAP Sensor, a privately held company based in Switzerland that specializes in vision sensing technologies. The acquisition will advance ADI’s sensing and signal processing capabilities. SNAP Sensor’s patented technology offers improvements to existing optical sensors by ensuring accurate image detection in challenging lighting conditions. It improves sensing reliability and accuracy in a ...
ADI buys Swiss image sensor specialist
A new massive open online course (MOOC) for Linux developers will cover the implementation of cloud-based projects. The Linux Foundation is offering the course through edX, the nonprofit online learning platform launched in 2012 by Harvard University and Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT). The course is free and will begin this June. According to the ...
Cloud tech is most important Linux skill, says Linux Foundation
There was once a brilliant engineer who invented the technology for, and founded, a programmable logic company installing himself as CEO. Mentor licensed one of the engineer’s patents for $1.8 million and, when the patent was challenged by one of Mentor’s competitors, the engineer submitted a log book which showed signs of tampering. Another log book ...
Fable: The Engineer Who Carried On Digging
Texas Instruments revealed reference design for wearables using passive matrix OLED displays, at its stand at the Wearable Technology Show in London this week. Called PMP9792, and not available just yet, very little was being said about it apart from that it combines an OLED display with Bluetooth and is a showcase for the firm’s ...
TI previews OLED wearable reference design
AMS is claiming up to 30dB of external noise attenuation over 20Hz-2kHz from its latest speaker driver chip. “AS3412 opens up mass market opportunity for active noise cancellation, it is ideal for use in the bundled head-sets supplied with smartphones,” said the firm. On-chip is proprietary analogue noise cancellation, combined with a speaker driver capable ...
Chip puts active noise cancellation into bundled headphones
Take a look at our gallery of pictures taken by Electronics Weekly at the Wearable Technology Show in London.
Picture Gallery: Wearable Technology Show 2016
RF engineering is a vital enabler of today’s economy An initiative to make wireless communications technologies more popular among schoolchildren and students has been launched in the UK in an attempt to address the continuing skills shortage in engineering. It is a skills initiative by the UK Electronics Skills Foundation educational charity in partnership with ...
Economy needs “vital” RF engineers, says Sir Martin Sweeting
Dialog Semiconductor chose the London Wearable Technology Show to announce a 12 degrees of freedom (DOF) wireless sensor development kit. The hardware is a small Bluetooth-enabled wire-free sensor dongle in a plastic housing (see photo right). On this is Dialog’s DA14583 Bluetooth/ARM Cortex-M0 SoC, plus gyroscope (x3), accelerometer (x3), magnetometer (x3), and environmental sensors from ...
Tiny dev kit packs in 12 DOF sensors and Bluetooth LE
In the design of an internet-connected node in the IoT the power consumption of the wireless interface be it 802.11x Bluetooth or ZigBee can be a critical parameter. Professor Dr Dogan Ibrahim puts the case for proprietary low power radio modules Power is a problem for IoT developers – and communication links are one of ...
Low power wireless for IoT and the case for going non-standard
Spotted in Ikea, an interesting led replacement lamp. The headline figures are 1,800 lm 2,700K 90CRI 81 lm/W dimmable – a creditable, even remarkable, combination of figures for a replacement bulb, I feel. I have to say, as I don’t see any fins, I am trusting that Ikea tested the bulb under reasonable operating conditions ...
Ikea’s great bulb: 1,800 lm and 90CRI
Imagination is to shed another 200 jobs in addition to the 150 lay-offs it announced last month. This will add another £12.5 million of annual cost savings to the £15 million savings made from last month’s cuts. The moves will deliver £27.5 million of cost savings in full by the end of April 2017. The ...
Imagination to lay off another 200 people
Analog Devices has brought out two series of LDOs with ultra-low noise performance that eliminate unwanted system noise and improve receiver, transmitter, and audio quality. Target applications for the ADP176x and ADP715x LDOs include wireless base stations, wired communications, industrial instrumentation, high-end audio equipment, and medical devices. The LDOs enable cleaner power rails, faster transient ...
Although one always wants the government to lob out loads of money to the electronics industry, in a funny way it’s a relief not to see barmy tech ideas in the budget. If George had dumped millions on us for IoT, wearables and driverless cars we’d have lost whatever faith we still had in our ...
Driverless Cars Could Stimulate Telecoms Network Investment
In a world of RISC processors, QuickLogic created a CISC co-processor for its EOS multi-core sensor hub chip to save power in wearables. The co-processing core is called the ‘flexible fusion engine’ (FFE, diagram below). “We worked out the power needed to do a 32bit read from memory was 10x the power needed for multiplication, and ...
CISC sometimes beats RISC in wearables
In the Budget today, the Chancellor George Osborne announced measures intended to encourage the roll-out of autonomous vehicles in the UK. The Chancellor said the government wants to establish a ‘connected corridor’ for autonomous vehicles running from London to Dover. He said he will also loosen the regulatory controls facing autonomous vehicles. “While some people ...
Budget 2016: Chancellor likes self-drive cars and we should “get used to it”
In the Budget, the Chancellor revealed new reforms that he says will make it easier to erect mobile phone masts in ‘not spot’ areas. Essentially, the government is trying to boost broadband speed and coverage in the UK by relaxing planning restrictions on the mobile broadband infrastructure, meaning that there will be a much more simplified ...
Budget 2016: Is mobile mast reform necessary, Chancellor?
Major chip companies took stands at the Wearable Technology Show (WTS) in London this week, some announcing new products at the show. WTS shared a hall with two other exhibitions: IoT Connect – another good fit for chip makers – and Augmented Reality 2016. Exhibitors were from all levels. For wearables for example, there were: ...
London wearables show attracts major semiconductor companies
What’s graphene for? Well it could realise that long-sought application – effective conductive plastics – though graphene’s cousin, carbon nanotubes, may be as suitable. Graphene is, according to analysts IDTechEx Research, finding uses in conductive inks and coatings such as anti-corrosive costings. It can be added to carbon inks to improve conductivity and can be ...
EM Microelectronic is promoting its EM8500 energy harvester chip, claimed to be the lowest power photovoltaic harvester. The Swiss chip company, which has its own fab, is owned by Swatch and has a background in ultra-low power electronics. Designed to work with small solar cells, the new chip can start up on 300mV (3µW) and operate ...
Lowest power solar harvester chip
The Centre for Process Innovation (CPI) has recently installed a specialist roll to roll line for the printing, coating and patterning of a range organic and inorganic solution based coatings. The pilot production line is available on an open access basis and will aid the commercialisation of a host of printable electronics applications including photovoltaics, ...
CPI adds roll-to-roll process for printed electronics
Western Digital has produced a hard disk for the Raspberry Pi 3. The USB-connected 300GB PiDrive is 7mm tall and aligns, says Western Digital, “with Raspberry Pi’s USB data and power design to reduce the electrical power load of the hard drive on Raspberry Pi, while still maintaining sufficient performance to deliver maximum USB data ...
ARM’s Geomerics subsidiary has announced its Enlighten real-time global illumination technology is to deliver large-scale dynamic lighting to open-world games. The enriched technology can halve the performance cost of dynamic global illumination effects, such as time of day, in games where map sizes are vast and draw distances are long. The new feature set will ...
Globalfoundries has extended its SiGe PA portfolio to strengthen its RF offering . It’s 5PAx and 1K5PAx SiGe PAs deliver optimised PA, LNA and switch technology with improved power efficiency, noise figure and insertion loss enabling more power efficient next-generation Wi-Fi and cellular solutions for faster data access and uninterrupted connections. “Mobile suppliers are facing ...
GloFo adds to SiGe PA portfolio
Thanks to Bloomberg for this one – the ten best UK employers: Jaguar Land Rover AstraZeneca Harrods Adidas Dyson Microsoft Estée Lauder Sky Frankie and Benny’s Rolls-Royce Group
Lumileds is aiming at retrofit lamps, downlights and troffers with a family of 2835 LEDs. They come in five configurations of light output, string voltage, and ESD protection. “The LED retrofit bulb and other application segments are taking off right now,” said Lumileds mid-power director Matthew Everett. “We decided to optimise for each application requirement via ...
Lumileds aims at lighting with its spin on 2835 LEDs
Lumileds has announced a bunch of 2836 (right) and 3535 (below) leds for lighting, almost hitting 200 lm/W with an under-driven 3535. Luxeon 2836s come five versions, depending on forward voltage (3, 6 or 9V), light output and optional Zener voltage prtection. For much more on these leds, click over to at the Electronics Weekly news ...
Lumileds re-spins 2836 and 3535 offerings
ARM and TSMC announced a multi-year agreement to collaborate on a 7nm FinFET process technology which includes a design solution for future low-power, high-performance compute SoCs. The agreement expands the companies’ long-standing partnership and advances leading-edge process technologies beyond mobile and into next-generation networks and data centres. Additionally, the agreement extends previous collaborations on 16nm ...
Microsemi has introduced a secured production programming capability for its FPGAs. The firm uses hardware and software to generate and inject cryptographic keys and configuration bitstreams into its FPGAs as a preventative measure against cloning, reverse engineering, malware insertion or leakage of sensitive intellectual property (IP). Called SPPS, the security package includes the use of ...
Cryptographic keys protect production FPGAs, says Microsemi
Amazon are very clever. They now have some 30% of the cloud services market. That means they can dictate to hardware manufacturers exactly how they want their servers built and those manufacturers aren’t the IBMs, HPs, Dells, Ciscos and EMCs of this world – they’re the ODMs. Of course Amazon didn’t think of the build-it-yourself ...
The latest Arduino IDE 1.6.8 and updated cores have been released for supported platforms AVR 1.6.10, SAM 1.6.7, and Intel Curie 1.0.5. This version of Arduino Software adds support for scaling interface for ultra-high definition (UHD) monitors. The Arduino blog writes: “Just uncheck the “Automatic” box, set the magnification to a suitable value and restart ...
Arduino IDE adds libraries for Intel Curie
An Arduino-compatible wireless communications board has been designed with power efficiency in mind. The designers have selected a high-efficiency the dual LDO regulator to power the microcontroller and the built in radio transceiver from a single AA battery or a coin-cell. The board has a sub-GHz radio with hardware encryption and CRC. In case you need ...
Arduino board has wireless whisper
Manufacturers and investors have called on the Chancellor to introduce measures to support the technology sector in tomorrow Budget. They maintain that the Government has a responsibility to ensure that technology start-ups get the support they need to compete in global markets. They are also looking for fresh ideas to address the continuing need for ...
Osborne must “end neglect” of tech sector in Budget
Socionext, the Panasonic-Fujitsu SoC jv, has launched a 100G per wavelength, fully-integrated transceiver based on Discrete-Multitone (DMT) modulation with a power dissipation of less than 5W which, says the company, is a record for transmission of 100Gbps using a single wavelength. Migration to 100G optical links between data centres has started. The need for low-cost, efficient ...
Socionext transceiver claims record for 100Gbps transmission on a single wavelength.
Using thermal simulation to improve the thermal design of the Open Compute Project’s Intel-based servers, writes Tom Gregory The Open Compute Project Foundation is challenging itself to successfully scale computing infrastructure in a way that is both efficient and economical. Founded by Facebook, the foundation is fostering a fast-growing community of talented engineers around the ...
Facebook’s Open Compute Project wants servers to run cooler
Fujitsu Laboratories has developed a technology that accelerates database analyses of the correlations between genomic variations and environmental information, such as disease and lifestyle habits. This technology speeds up the process by a factor of roughly 400 compared to existing methods. Thanks to advances in genomic medicine, it is possible to analyze genomic and genetic ...
Fujitsu technology speeds up genomic analyses
How little equipment do you need to get fit? How about just a simple skipping rope… Well in the 21st century no fitness aid is really simple, so why would a skipping rope be? Hot on the heels of the Smart Football, here is the smart skipping rope. The interesting thing about Tangram Factory’s Smart Rope is that it has ...
Sales of semiconductor manufacturing equipment totaled $36.53 billion in 2015, representing a year-over-year decrease of 3%, reports SEMI. Worldwide billings totaled $36.53 billion in 2015, compared to $37.50 billion in sales posted in 2014. Categories cover wafer processing, assembly and packaging, test, and other front-end equipment. Other front-end includes mask/reticle manufacturing, wafer manufacturing, and fab ...
Semi equipment sales fell 3% in 2015
“Development is well in hand on autoland systems,” Dr B .J. O’Kane, chairman of the Aviation Committee of the Electronic Engineering Association, said at a press conference at Farnborough, “the autoflare system represents the first step. The fail-safe philosophies vary according to the firm undertaking the work.” So, 56 years ago, started a story in ...
4,000 Successful Automatic Plane Landings Using BLEU
MediaTek is working with FPGA supplier Lattice Semiconductor on a reference design for a USB Type-C connector interface which support 4K video. Lattice’s USB Type-C port controllers and MHL transceivers are paired with MediaTek’s Helio X20, mobile processor with Tri-Cluster CPU architecture and ten processing cores. In a smartphone design the MHL transmitter carries the ...
MediaTek uses Lattice chipset to drive 4K video in smartphones
There is plenty of talk about IoT in general, but case studies of real-world implementations are less common. So you may want to check out this free Intel whitepaper about the cost and efficiency savings of IoT-based fleet management. Read Transforming IoT Fleet Management with 5th Generation Intel Core Processors » It describes how, using Intel-based IoT products ...
Real world IoT implementations – IoT fleet management
Moxie Marlinspike, a co-developer of the Signal encrypted mobile messages app, is seeing his security technology used by Facebook’s messaging service, WhatsApp. Encryption is a key technology for social media websites such as Facebook, and the technology developed by Moxie Marlinspike (the name is a pseudonym) and now marketed by his company Open Whisper Systems in ...
Open source encrypted app is key to security for Facebook
The National Graphene Institute could be heading towards becoming a Great British Cock-Up. Kicked off with £60 million of government and EU money the first investment of the Institute was a typically bureaucratic one – putting up a fancy building for 120 people. A visitor to the NGI tells me: “The building is mostly empty”. ...
Is The National Graphene Institute A Cock-Up?
Getting to Bratislava is usually via Vienna and takes an hour or so by bus or train but it could take eight minutes if a plan works out to build the first Hyperloop outside America between Vienna and Bratislava. Hyperloop Transportation Technologies says it has agreed with the Slovakian government to explore building a Hyperloop. ...
Vienna to Bratislava in 8 minutes
Vantablack, the world’s blackest material, from Surrey NanoSystems, no longer has to be placed by chemical vapour deposition (CVD) as it can now be sprayed on. It is based on carbon naontubes. “Called Vantablack S-VIS, the spray paint greatly widens the applications potential, making it possible to coat much larger and more complex shapes and structures, as ...
Blackest coating now sprayable
The National Graphene Centre (NGI) is deserted because the 250 Manchester University researchers working on graphene don’t trust it to keep secrets out of the hands of a Taiwanese-controlled company called BGT which has links to a mainland China university and a Chinese manufacturer, reports the Sunday Times. Is this true? “No”, replied the NGI. ...
NGI ‘almost empty’ say reports; researchers concerned about IP leaking to China
This has the sniff of the future about it. E-sports are already establishing themselves and here comes the Drones, with the first World Drone Prix. The 2016 event has just been held in Dubai, with a prize pool totalling a huge $1 million. It certainly looks dramamtic. Check out the promotional veideo below, and then ...
UK teenager scoops World Drone Prix Final prize
For better colour consistency, Osram has announced 10° binning to the CIE 2015 colour space. At the same time, Plessey has announced narrow beam technology for its GaN-on-Si lighting leds. Click on the links above to go through to more information on the Electronics Weekly news website.
Osram bins to CIE 2015 and Plessey integrates optics
The Southern Manufacturing & Electronics Show is moving from its traditional early February slot to new dates in March, for 2017. Why the change, we asked? It seems the two main drivers are to lessen the likelihood of sugffering severe wintry weather, and avoiding half-term holidays and Valentine’s Day The organisers write: The decision to ...
Southern Manufacturing & Electronics 2017 reschedules to the spring
A technology challenge aimed at raising interest in electronic system design among 11-19 year-old school-children and students started this month. The UK Land Rover 4×4 in Schools Technology Challenge involves students designing and building remote controlled four-wheel drive vehicles. Control electronics will be based on Raspberry Pi modules. As part of the judging process the ...
Land Rover 4×4 schools tech challenge gets Raspberry Pi from RS
Bandwidth is rapidly expanding in the next generation wireless access to cope with the ever-increasing Internet traffic. The available spectrum simply cannot support the needed bandwidth. Higher frequency spectrum is being evaluated for suitability. New mixers with improved performance will be needed, write Bruce Hemp and James Wong. Also 5G wireless is expected to deliver ...
5G at microwave frequencies will need a high bandwidth mixer, says Linear
For better perceived colour consistency, Osram Opto Semi has announced LEDs binned to the CIE 2015 10° u‘v‘ colour definition. The CIE is the International Commission on Illumination (abbreviated from its French name Commission internationale de l’éclairage). “In contrast to the established CIE 1931 2° color space, the recently developed CIE 2015 10° corresponds much better ...
L+B: Osram bins for better LED lighting consistency
Imec has opened a 4,000 square-metre 300mm clean rom which brings its total clean room capacity to 12,000 square metres. It will give Imec the capability to scale ICs beyond 7nm. Installations of the first tools began in January 2016. The new 300mm cleanroom complements Imec’s other production facilities including its bio-nanolabs, neuroelectronics labs, imaging ...
Imec cleanroom pushes towards ‘the ultimate IC technology.’
