A most extraordinary chap comes in today dressed in a t-shirt, cargo shorts and sneakers, Ed tells his diary, the civil servants looked most put out. I made a big fuss of him to show the civil servants that I’m a modern man, a man of the people (though a Baron) and someone (unlike them) ...
Read full article: Ed Meets An Algorithm Guy
Three young women engineers have been recognised by Bosch, as part of its BetweenUsWeCan campaign, “which supports efforts to improve gender diversity within engineering”, said the firm. The firm asked 18-25 year olds for visions of how the internet of things (IoT) might transform the way we live our lives. “Winners’ ideas included a sensor-based water irrigation ...
Three win Bosch engineering prize for women
It looks as though Samsung will beat Toshiba to the punch on 64-layer 3D NAND with production starting by the end of the year. Earlier this week, Toshiba said it is sampling 64-layer 3D NAND with production scheduled for H1 2017. “Our goal is to mass-produce SSDs that use our 4G V-NAND within the year,” ...
Samsung to start production of 64-layer 3D NAND this year
Licensing or products? This has been a dilemma for donkeys years in the semiconductor industry and Qualcomm is the most visible proponent of riding both horses today. 40 years ago it was RCA, King of the TV industry, which licensed TV technology to Japan and semiconductor process technology to Taiwan. Licensing to Japan in the ...
ST has acquired ams’ NFC and RFID assets and Which relate related ST’s secure microcontroller solutions for $77.8 million. Approximately 50 technical experts from ams have been transferred to ST. “Security and NFC connectivity are key prerequisites for the broad rollout of mobile and IoT devices anticipated in the coming years. This acquisition builds on ...
ST buys ams’ NFC and RFID assets
Arrow and Avnet, the behemoths of the distribution channel have a problem. How do they get to design engineers at the genesis of their projects? How do they get ahead in demand creation? They are taking very different routes right now. Arrow has chosen to purchase electronics publications and websites, most recently EETimes in the ...
Why Avnet wants to buy Premier Farnel
Once upon a time I was totally against nuclear power. And then I heard about climate change and had to re-think my attitude. So, much as I am a fan of off-shore wind for example, I am also now a little more open-minded about fission. Hinkley Point however has been driving me nuts – not ...
Spectrum Instrumentation has launched a line of arbitrary waveform generators (AWGs) based on the LXI instrumentation standard for generating electronic signals in automated test and remote applications. The generatorNETBOX series features seven new models to give users a wide choice of performance levels. Features of the LXI-based arbitrary waveform generators with 14 and 16 bit ...
Spectrum launches LXI standard AWGs
Infineon has volume availability of thyristor/diode modules in solder bond technology with a 50 mm module and plans to launch additional module types with blocking voltages of 1800 V and 2200 V in 2017. Solder bond modules are for applications where the high robustness of pressure contact technology is not necessarily a must. Typical applications ...
Infineon launches 50mm solder bond thyristor/diode modules
y days are here again as the semiconductor industry returns to significant growth. The SOX is at a multi-year high and the book-to-Bill ratio is trending positive. By hitting 778, the SOX is up 16.75% YTD, reports Investopedia. Qualcomm is up 22.5%, TI up 30%, Broadcom up 18.7%, and Nvidia up 72%. Last year the ...
Premier Farnell, online distributor and supplier of Raspberry Pi has agreed a £691m takeover by US giant Avnet, the business-to-business technology distributor headquartered in Phoenix. Avnet had been in a bidding battle for UK-based Premier Farnell, which owns the element14 brand, with Datwyler Technical Components UK. William Amelio, interim Chief Executive Officer of Avnet, said: ...
Avnet makes £691m bid for Raspberry Pi supplier Farnell
Find out how NI FlexPod retrieved and reconstructed real-time images from space
NI enables Live HD streaming from space
There was once an engineer who filed a patent application on the microprocessor. 20 years later, the US patent office granted him a patent for “a single chip integrated circuit computer architecture.” Philips did a deal with the engineer to share the revenues from the patent which is estimated to have earned the engineer $150 ...
Google’s new emergency location service is to be rolled out in Europe and Professor Will Stewart, chair of the IET’s Communications Policy Panel, believes there will be big benefits. Android’s new emergency location service will allow a smartphone user to be pinpointed when making a 999 emergency services call. “This will be hugely beneficial,” said ...
Android’s emergency location service is good news, says IET
Twinhousing is an industrial connector shell for Amphenol’s Heavymate F series. Designed to accommodate two of the series modules, the metal housing is combined with an additional shielding frame for electromagnetic shielding. The plastic lever is designed for easy handling. Typical applications, particularly with the three-pole power module, are motor connections. Heavymate F connectors have ...
Industrial connector aimed at motors up to 830V and 40A
Panasonic Automotive & Industrial Systems Europe has released a second generation of its Grid-EYE infrared array sensors with increased accuracy. The high gain (AMG8833 and AMG8834) and low gain (AMG8853 and AMG8854) sensors available they offer an improved NETD (Noise Equivalent Temperature Difference) of 0.16°C at 10Hz and of 0.05°C at 1Hz. For all models ...
Panasonic increases accuracy of IR sensor array
The latest MultiSIM BLUE version of the NI Multisim circuit design tool which is available from Mouser Electronics is the Premium version features a Berkley SPICE simulation environment. This can be used to design and simulate circuits before laying them out in physical prototypes. Also to help with organising schematics, hierarchical design capabilities have been ...
Mouser adds SPICE simulation to MultiSIM PCB tool
Moisture is the key to a mysterious improvement experienced in perovskite solar cells after manufacture, according to scientists at the Okinawa Institute of Science and Technology Graduate University. The change, noticed when cell are left out in air, is due to improved doping distribution in the hole transport layer – which is spiro-MeOTAD doped with ...
Just the right amount of water makes perovskite solar better
MIT has discovered haptic feedback can be too subtle in research into preventing people tripping over objects. In particular, the team was finding ways to help astronauts step over things in their bulky space suits – which have big boots and poor downward visibility. The idea is to have sensors in the boot as well ...
Subtlety is not always the answer for haptic feedback
NXP had Q2 revenues of $2.37 billion, up 57% on Q2 2015 and up 6% on Q1. The core high performance mixed signal business delivered Revenue of $2.01 billion, an increase of 76% year-on-year, and an increase of approximately 5 percent from the prior quarter. The standard product segment, which is being sold to China, ...
High Performance Mixed Signal drives NXP
The government of Flanders is putting €30 million into the imecXpand investment fund aimed at companies that work on commercialising IoT technology. The goal is to build a fund of €100 million for which Imec is looking towards private partners and the European investment fund. “The fund will support start-ups that do not have access ...
The University of Surrey’s 5G Innovation Centre (5GIC) and Digital Greenwich, part of the Royal Borough of Greenwich, have teamed-up to create technology, standards and services for smart cities. 5GIC will provide the technological foundations on which Digital Greenwich will build test beds and trials leading to commercial smart city solutions. Digital Greenwich will host ...
Surrey 5G centre partners with Digital Greenwich to plan smart cities
Over the past 20 years, China has become increasingly frustrated over the gap between its IC imports and indigenous IC production, says IC Insights. China’s imports of semiconductors exceeds that of oil. In the late 1990s China began to contemplate ways to grow its indigenous IC industry and assisted in creating Hua Hong NEC, which ...
China Chip Frustration Growing
Security company Rapid7 has found multiple security flaws in Osram’s Lightify remote-controlled lighting system. “Practical exploitation effects ranging from the accidental disclosure of sensitive network configuration information, to persistent cross-site scripting [XSS] on the web management console, to operational command execution on the devices themselves without authentication,” said Rapid7, whose lead researcher Deral Heiland discovered the ...
Even reputable companies can have IoT security flaws
Tantalum metal has been deposited with sub-nanometer control for the first time at low temperature without plasma by Wayne State University scientists Kyle Blakeney and Professor Charles Winter “This opens up the prospect of using tantalum in layers just a few nanometers thick as the liner for interconnect wiring in the complex geometries of next-generation electronic chips,” ...
First low temperature tantalum deposition with fab-level accuracy
Murata has announced the MGJ1 1Watt dc-dc converter series for driving high and low-side IGBTs and SiC mosfet gate circuits. With isolation up to 5.2kVdc, output combinations include: +15/-5, +15/-9 or +19/-5V. Input choice is +5, 12 or 24Vdc. “The MGJ1 provides optimised voltages for powering gate drives for best system performance and efficiency. ...
Medical dc-dc converter drives IGBT and SiC mosfet gates
Which comes first – the drone or the loon? It looks like Google’s Project Loon will bring the internet to the internet-deprived before Facebook’s Project Aquila, but there’s many a slip ‘txixt cup and lip. Loon, of course, uses balloons and Aquila uses drones. Loon kicked off its service in New Zealand three years ago ...
Today, Toshiba starts samoling a 64-layer 3D NAND memory. The Chip has 3-bit-per-cell technology and has a 256Gbit (32GB) capacity. next on the development roadmap is a 512Gbit (64GB) device, also with 64 layers. The new device succeeds the 48-layer BiCS FLASH, and delivers a 40% larger capacity per unit chip size than 48-layer stacking ...
Tosiba sampling 64-layer 3D NAND
There is plenty of talk about IoT in general, but case studies of real-world implementations are less common. You may want to check out this free Intel whitepaper about Digital signage for transit systems.
Real world IoT implementations – Digital signage for transit systems
ST had Q2 revenues of $1.7 billion up from $1.6 billion in Q1 but down from the $1.76 billion of Q2 2015. There was an operating profit of $28 million compared to Q1’s loss of $33 million. Auto and discretes had revenues of $721 million up 7.5% on Q1; analogue snd MEMS did $376 million ...
Analog Devices is to buy Linear Technology for about $14.8 billion. “Growth has been hard to come by in the industry over the past several years,” said ADI CEO Vincent Roche, ‘those who have the balance sheets are using them.” 58 million new ADI shares will be created and $7.3 billion borrowed to pay for ...
It looks like OLED TVs have at last got great. Or, at least, that is the impression I have after looking at Trusted Review’s report on the LG OLED65E6. It is awfully expensive, at almost £5,000, but it proves the technology is capable of great image delivery in a huge (64.5in) screen. And hats off ...
Q2 wafer area shipments reached their highest quarterly recorded level at 2,706 million square inches, up 6.6% increase from 2,538 million square inches in Q1. “Silicon shipment growth continues to gain momentum resulting in a quarterly volume shipment high,” says Dr. Volker Braetsch, chairman SEMI SMG and svp at Siltronic, “although year-to-date shipments are effectively ...
Wafer shipments at record level
ARM’s Q2 revenues grew 17% on Q2 2015 to £267.6 million with pre-tax profit up 5% to £130 million. “ARM is continuing to invest in products that will support our partners’ roadmaps as they develop next-generation technologies such as 5G networks, autonomous vehicles and the Internet of Things,” said CEO Simon Segars, “our recent acquisition ...
Thanks to IC Insights for this – the top ten capex spenders this year:
Top Ten Semi Capex Spenders In 2016
University of Illinois researchers have developed a way to wet-etch tall clean fins for finfets. It works for indium phosphide, but not for silicon – yet. The aim was to etch tall fins with vertical sides and few surface blemishes. “We use a technique that gives a much higher aspect ratio, and the sidewalls are ...
Novel wet etch makes better finfets
Let's celebrate SolarImpulse, which has just completed the first round-the-world solar flight. A ground-breaking feat indeed.
Picture of the Day: SolarImpulse completes round-the-world flight
You’re having your lunch by the sea in some sunny spot when, out of the corner of your eye, something weird happens. It’s a bloke rising from the sea on two columns of water. That contraption was invented by Franky Zapata, a 38 year-old former professional pilot and three times world jet ski champion. Now ...
X-FAB Silicon Foundries today announced the first winners of its annual First-Time-Right Award and semi-annual X-Cite Award. iC-Haus GmbH and New Japan Radio each won the First-Time-Right award for mastering significant implementation challenges in developing analogue and mixed-signal ICs that fulfill the target specification at first design iteration. Fabless semiconductor company MinDCet NV won the ...
X-Fab presents First-Time-Right and X-Cite awards
Electric two-seat pedal cars in Germany are getting an on-board computer thanks to masters student Adrien Hoffet and a Raspberry Pi . The Twike, manufactured by Fine Mobile in Germany, is half-bike and half-electric car for one or two people: it has a 3kW motor (8kW peak), pedals, a lightweight frame, and weather-proof body. Maximum speed ...
Raspberry Pi becomes vehicle ECU
Fujitsu Electronics Europe will now be selling low power microcontrollers from the US-based manufacturer Ambiq Micro. This will see the supplier becoming the exclusive distributor of Ambiq Micro products, which are used in wearables, wireless sensors and IoT applications, in Europe. Ambiq Micro has topped EEMBC’s ultra-low power benchmark for microcontrollers, doubling the previous highest score ...
Fujitsu adds sub-threshold ARM microcontroller line
Stadium has created an enlarged power supply business by combining its Stadium Power and Stontronics brands. Called Stadium Stontronics, the business which supplies standard and custom power supplies up to 10kW, will operate from Reading in the UK and Hong Kong. It will also have regional design centres in Norwich and Shanghai. The business will use ...
Stadium builds global power business
Austrian sensor and analogue IC manufacturer ams has acquired spectral sensing systems specialist MAZeT for an undisclosed amount in cash. Germany-based MAZet’s capabilities in IC and filter design and software system development are used in industrial and medical. Its sensors being used in applications including airplane interior lighting, agricultural sensors, and medical skin lesion analysis. Thomas Riener, general ...
ams buys optical sensor firm in Germany
Just to quickly flag an interesting article about programmatically managing the Wi-Fi connections used by your app. And yes, the IoT word is involved.
Managing Wi-Fi connections from within your app for IoT
The CAA has given Amazon exceptions from rules around the operation of drones in certain areas. It will be able to test drones which are out of sight of an operator. It will be able to trial sense and avoid technology. It will be able to have one pilot control multiple drones. Amazon is developing ...
Amazon testing delivery drones in UK
Computer dating is a practice which is a lot older than many people think> Here is a cartoon which appeared 55 years ago in Electronics Weekly in our issue of January 11th 1961:
AVX has added a locking plug to its 70-9159 series of low-profile 5A board to board connectors. Part of its ‘Stript’ insulator-less single contact range, the gold-plated beryllium-copper (BeCu) spring contacts have a positive latching mechanism and can absorb a 1mm of tolerance in the x and y direction. Led lighting is one intended application – the ...
Low-profile locking connector for LED lighting
That strange abberation – the smartwatch – is going the way of all flesh. In Q2 2016 3.5 million smartwatches were sold, says IDC. In Q2 2015 5.1 million smartwatches were sold. A y-o-y decline of 32% reinforces what we’ve seen for decades – that the watch is too small a form factor to hold ...
Manufacturers have responded to the shock of the UK’s planned exit from the EU by adopting a “wait-and-see” approach to business planning. If this continues for any length of time there is a risk that the economy be affected, according to Zach Witton, deputy chief economist at EEF, the manufacturers’ organisation. “The very sharp pause ...
Brexit vote could hit manufacturing investment plans
If 5G mobile phone services launch in 2020 it is being predicted that there could be 24 million 5G subscriptions worldwide by the end of 2021 for mobile and fixed broadband services, according to Ovum. To put this into perspective, there are over 5 billion mobile phone users today. So this prediction indicates a modest ...
5G could have slow take-up after 2020
Intel and Samsung have identified a new fast memory access technology and have made venture investments in the company behind it. Western Digital has also invested in US-based Kazan Networks that has closed a $4.5m Series A funding round. The communications interface technology is used to access solid-state drives (SSDs) used in datacentre storage and ...
Intel and Samsung invest in fast memory start-up
Talks are starting on integrating the GPS satellite constellations of the EU and Japan. It is hoped that an integrated constellation will help the development of autonomous vehicles, farm machinery and construction equipment by allowing those made in Japan and the EU to use GPS signals from either constellation. Japan’s Quasi-Zenith Satellite System and the ...
Galileo and Japan’s QZSS constellation to be integrated
Now I’m in a pickle, Ed confides to his diary, the UK tech industry is on my back wanting me to stop a takeover bid for a UK company by a Japanese company. I’d like to curry favour with the UK tech industry, because most of them seem to see me as a bit of ...
Kemet is aiming at timing, filtering and phase-locked loops (PLLs) with a ceramic capacitor that has double the capacitance of CoG/NP0 types. Made to meet the U2J specification, the family has a linear -750±120ppm/ºC temperature coefficient – compared to zero for C0G/NP0 and non-linear for X7R – and works from -55 to +125ºC. “It also provides ...
MLCC sits between NP0/C0G and Z7R in size and stability
25 years ago I was passed a gem of a piece of wisdom by the then chairman and md of Intel UK, Keith Chapple. We were both sitting on a panel with Jerry Sanders at the 1991 Dataquest Conference in Marbella. I was terrified – Sanders is a formidable debater – and I think that, ...
Deepening understanding of centipede walking could improve robot locomotion, according to the University of Kyoto, which has been studying centipede movement for years. Its latest finding is that being on the point of instability balances straight-line and turning performance in multi-legged robots. The questions the researchers set themselves was: with all the friction created by ...
Discovery means robot centipedes can move fast as well as turn quickly
Sometime (most of the time?) marketing gets so overbearing that I can’t tell what something is. Take Sony’s ZD9 televisions. They have “Direct LED (Backlight Master Drive)” screens, according to the firm. Does that mean they are LCD with lots of little backlights, are they a huge RGB array of conventional leds, oleds, or what? ...
I have no idea how this TV works
Vishay has introduced a 365nm wavelength leds in a 1.6 x 1.6 mm x 1.4mm surface-mount package, intending it to compete with mercury lamps in medical, industrial, and printing applications. Output of the InGaN VLMU1610-365-135 is typically 18mW at 20mA and 50mW at 60mA within 362.5 to 370nm. Life time is “up to 25,000h”, said the firm, which ...
UV led replaces mercury lamps for medical and more
Sensor unit sales keep hitting new records but price erosion is curbing dollar growth, says IC Insights. Despite double-digit percentage increases in annual unit shipments, semiconductor sensor sales growth has become uncharacteristically lethargic because of steep price erosion in several major product categories. Strong unit demand is being fueled by new wearable systems, greater automation ...
Sensor sales soar but ASPs sink
The SEMI book-to-bill for June was at parity – the lowest b-to-b ratio of the year. June bookings were $1.71 billion – down 2.1% on May’s 2016 $1.75 billion, but up12.9% on the June 2015 order level of $1.52 billion. June billings were $1.71 billion – up 7% on May’s $1.6 billion, and 10.2% higher ...
Q2 VC funding moved higher but the number of deals dropped, says a report from KPMG and CB Insights, at the current rate, 2016 deal activity will barely top 2013’s numbers. The reason funding moved higher while deal activity dropped is that some larger startups such as those of Snapchat, Didi Chuxing, and Uber all ...
3D X-Point is being sampled, according to Intel CEO Brian Krzanich, who says that SSD modules using the chips will be shipped this year. Called Optane, the SSDs appear to be aimed at a wide field of applications from servers to games machines. 3D X-Point was announced this time last year and declared to be ...
Dassault Systèmes, the design software arm of the French aerospace group, has agreed to acquire Computer Simulation Technology (CST), the German electronic simulation specialist for €220m. CST’s simulation software tools are used in transport, aerospace and defence, and energy industries to evaluate electromagnetic effects during every stage of electronic system design processes. Customers include Airbus ...
Dassault Systèmes agrees CST acquisition
The Lighting Research Center of Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute is urging caution over the findings of a report on LED street lighting from the American Medical Association (AMA). Last month, physicians at the AMA annual meeting adopted guidance on how street lighting planners should select LED lighting. “Despite the energy efficiency benefits, some LED lights are ...
US debates LED street lighting safety
In early 1969 a master salesman decided to found a chip company. He needed to raise $1.55 million. Arthur Rock, who had been Intel’s lead VC the previous year, turned it down telling the salesman that the only semiconductor companies which he had backed and which had failed were run by marketing men. When the ...
Fable: The CEO Who Backed His Rival
Researchers at Tufts University in Massachusetts have used threads, stitching and embroidery to construct sensors for use on skin and inside animals. Central to the technology are functionalised threads – coated to make pH sensing electrodes, or to measure strain, for example. The aim has been to develop a tool kit of bio-compatible materials that ...
Sewing creates medical sensors
Keysight Technologies says it will now offer calibration services for PXI modular test systems from other suppliers. Keysight will offer calibration services for test equipoment, as well as electrical, physical, dimensional and optical equipment from virtually any manufacturer. PXI and AXIe instruments are being used as part of integrated test setups with traditional benchtop instruments ...
Keysight extends PXI calibration to other suppliers
Roke Manor Research is opening a new office in the UK specialising in cyber security. The office in Gloucester will initially employ 20 new staff. It will work with defence, government and commercial customers in the region. David Cole, managing director of Roke, said: “As a key cyber security adviser to UK Government, we are ...
Firm creates cyber-security team in Gloucester
Icon Plastics has expanded its workforce and production facility following a £200,000 investment in new equipment to meet rising demand. The Tees Valley business has installed two Negribossi Canbio ST machines, bringing the total number of plastic injection moulding machines at the Eaglescliffe site to 27. The new machines use robotics-based technology and computer design ...
UK manufacturer sees benefits of robotics technology
With billions of wireless devices expected to be connected to the internet over the coming years processor firm ARM has worked with Intercede, Solacia and Symantec to assess the security challenges of connecting devices across multiple sectors; including industrial, home, health services and transportation. As a result the companies have collaborated on the Open Trust ...
ARM aims to build trust in IoT security
Qualcomm had Q2 revenue of $6 billion for a net profit of $1.4 billion. Compared to Q2 2015, the revenue was up 2% and profit up 22%. It expects $6.2 billion revenue in Q3. Progress has been made in licensing in China but negotiations with hold-outs are continuing while a lawsuit against hand-set maker Meizu ...
Intel had Q2 revenue of $13.5 billion, operating income of $1.3 billion and net income of $1.3 billion, The company generated approximately $3.8 billion in cash, paid dividends of $1.2 billion, and used $804 million to repurchase 26 million shares of stock. Net income was halved to $1.3 billion after a $1.4 billion charge for ...
Intel sees high single digit decline for PC market this year
RFEL, the Isle of Wight signal processing specialist, is supplying one of its HyperSpeed FFT IP cores to the Arizona Radio Observatory (ARO). They are developing a new high performance radio astronomy spectrometer system where RFEL’s core forms a key component to improve sideband separation in their heterodyne receivers. To support the receiver’s wide signal ...
RFEL supplies core for Arizona Radio Observatory
The ultimate memory – one which stores one bit per atom – has been developed by TU Delft (Technology University of Delft) The university has made a 1KB memory on a 96nm x 126nm copper base with a density equivalent to 502Tb per sq inch. A one atom per bit memory has been a goal ...
Our IoT Design 2016 event in London is not to be missed! It takes place on Thursday 15 September and check out this short and snappy video overview for more details, from our publisher Josh Brooks.
Video: Find out more about IoT Design 2016
50% off if you book in July for our IoT Design event (enter code YTY17310)
It is remarkably hard to find information on a great engineering feat of the early 20th century. The land Paris sits on is awful for building on – some of it is full of holes and some of it is almost liquid. Because it was so wet near the river, two of the stations on ...
Underground railway stations built on surface and sunk into ground 100 years ago
The BBC micro:bit pocket sized coding device is now in stock and available for the public to purchase through selected distributors. This means the microelectronics coding devices which is being made available to year 7 school children will now be available to other year groups and hobbyist designers. Kevin Spurr, co-founder and director of Kitronik, ...
BBC micro:bit goes on sale for £10
Excelsys has developed a fan-less modular 600W power supply 215 x 115 x 40mm (8.5 x 4.5inch x 1U). Efficiency of up to 94% contributes to simplified cooling needs. “Convection cooling results in higher system reliability, with typically 25% longer lifetime than competitors,” claimed the firm. Called CoolX600, it can be populated with up to four ...
600W PSU needs no fan, for medical and industrial
Klaus Neuenhueskes looks at brushless DC motor control in cars and discovers that H-bridge controllers have specific advantages for designers. According to a recent report by research firm IHS, around three billion electric motors will be shipped into automotive applications in the last year. The majority (70%) were DC brushed motors while brushless DC (BLDC) ...
Cars rely on brushless motors and need good drivers
There’s only one winner in the lose-lose SoftBank-ARM deal, and that’s the bankers. Bankers will get fees of up to $120 million from SoftBank’s buy-out of ARM, reports Reuters. Goldman Sachs and Lazard will get most of that but five other finance houses will get a share. Both SoftBank and ARM will each pay between ...
Here is one I missed, a rather neat multi-action control switch, with a professional spec. It is 30mm across and offers a 12-position rotary encoder around the outside and an 8-direction momentary rocker switch in the middle, plus the middle bit is a push button too – the latter two parts described as “8+1 joystick ...
UK connector maker Intelliconnect has introduced a range of nickel aluminium bronze alloy water-proof connectors for harsh environments. They are versions of the existing Pisces range, and aimed as marine, naval, chemical, oil and gas industry use. “Conventional RF connectors are manufactured from brass and finished with nickel plating or passivated stainless steel. Such finishes are ...
Corrosion-resistant waterproof RF connectors
XMOS, the Bristol audio interface specialist, has appointed a new CEO to succeed Nigel Toon on who becomes Chairman. The new CEO Is Mark Lippett who has been at XMOS for ten years as VP Engineering and COO. Prior to XMOS, he served as CTO of Ignios, and held engineering and marketing roles at Texas ...
P IQE, the Cardiff compound semiconductor specialist, expects double digit H1 growth to deliver H1 sales 15% higher than in H1 2015. “The growth in IQE’s sales and profits reflect the increasing diversification of its revenues, the growing breadth of its end markets, and the strength of its IP portfolio,” says IQE CEO Dr Drew ...
The technical programme for IEDM 2016 on December 3-7 in San Francisco will be set in the autumn but many of the scheduled events are set, including the Special Focus Sessions, Tutorials and Short Courses. The broad reach, interdisciplinary nature and technical depth of the topics that will be featured can serve as a crystal ...
Thanks to Transparency International for this one – the top ten slots of the league table of most corrupt nations on earth: 1. North Korea and Somalia (tied) 2. Afghanistan 3. Sudan 4. Angola and South Sudan (tied) 5. Iraq and Libya (tied) 6. Haiti, Guinea-Bissau and Venezuela (tied) 7. Eritrea, Syria, Turkmenistan and Yemen ...
Ten Worst (+12) Countries For Corruption
Power Integrations has introduced a one-chip non-isolated LED driver for loads up to 22W. Capable of working from inputs from 90 to 305Vac, it is triac (and trailing-edge) dimmable on nominal 110V supplies, but not on 230V supplies. The dimming voltage is a clue here – this chip is aimed at commercial US installations where mains ...
22W ac-dc supply for LED light bulbs
Texas Instruments has introduced what it claims is the fastest 5.7kVrms isolated dual-channel gate driver. Called UCC21520, propagation delay is 25ns (5ns channel-to-channel matching) and the 4A source and 6A sink output results in 6ns rise and 7ns fall time for a 1.8nF load – meaning faster switching and therefore lower system switching losses for more compact ...
Isolated power driver is the fastest yet at 5.7kV
So let’s assume billions of chips are going to get sold for ‘IoT’, what ever that might be. And let’s assume they were going to have ARM Cortex-M_ cores in them. Now that ARM is no longer independent, I can see two futures: Softbank keeps ARM independent, and CortexM_ continues to be the core inside ...
If not ARM, which architecture next for IoT
If anyone wanted to know why the UK has few major tech companies we’ve had a great explanation this week. ARM was built by decent men – Robin Saxby, Hermann Hauser, Warren East and others of that ilk. It succeeded because of trust. ARM’s customers trusted these men to deliver microprocessors on an impartial basis ...
Cambridge design house Plextek RFI has announced a reference design for a GaN power amplifier (PA) MMIC for use in X-band active phased array radars. “Active phased arrays require numerous PAs,” said Liam Devlin, CEO of Plextek RFI. “Our design has a die size of 1.5 x 2mm, which means around 2,300 can be fabricated ...
Plextek unveils phased array GaN MMIC reference design
Essex-based e2v and French design firm Adeneo are to develop a pocket-sized avionics computer weighing under 300g. e2v is providing the processing expertise in the form of QT10A which combines an NXP QorIQ T1040 processor (four 64bit e5500 1.4GHz power architecture cores ) with 1Gbyte DDR3L memory on a custom substrate – it is the first product family called Qormino. ...
UK and French team up for smallest aerospace computer
Surrey Satellite Technology (SSTL) has signed a contract with Honeywell to supply a satellite to demonstrate the two-way VHF Data Exchange System (VDES) payload for the exactEarth maritime satellite constellation. Called the Vesta satellite, the deal is part of a memorandum of understanding Honeywell Aerospace and the UK Space Agency. It is a configuration of the SSTL-12 satellite ...
Surrey firm sells satellite to Honeywell
Devon-based TDK-Lambda UK helped bring electronics engineering to life for children and young adults at this year’s Big Bang Fair South West. Held at Exeter University, the one-day event attracted 1,800 students looking into careers in a science, technology, engineering and maths (STEM) related subjects. “Many local businesses participated in the event,” said Anne Sutton, Training ...
TDK Lambda sponsors STEM award for kids
Imec and Nihon Kohden have developed a wireless electroencephalogram (EEG) monitoring device for clinical applications. Imec partnered with Holst Centre and Nihon Kohden to design and develop the headset to monitor Emergency Room (ER) and Intensive Care Unit (ICU) patients. A systematic approach was used to tailor electronics design, circuit design and mechanical design to ...
Imec develops wireless EEG headset
Green slime from a stagnant pond may hold the answer to increased production of certain chemicals. So, 55 years ago, started a story in Electronics Weekly’s edition of January 11th 1961 The story continues: The green matter, Chlorella, is a simple micro-organism, easy to grow in the laboratory. Chlorella produces a range of unsaturated acids ...
Pond Slime To Cure Heart Disease
Welcome to another post in the series by Nick Locke, of Nicab Ltd, who has more than 15 years experience in the electronics manufacturing industry specialising in interconnection cable assembly. If you are not already familiar with the Molex Ultra-Fit Power Connectors you may find yourself using them in the future. Similar to the Mini-Fit and the ...
Only Connect: On Ultra-Fit Power Connectors
Don;t miss our IoT Design conference, which is running in London on Thursday 15 September. And here's a chance to win a ticket for free entry to the important event.
Win a place at IoT Design 2016 conference
An expansion board that adds a CD quality audio and 44/48 bit stereo record and playback to the Raspberry Pi is available at RS. Dubbed PiFi the add-on board has three audio outputs that include stereo headphones. There is a Sony/Phillips Digital Interface Format (SPDIF)-6+6 Watt speaker amplifier. The board has its own microphone and ...
Raspberry Pi gets a CD quality audio amp
Processor IP firm Ceva will unveil technology for next-generation silicon chipsets for LTE-Advanced Pro and 5G smartphones later this month at the Linley Mobile & Wearables Conference in Santa Clara, California. Linley Gwennap, principal analyst of the Linley Group, writes: “Ceva has a long and successful heritage in DSP IP for LTE, and in fact, powered ...
Ceva unveils IP for first 5G smartphone chips
Cambridge Medical Robotics is developing a robotic system which it claims can make surgery less invasive and open the way for universal keyhole techniques. The medical device firm started first clinical cadaveric trials last month and has now secured $20.3m venture funding to help commercialise its medical robotics technology. It also plans a recruitment programme. ...
Cambridge firm has medical robotics success
The most notable thing to record this month is Android Marshmallow increasing more than 30% (statistics, statistics - it's only from 10.1% to 13.3%).
Android Marshmallow share expands slowly
The proposed $32bn takeover of ARM by Japanese firm SoftBank has caught the semiconductor market by surprise. Most observers believe that the processor IP which is the main ARM business was so important to so many chip makers that ARM’s independence was too strategically important to the market to be broken. As a result it ...
Comment: IoT made ARM takeover inevitable
The next country in line for a Qualcomm pay-out is Korea. The Korea Times reports that the Korea Fair Trade Commission is looking at fining Qualcomm up to $900 million. Last year China took $975 million off Qualcomm for unfair trading practices. The Korea FTC has held a 17 month investigation into Qualcomm’s business practices. ...
Is it sensible to pay $32 billion for a company which makes a profit of $660 billion? Received wisdom was that ARM’s market cap was so big compared to its profits that no one would be crazy enough to buy it. Now someone is. It was also thought that big ARM customers like Apple and ...
ARM is to be sold to SoftBank of Japan for $32 billion. ARM’s board is to recommend the deal to shareholders. The government may also have to approve the deal. SoftBank says it will: Keep the senior management team, business model and culture; Keep the HQ in Cambridge; At least double the UK employee headcount ...
My appointment has now been publicly announced to zero public reaction except a few rude emails from mates addressed to Baron Arseitch and Lord Sorebum etc etc. Very funny I don’t think. Being a Peer of the Realm is a serious matter. Anyway, now it’s out there that I’m Baron Shoreditch, Secretary of State for ...
Interested in learning more about the IoT? Be sure to make a date in your diary for our IoT Design conference, which is running in London on Thursday 15 September.
Making IoT work for us – IoT Design programme announced
Icera was a shining start-up star. “We started off with a passion to be a big European-based chip company, a company which could go public, a company that was sustainable,” said its CEO Stan Boland inn 2006 when the company was three years old, “the biggest and most challenging chip market is wireless. Particularly cellular. ...
The Shining Star Which Crashed
French semiconductor research lab has developed a 3D network-on-chip (3D-NoC) for fast computing. It is intended to be used to transfer data between stacked die, or across an array of die on a silicon interposer. “The steady rise in the number of applications that require high-performance computing creates a demand for new hardware-plus-software communications solutions ...
More on: Leti 3D on-chip network uses active interposer
The increasing value of the average IC content in cellular handsets and the increasing percentage of smartphones will help drive the cellphone IC market to $94.3 billion in 2019, says IC Insights. Although the cellular handset IC market grew by double digits in 2013 and 2014 it grew only 2% in 2015 and is expected ...
Cellular IC market to grow 6.7% CAGR 2015-19
Cypress Semiconductor is reported to be up for sale after Goldman Sachs was retained to look for a buyer. Earlier this year founding CEO T.J Rodgers (pictured) announced he was retiring. It is said Cypress has ‘received takeover interest’ from three private equity firms including Summitview Capital and TPG Capital, Summitview is said to have ...
64.3 million PCs were sold in Q2 – 5.2% down from Q2 2015, says Gartner and the seventh consecutive quarterly decline. “All regions except North America experienced a PC shipment decline,” says Gartner’s Mikako Kitagawa, “PC shipments in Latin America are expected to fall below five million units for the second quarter of 2016, which ...
TT Electronics has introduced automotive actuators for haptic accelerator pedals. The actuators weigh under 400 gram. They enable power-efficient transmission, consuming less than one watt of energy with an active actuator when it reaches a pedal force increase of at least 10 newtons. The pedal force the driver feels increases when the drivetrain changes from ...
TT launches actuators for haptic accelerator pedals
Arrow Electronics will distribute the IoT portfolio which Cypress Semiconductor’s bought from Broadcom. “We look forward to leveraging Arrow’s technical, marketing, sales and logistics expertise to enhance Cypress’ footprint in the fast-growing IoT market,” says Cypress’ Kamal Haddad. In addition to distributing Cypress’ new portfolio of wireless communication technologies, Arrow will also help Cypress grow ...
Taiwan and China have over 70% of the world’s foundry capacity, says SEMI, and will have 75% next year. It is no surprise that Taiwan with TSMC, UMC, VIS and Powerchip, has 55% of the world’s foundry capacity but it comes as a surprise to hear that China, with SMIC, XMC, Huali and Huahong Grace, ...
Taiwan and China Will Have 75% Of World Foundry Capacity Next Year
Researchers in the US have shown that 3D printed heatsinks could be lighter, smaller or better than conventional heatsinks. False-colour image of a heatsink genetically designed to cool a module dissipating 2kW The conclusion comes from two linked projects at Oak Ridge National Laboratory and the University of Tennessee Knoxville: One proves printed aluminium can ...
More on: 3D printing could make better heatsinks
There was once a company founder who was most embarrassed when the US House Ways and Means Committee reported that he was the best paid man in the USA. The Committee quoted other notable earners like Walter Chrysler founder of Chrysler, Sam Goldwyn, the cowboy comedian Will Rogers and Alfred Sloan. But the company founder ...
Fable: The Man Who Was Embarrassed By The Size Of His Pay Packet
Infineon has bought the Wolfspeed Power and RF division of Cree for $850 million. The deal also includes the related SiC wafer substrate business for power and RF power. The acquisition will enable Infineon to provide the broadest offering in compound semiconductors and will further strengthen Infineon as a leading supplier of power and RF ...
There is plenty of talk about IoT in general, but case studies of real-world implementations are less common. You may want to check out this free Intel whitepaper about using a single board computer to speed up DNA Sequencing. Read Intel – A Single Board Computer for Speeding up DNA Sequencing » The ability of DNA ...
Real world IoT implementations – Single Board Computer speeding up DNA Sequencing
An encrypted key technology used to make hardware like mobile phones secure may not be as hackable as first thought. A team of researchers from semiconductor developer NXP have shown that in fact it can be much easier than thought to extract the keys from a white-box environment. Cryptographic keys protected by white-box software implementations are ...
NXP warns cryptographic keys can be hacked
Scopes in Space! The test specialist is launching a competition to find the most innovative use for its new Scope Rider, which is described as a rugged portable oscilloscope with lab performance.
Competition: Extreme testing gives chance to win Scope Rider
Today, Leti and the Korea Institute of Science and Technology (KIST) announced an agreement to jointly explore a variety of technologies, including monolithic 3D, neuromorphic architectures, non-volatile 3D memory, spintronics and ultra-low power semiconductors. The five-year joint project also will focus on creating a broad network to foster international collaboration on ultra-low power semiconductors, which ...
LETI and KIST link for advanced projects
After raising 3.25x its crowdfunding target, FTDI Chip project now announces the full availability of the CleO product (and accompanying accessories) through its distribution partners, as well as directly via the company’s website. FTDI Chip will also give engineers complete access to a comprehensive development resource, which has step-by-step tutorials and projects, plus a series ...
5G is hovering on the doorstep. There will be one 5G capable city in every EU country by 2020, say the operators. But what will EU 5G be like? 16 years after the 3G auction most people are relieved to get a 3G signal. As for 4G, to call it elusive would be flattering it. ...
Insulators could be converted into thermal conductors by an exotic surface effect, and power electronics might one day run cooler as a result. “In the last several years, theoretical papers have predicted the ability of surface phonon polaritons to increase thermal conduction in nano-materials made from polar materials like silicon dioxide,” said Georgia Institute of ...
Phonon polaritons turn insulator into heat conductor for power electronics
Makimoto’s Wave suggests that the semiconductor industry veers between periods of customisation and periods of standardisation. Customisation periods end with ICs becoming complex and expensive and, at that point, standardisation comes in and returns ICs to affordability. Or that’s the theory. Over the years there have been many ways to bring the cost of custom ...
SiFive – the open-source hardware company
The team from Cirrus Logic won the annual Silicon Gorge Football Tournament organised by Mentor Graphics in Bristol for the second consecutive year. The annual five-a-side football tournament involved 150 design engineers and 20 teams from 14 companies competing for the Silicon Gorge Trophy. Next year’s tournament will take place on July 6th, 2017.
Cirrus team win Mentor’s football trophy in Bristol
NEC hasvdeveloped ARmKeypad Air, where smart glasses are used to turn the arm of a wearer into a virtual keyboard, allowing for contact-free operation. ARmKeypad Air enables contact-free operation through the movement of a wearer’s finger using Augmented Reality (AR) to create the image of a virtual keyboard on the forearm of a wearer. It ...
The semiconductor manufacturing equipment market will grow 1% this year after shrinking 3% last year and will grow 11% next year, says SEMI. This year’s market, worth $36.9 billion, will be split: Wafer Processing $29.33 billion +1.9% Test $3.36 billion +o.9% Assembly & Test $2.39 billion -5% Other Front End $1.86 billion -2.1% This year’s ...
IC manufacturing equipment market will grow 1%
Imec and Synopsys have announced an interconnect resistivity model to support the screening and selection of alternative interconnect metals and liner-barrier materials at the 7nm node and beyond. With the continued scaling of advanced process nodes, the impact of parasitic interconnect resistance on the switching delay of standard cells rises considerably. The new model developed ...
Imec and Synopsys announce interconnect resistivity model
Thanks to Digitimes Research for this one – the top ten China-based manufacturers of smartphones in Q1: units Huawei 27.5 Oppo 15 BBK 12.5 Xiaomi 9.2 TCL 8 ZTE 6.2 Coolpad 6 GiONEE 5.9 Lenovo 5.4 Meiji 3.8
Top Ten Chinese Smartphone Vendors
What is going to happen to Atmel’s 8bit AVR microcontrollers now that Microchip has bought the company? Nothing bad, is the short answer, according to Microchip’s strategic marketing manager for 8bit MCUs Lucio Di Jasio. “There is a new generation of AVRs coming in the summer, if anyone doubted it,” he said. PICs have 15% ...
Microchip to boost 8bit AVR range following acquisition
Qualcomm announces the successor for the processor found in devices such as the Samsung Galaxy S7 and S7 Edge smartphones.
Qualcomm targets Snapdragon 821 processor at flagship Android devices
Plexus plans to invest in its manufacturing facility at Kelso in Scotland. A new building for environmental stress screening (ESS) at the manufacturing facility is needed to support the contract manufacturer’s business in the defence, security and aerospace sectors, as well as for those in the oil and gas industry. “With today’s need for increased ...
Scottish manufacturer sees hi-rel market growth
NI has introduced a programmable PXIe module which is a vector signal transceiver with a 1GHz bandwidth. It is a 6.5GHz RF vector signal generator and analyser which can be programmed using LabVIEW to create specific designs or test configurations. The NI PXIe-5840 VST has a user-programmable FPGA with high-speed serial and parallel digital interfaces ...
NI gives programmable RF module 1GHz bandwidth for 5G
Mentor Graphics has added analogue/mixed-signal (AMS) and high-speed signal analysis to its PADS PCB deign and layout tools. This includes a cloud-based circuit exploration/simulation environment and user community which is available free for all PADS users. Dubbed PADS AMS Cloud, it will be used to create and share analogue and mixed-signal designs in an online ...
Mentor creates cloud community for PCB designers
There’s no truck with democracy in the Tory party. Leadsom was forced out because she was going to win the vote of the 150,000 party members and become PM. Steve Bell, the president of the Conservative Party’s National Convention, which represents the party’s voluntary associations, and who is a member of the 1922 Committee, said ...
Check out the Circuit Playground from Adafruit, which is meant to help practice programming on real hardware without the need to solder components in place.
Adafruit’s Circuit Playground gets on a roll
Arduino continues to impress as a platform for makers. For instance, Plum Geek Robotics has developed a DIY programmable light - with the oft-stated intention of teaching young people - the Plumduino.
Plumduino choice for robotics enthusiasts
SiFive, a San Francisco start-up, intends to reverse the industry’s rising licensing, design and implementation costs. It has developed customisable, open-source SoCs built on the free and open RISC-V instruction set architecture. “The semiconductor industry is at an important crossroads. Moore’s Law has ended, and the traditional economic model of chip building no longer works,” ...
SiFive brings open-source SoCs.
ON Semiconductor is introducing technology that improves the near-infrared sensitivity of CCD image sensors with an 8 MP image sensor – the KAI-08052. It is the first device in ON’s CCD portfolio to leverage the technology which provides up to twice the sensitivity in near-infrared (NIR) wavelengths as the company’s standard Interline Transfer CCD pixel ...
ON brings on new CCD pixel design technology.
The Stantec Zebra Computer installed at the Standard Telecommunications Laboratories, Harlow is being used, along with its many other duties, to translate measurements obtained in the form of Smith charts into H parameters. So, 55 years ago, started a story in Electronics Weekly’s edition of January 18th 1961. When first used for this purpose, the ...
Computer Aids Semiconductor Device Research
Here's an interesting one, for the home automation series. It's something called Matrix, and is described as a Smart Home App Ecosystem.
Home Networking #4: Matrix home app ecosystem
Wolfspeed has cut switch resistance to 3.6mΩ in its 1,200V all-silicon carbide half-bridge. Called CAS325M12HM2, it has seven 1.2kV 25mΩ mosfets and six 1.2kV 50A Schottky diodes from Cree in each per switch position. A companion gate driver, CGD15HB62LP, is designed specifically to work with the module, including fitting within a 62mm mounting footprint. Power package inductance is 5nH, ...
1.2kV SiC half-bridge has 3.6mΩ switches
Powerbox has announced PSU that generates 110Vdc from a train traction-voltage line (700-1,500Vdc) to start traction electronics when a rail vehicle’s own battery is below minimum operating voltage. The ‘Low battery voltage start’ (LBVS) is designed for high safety isolation, will come in different versions for different power requirements and will provide a stable voltage from ...
PSU boot-straps rail traction electronics
US blood-testing start-up Theranos, which has become the Californian poster-child for lack of investor rigour, has had its license to operate a lab in California revoked and its founder banned from the blood-test business for two years by the US Centres for Medicare and Medicaid. 13 year-old Theranos is seen as an example of how ...
Qualcomm Technologies has announced its latest smartphone processor, a higher performance follow-up to the Snapdragon 820 processor. The expectation is that the new Snapdragon 821 processor will have extra performance to support mobile virtual reality (VR) displays. The Snapdragon 821 is claimed to provide a 10% performance increase over the 820 with the Qualcomm Kryo quad-core ...
Qualcomm powers new quad-core Snapdragon for VR
Move over Arecibo, China has just completed the world's largest single-aperture radio telescope, for listening into deep space.
Gadget in Extremis: China completes largest single-aperture telescope
A group of organisations representing the engineering profession is to provide the government with advice on how the needs of all sectors that have a dependence on engineering are represented in upcoming Brexit negotiations. The aim is to ensure that the UK maintains its position as a centre of world class engineering research, remains embedded ...
Brexit: engineering sector mobilises for action
Spanish lighting manufacturer Alverlamp has teamed up Osram to develop two high-power downlights. Based on a cluster of six Duris S 10 leds, the downlights are intended for professional lighting applications, for example in offices or airports. Duris S 10s are die arrays in a surface mount package – and intended to compete with CoBs. ...
Professional downlighter gets Osram SMD led cluster
Ten IoT start-ups have been selected to join the Startupbootcamp business accelerator which provides finance and office space in the London. The programme received 425 startup applications from 61 countries, and the 10 successful start-ups were selected last week following a three-day selection process that included expert workshops, pitches to programme partners such as Cisco, ...
IoT startups begin London bootcamp programme
