The Frogs have got this graft gig sorted, Ed confides to his diary, I’m an amateur in comparison. Look at this Fillon guy who gets his suits paid for by an industrialist and still gets 20% of the Presidential vote. With Savile Row suits costing £5K these days, that’s worth compromising one’s purity for. We’re ...
Read full article: Eds Sets Out To Cut A Dash
Imperas Software has become a member of the RISC-V Foundation, at the same time as it made virtual platform and model support available for the RISC-V architecture. RISC-V Foundation drives the adoption of the RISC-V instruction set architecture (ISA) – a RISC architecture originally developed at the University of California, Berkeley, now touted as an ...
Read full article: Imperas joins RISC-V Foundation
Huawei's HiKey 960 development platform aims to support the latest ARM technology for Android Open Source Project (AOSP) developers.
Read full article: Huawei builds HiKey 960 Linaro dev platform for AOSP
A team of researchers from Australia and the UK have developed a theoretical framework to identify computations that occupy the boundary at which problems become impossible for today’s computers and can only be solved by a quantum computer – dubbed the ‘quantum frontier’. Along the way, they have shown that even simple error-prone quantum computers ...
Read full article: Computing on the boundary between conventional and quantum
An intrinsic photo-dielectric effect has been found in a ceramic by researchers at the University of Nagoya in Japan. Dielectric changes under light are nothing new, but in the case of LaAl0.99Zn0.01O3-δ it is not accompanied by an increase in dielectric conductivity – it remains an insulator throughout the process. “We have demonstrated the existence ...
Read full article: Photo-dielectric: discovery in need of an application
Apple has escalated its battle with Qualcomm by refusing to pay royalties to its contractors which are owed to Qualcomm. So the contractors won’t pay Qualcomm which means there will be a hit to Qualcomm’s Q1 revenues. Instead of Q1 revenues of an estimated $5.3 billion – $6.1 billion these will now be $4.8 billion ...
Read full article: Apple escalates Qualcomm battle
Girls start believing they aren’t good at maths, science and computers at a young age, but providing fun STEM activities at school and home may spark interest and inspire confidence – at least in the US, according to a study by the University of Washington. The finding was that, when exposed to a computer-programming activity, ...
Read full article: Girls like STEM subjects as much as boys, if they have a go
Seven days after he joined Fairchild, Andy Grove got a surprise. On his first Friday he had handed in a report. The following Monday, he received a note saying: “I just read your report on MOS capacitors – very nice work.” It was signed ‘Bob’. “I thought I’d died and gone to heaven,” said Grove.
Read full article: The Magic Of Noyce
With Toshiba, foundry updates, ARM's automotive image processing and Google's take on the IoT all figuring prominently
Read full article: Top 10 most popular articles on ElectronicsWeekly.com
ZX Spectrum Next is a crowd-funded project to bring back the original in a form that will run the original games because it has a Z80 processor at its heart. “The Spectrum Next is fully implemented with FPGA technology, ensuring it can be upgraded and enhanced while remaining truly compatible with the original hardware by ...
Read full article: ZX Spectrum rides again, with ZX80 and Raspberry Pi Zero
The US Navy is has created a rechargeable aqueous zinc battery with performance approaching Li-ion cells. While useful in non-rechargeable applications – it is the basis for ‘alkaline cells’ – zinc electrodes tend to grow dendrites (whiskers) when charged, wrecking the cell. Scientists at the US Naval Research Laboratory (NRL) have created nickel-zinc batteries with ...
Read full article: Zinc sponge anode makes Li-ion alternative rechargeable
I came across this neat 3d printed vice, created by someone called SexyCyborg. What I like about it is that it has no screw thread, and instead uses a pair of folding wedges, plus packing pieces. On top of this, some of the packing pieces have shapes cut from them to aid holding, and the ...
Read full article: Neat pocket vice is 3d printed
Revenue increased 13% from Q1 2016. Analogue revenue grew 20% and Embedded Processing revenue grew 10% from Q1 2016. “Gross margin of 63% reflected the quality of our product portfolio, as well as the efficiency of our manufacturing strategy, including the benefit of 300mm analogue production,” said TI CEO Rich Templeton, referring to “our opportunistic ...
Read full article: TI sparkles on 300mm analogue
NXP has overtaken Renesas To become the No.1 MCU supplier following its takeover of Freescale which saw its MCU sales grow 116% last year, reports IC Insights. The Freescale acquisition moved NXP from sixth in the 2015 MCU ranking to the top spot in 2016 with a marketshare of 19% ($2.9 billion). About three-quarters of ...
Read full article: NXP No.1 in MCU
Last November I was asked by an ST guy who, in my opinion, would be appointed CEO of ST when Carlo Bozotti’s contract expired in the Spring. To my surprise, when I put my mind to it, I couldn’t think of anyone. So I replied that I thought Bozotti would be re-appointed. Yesterday he was. ...
Read full article: Who Would You Appoint As CEO of ST?
ADI has launched an ADC to meet the spectral efficiency demands of 4G/5G base-stations. It also meets the reduced run-time targets of multi-standard production instrumentation and provides a detection range and sensitivity suitable for defense electronics. Made on a 28nm CMOS process, the AD9208 delivers bandwidth and dynamic range to cover the largest number of ...
Read full article: ADI ADC meets 5G spectral efficiency demands
Sanjay Mehrotra, co-founder and CEO of SanDisk, has been appointed CEO of Micron. He takes over from Mark Durcan who stepped into the shoes of Steve Appleton after he was killed in a flying accident. Before co-founding SanDisk, Mehrotra worked at IDT, Seeq, Intel and Atmel. Micron could not have made a better choice – ...
Read full article: Sanjay Mehrotra takes over at Micron
Intel had revenue of $14.8 billion in Q1 for a net profit of $3 billion. PC revenues were $8 billion. Data centre revenues were $4.2 billion. Flash revenues were $866 million The IoT group had revenues of $721 million. The Security Group had revenue of $534 million The FPGA group had revenue of $425 million. ...
Read full article: Intel makes Q1 profit of $3bn
Just how far will the new US administration go in stopping China getting advanced semiconductor technology? That may be decided today at the meeting between Hon Hai’s Chairman and the US President. Hon Hai’s Chairman, Terry Gou, is set on buying Toshiba. If he buys it, Toshiba’s 3D NAND technology will very likely leak to ...
Read full article: The Plot Thickens
Some of the brightest innovators from UK schools gathered at PA Consulting Group’s annual Raspberry Pi coding competition final in London.
Read full article: PA Consulting Group celebrates annual Raspberry Pi school coding competition
Thermoelectric energy harvesters are available from Leicestershire-based European Thermodynamics. “The Adaptive range has been developed with design and development engineers in mind,” said company engineer Tibor Toro. “The initial products in the range are an excellent addition to energy harvesting research and development, evaluating standalone or even small grid connected strategies. We are looking forward ...
Read full article: Thermoelectric generators and interface PCBs
In 1988, a 19 year-old arrived from India having won a transfer scholarship to Caltech. After going to Stanford as a grad student he joined Apple. In 1995 he got $300,000 for a start-up having walked out on his VCs when they asked for a 30% stake. Next day the VCs called back and offered ...
Read full article: Fable: The Negotiator
A development platform for the Android open source project (AOSP) has been created by Huawei. The ARM-based hardware is part of the Linaro open source collaborative engineering organization developing software for the ARM ecosystem. The HiKey 960 96Boards development platform from Huawei is now listed on the 96Boards website and will become available through global distribution ...
Read full article: Huawei develops ARM-Android open source platform for Linaro
Premier Farnell has signed a global franchise agreement with Dialog. ‘This new agreement expands our product range, and coupled with Dialog’s advanced system-level knowhow, deep portfolio of intellectual property and mixed signal innovation, further enables us to provide a full service solution for customers, supporting our customers from design to initial production as they take their ...
Read full article: Farnell signs Dialog
The Trump appointee to the US FCC Chairmanship , Ajit Pai, said yesterday he wants to abandon net neutrality – the rule that everyone must get equal service from broadband providers. Net neutrality stops broadband providers charging extra for fast service. Pai said yesterday that he believed the rules depressed investment by internet providers and ...
Read full article: US net neutrality threatened by FCC
The Innovation Network Company of Japan (INCJ), a government bail-out fund for troubled companies, is to sell a 20% stake in Renesas. INCJ currently holds 69% of Renesas after bailing out the company in 2013. At that time the company had cumulative losses of some $6 billion over the previous seven years. INCJ bought its ...
Read full article: INCJ to sell 20% stake in Renesas
ST has re-appointed Carlo Bozotti as CEO and has appointed Jean-Marc Chery as deputy CEO. ST has been looking for a replacement for Bozotti for some time, but this process does not appear to have been successful. ST says that Bozotti will serve for one more year before retiring as CEO. ST had Q1 ...
Read full article: ST re-apponts Bozotti as CEO
Governments want 5G because they can have spectrum auctions for it raising huge amounts of cash. The EU has it high on their list of tech priorities. The UK is putting £200 million into 5G research this year, but many people think that a more pressing priority for government is to find a way to ...
Read full article: Do We Want 5G?
Stan Boland, former CEO of Element14 and Icera, now head of the driverless car pioneer FiveAI which has just received £12.8 million from the government to head up a driverless car project in London, has a unique view on driverless technology. Chatting to me while waiting for a plane from Berlin, Boland tells me he doesn’t ...
Read full article: Boland Looking To ‘Fully Cognisant’ Autonomous Cars
The first operational 5G network could be working in time for the 2018 Winter Olympics, perhaps two years ahead of the anticipated launch date for the next generation mobile communications technology. The core technologies for 5G wireless networks – millimetre-wave transmission and massive MIMO radio transmission – are coming to fruition faster than was anticipated ...
Read full article: 5G is a car-crash in the making
With an ageing population and the threat that Brexit poses to freedom of movement laws, recruiters in the electronics industry will need new talent management strategies, writes Ben Hall Despite the electronics industry being home to some of the most cutting edge employers – all offering myriad opportunities for professionals – the fact remains that ...
Read full article: Brexit will only make tech skills shortage worse
Segger has introduced a library of cryptographic algorithms written entirely in C. Called emCrypt, it includes block ciphers, hashes, MACs, and digital signatures required to meet the demanding cryptographic needs of embedded devices. Having been designed from the ground up for use in memory-constrained embedded systems, emCrypt uses minimal resources in respect of memory footprint ...
Read full article: Software algorithms secure embedded designs
Princeton University found problems with the memory consistency model (MCM) in more complex implementations of the open source RISC-V. The University works with the RISC-V Foundation, so there was no conflict, and the Foundation is already on the case. However, the Foundation desires to set the record straight in detail, and its chairman Krste Asanović has written the following (reproduced in ...
Read full article: RISC-V Foundation replies on Princeton bugs
TSMC is looking at an e-beam lithography tool made by the Dutch firm Mapper as a possible alternative to EUV. The Mapper tool uses 110 e-beams and could, according to TSMC’s Burn Lin, process 150 wafers an hour which is the same rate as ASML’s latest EUV machine. According to Lin, who is vp for ...
Read full article: TSMC looks at e-beam as possible alternative to EUV
In May Samsung is expected to announce that foundry customers can have embeded MRAM in their SoCs. Samsung’s MRAM is said to be 1000 times faster than NAND with unlimited endurace and will be offered with Samsung’s 28nm FD-SOI process. Samsung says that embedding MRAM only takes four mask-steps compared to 20 masks for embedded ...
Read full article: Samsung to offer foundry customers 28nm FD-SOI embedded MRAM.
Q3 will see 3D NAND take over 50% of the NAND market for the first time, says DRAMeXchange. In terms of bits shipped, 3D NAND already represents over half Samsung’s output and represented over half Micron’s shipments as early as February. Samsung is in volume production of 48-layer NAND and expects to start producing 64-layer ...
Read full article: 3D NAND will become the dominant flash memory in Q3
Thanks to Glassdoor for this one – the top ten tech companies to work for in 2016: Facebook Google World Wide Technology Fast Enterprises LinkedIn Adobe Paylocity SAP MathWorks Salesforce
Read full article: Top Ten Tech Companies To Work For
The Google Play Awards are being resurrected this year, with the winners being revealed at the Google I/O event in May.
Read full article: Google ranks Android apps for Google Play Awards 2017
From immersive 3D audio, to immersive 360-degree cameras... Check out the next-generation YI HALO Jump camera highlighted by the Google VR team.
Read full article: Picture of the Day: YI HALO next-gen Jump 3D-360 camera
Analog Devices has announced a 65V input, 8A output, current-mode synchronous step-down switching regulator. It is called LT8645S, where the S indicates that it has the second generation of the firm’s ‘silent switcher’ noise reduction technology – which includes in-package ceramic capacitors on the input, bootstrap and internal supply rails (see diagram). “These caps keep all ...
Read full article: Quiet 8A automotive dc-dc works from up to 65V
China never ceases to amaze with its industrialisation plans but it’s not always China’s technological prowess that amazes but the scale of the ambition and the investment. To build a couple of 300k wpm fabs without, apparently, having tried and tested advanced process technology to put in them, is a sky-high ambition. ...
Read full article: China’s Car Strategy Smarter Than Its Chip Strategy
Efficient power supply design is important to avoid over-heating which can affect the product lifetime of high-reliability systems, writes Martin Brabham When it comes to reliability in electronics heat is the enemy, and that is as true of power supplies as the rest of the system. One way to see this is to use the ...
Read full article: Power supply design and the art of thermal engineering
Sennheiser is bringing its immersive 3D audio to Android. To Samsung devices, to be precise, as the two companaies are working to emulate the existing release for iPhones.
Read full article: Gadget Watch: Sennheiser bringing 3D audio to Android
Tektronix has entered the vector network analyser (VNA) market with a USB instrument that relies on a Windows PC or laptop for control and display. Called the TTR500 Series, it has options up to 122dB dynamic range and 6GHz. It comes with VectorVu-PC analysis software a built-in bias tee for testing active devices. Forseen markets ...
Read full article: 6GHz vector network analyser uses PC for display
A prototype driverless shuttle is navigating the 2km route around the Greenwich Peninsula. Called Harry, it is the latest phase of the the GATEway (Greenwich Automated Transport Environment) Project, which is looking into public acceptance of, and attitudes towards, driverless vehicles. The trial, said Oxford artificial intelligence firm Oxbotica, which is providing the algorithms, is ...
Reuters reports that EU plans to try and standardise on a minimum 25-year lifetime for spectrum licences are opposed by 15 out of the 28 member states. The 15 are: Austria, Bulgaria, Croatia, Cyprus, the Czech Republic, Finland, Germany, Greece, Ireland, Italy, Latvia, the Netherlands, Poland, Spain and the UK. The 15 refuseniks have produced ...
Read full article: 15 member states oppose EU 25 year spectrum licences.
T.J. Rodgers, the founding CEO of Cypress Semiconductor and the company’s largest individual stockholder, has filed a lawsuit in the Delaware Court of Chancery stating: “Cypress directors have a legally mandated ‘Duty of Candor’ to make complete disclosures to Cypress stockholders on the issues in this election, including why they are allowing Ray Bingham to ...
Read full article: T.J. Rodgers sues Cypress
Imagination is offering access to a fully supported toolchain and development tools for its MIPS M-class and I-class CPU IP cores for approximately $45 per development seat. The tools include: • The Codescape Debugger and Codescape for Eclipse IDE: these rigorously tested tools are freely available and can be used with the ultra-low cost Bus Blaster ...
Read full article: Imagination offers MIPS development tools for $45 per seat
China’s Ministry of Industry and Information Technology said earlier today that the auto industry in China made 28 million vehicles last year and will make 35 million in 2025 of which 2 million will be electric/hybrid vehicles. Last year, 507,000 electric/hybrid cars were sold in China, making it the world’s biggest market for such cars. ...
Read full article: China ups EV production targets
THE only way to solve London’s traffic problem is by the use of an electronic computer”, says Mr. T. Cauter, Managing Director of CEIR (UK) Ltd. So, 57 years ago, opened a story in Electronics Weekly’s edition of December 7th 1960 The story continues: “It won’t be cheap, and may cost some tens ...
Read full article: London Traffic Problem Needs Computer Solution
ARM introduces image processing intellectual property for automotive vision systems.
Read full article: ARM reveals automotive image processing
Amber Wireless has created a 11 x 8 x 1.8 mm Bluetooth Smart 4.2 module, offered with or without integrated antenna. Called AMB2621, and built around Nordic’s nRF52832 chip (32bit ARM Cortex-M4 and 512kbyte flash), it connects to its local host microcontroller over UART. It supports ‘central’, ‘observer’, ‘broadcaster’ and ‘peripheral’ Bluetooth profiles. The firm ...
Read full article: Module adds Bluetooth Smart to legacy designs with minimal fuss
Sony creates the colossal controller as part of the promotion for a remastered 20th anniversary re-issue of the title Parappa the Rapper.
Read full article: Picture of the Day: Colossal controller for Sony PS4
Xu Lizhi, who, at the age of 24, jumped to his death from a window of a Hon Hai factory where he was employed, wrote this poem. I swallowed an iron moon they called it a screw I swallowed industrial wastewater and unemployment forms bent over machines, our youth died young I swallowed labor, I swallowed ...
Read full article: A Poem Of Shame
Amplicon has introduced the Impact-D 160 embedded PC based on a Skylake processor. Designed and built in the UK, the embedded PC will offer two processor options: i5 and i3. The unit offers both mSATA and a mechanical/solid-state drive capability for storage and OS requirements. Support of both cellular and Wi-Fi connectivity allows to “stay ...
Read full article: Amplicon offers UK-built Intel processor-based PC
The BeagleBone Black Wireless, the credit-card-sized Linux computer that integrates Wi-Fi and Bluetooth interfaces and I/O for IoT sensors, is available from RS Components. It is a development system which can be used with open-source software platforms such as Debian, Android and Ubuntu. The hardware has both 2.4GHz 802.11b/g/n Wi-Fi and Bluetooth, but no Ethernet-10/100 connectivity. ...
Read full article: BeagleBone Black wireless node for IoT on sale at RS
The UK government has made a major commitment to the introduction of autonomous vehicles which it says will be on London’s roads in 2019, launching a new type of personal mobility service. The government has awarded funding of £12.8m to a group which includes the University of Oxford, the Transport Research Laboratory and also Transport ...
Read full article: Government plan for driverless cars in London in two years
UK engineers want the government to take more “decisive action” to address the shortage of technology and engineering skills in the workforce. Thirty-eight engineering organisations, led by the Royal Academy of Engineering, say the government needs to extend the measures proposed in its industrial strategy to primary and secondary schools. The RAE led group welcomes ...
Read full article: Biggest ever engineering report calls for action on skills in schools
Solar panels could gain from a chemical which produces two electron-hole pairs from each incoming photon. Called heptacene, it has a characteristic called ‘singlet fission‘ which allows this doubling of electron production. BTW, there is no magic here, the pairs have at most half the energy than the best single pair that could be extracted ...
Read full article: Molecule makes two electrons from each photon
This week I want to introduce you to the JST JFA connector series - J300 Series (J-FAT) - it's simple and easy to use.
Read full article: Only Connect: On the JST JFA connector series
My rule of thumb is Never Bet Against Google, even when it comes to the IoT. Which meant a new announcement on its Android Things platform caught my eye.
Read full article: Google’s Internet of Things platform gets Bluetooth update
Stan Boland, former CEO of Element 14 and Icera, is heading up Cambridge AI firm FiveAI which is developing a government-backed driverless car. Along with FiveAI in the driverless car project are Direct Line, Oxford University, TfL and the Transport Research Laboratory. The Departments for Business and Transport have given the group £12.8m to research ...
Read full article: Boland heads up driverless car project
NI and partners open the Industrial IoT Lab featuring intelligent systems that will shape the future of industry.
Read full article: NI opens Industrial IoT Lab
Toshiba’s fate is to be decided by the Japanese government. KKR, which made a failed bid for Renesas, is now teaming up with Japanese bail-out fund INCJ to make a bid. This would get Japan’s government off the hook of being blamed for Toshiba’s technology leaking to China which is the fear if top-bidder Hon ...
Read full article: Japan government to decide Toshiba’s fate
China’s helter-skelter fab-building programme may have hit a glitch, reports Digitimes. UMC’s jv fab in Tainan, called Jin Hua Integrated Circuit, is reported to be on hold. Jin Hua is a jv between UMC and the Fujian local government. GloFo’s $10 billion jv fab in Chengdu – a jv with the Chengdu local government – ...
Read full article: Hiccup in China fab plans
Thank God I’m Baron Shoreditch, member-for-life of the House of Lords, and not obliged to go off grubbing for votes like most of my Cabinet colleagues, Ed confides to his diary. The general election news has caused chaos, consternation and confusion. A lot of us secretly think the PM will get a bloody nose because ...
Read full article: Election Woes For Ed
Here's a quick good one for a Friday afternoon. Watch a maker try and build his own DIY iPhone 6s 16GB.
Read full article: Video: DIY iPhone construction
1985 was a tough year for the US chip industry. Japan ate its lunch in memory and all but two – TI and Micron – of the US DRAM manufacturers got out of the business. Intel was luckier than most. Although, in 1986, it was to record its first loss for 15 years, Intel had ...
Read full article: A Tough Time
Check out the latest Arduino MKR board, combining a Zero with SigFox low-power comms connectivity ideal for IoT designs.
Read full article: DevBoard Watch: Arduino MKR adds SigFox for IoT comms
Roll-up glass is being developed for organic electronics. The bendable flexible material can be transferred directly from the melt to a roller for storage, and then be unrolled into a manufacturing line. Created by a consortium of Schott, Fraunhofer FEP, Tesa SE and Von Ardenne, at 150μm the glass is both bendable and stable, giving ...
Read full article: Glass substrate can be rolled-up for organic electronics
With Apple, ARM, Arduino and Amazon all figuring prominently, along with RISC-V and semiconductors Soviet-Style...
Read full article: Top 10 most popular articles on ElectronicsWeekly.com
Rambus’ 56G SerDes PHY is to be made on Samsung’s 10nm LPP process. The 56G SerDes PHY provides PAM-4 and NRZ signaling with a scalable ADC-basedarchitecture. The architecture addresses the long-reach backplane requirements for the industry transition to 400 GB Ethernet applications. “Network application is one of our key segments of focus and the composition of ...
Read full article: Rambus 56G SerDes PHY to be fabbed on Samsung 10nm
Fibre reinforced polymer wind turbine blades are impossible, or at least expensive, to recycle, according to German research organisation Fraunhofer IWU. Which is why it is having a go at making steel ones, of which 90% can be recycled. “In smaller installations, the greater weight of the steel blades is inconsequential. As installations get larger, ...
Read full article: Steel wind turbine blades could be greener
MIT has proved that semiconductor epitaxy can be performed on a graphene-coated wafer, allowing the circuit or devices to be peeled off, and the wafer fully re-used. A nickel film peeled from a silicon wafer demonstrates the concept The epitaxy grows with its crystal structure aligned with the crystalline structure of the wafer below the ...
Read full article: Graphene layer allows re-use of expensive wafers
Groq could have the key to machine learning and AI – Silicon Valley’s top-priority foci. Groq is a start-up in stealth mode thought to be working on a TPU. It has raised $10.3 million. The company is formed from some of the Google people working on Google’s TPU – Tensor Processing Unit – which was ...
Read full article: Groq TPU-killer aimed at AI and machine learning
Making industrial networks in factories more secure to cyber attacks is the aim of a test system from Rohde & Schwarz. In-factory industrial control networks based on the Modbus comms protocols become much more vulnerable due to their increasing connection to the Internet. The protocol lacks built-in security measures, which makes it easy for cybercriminals ...
Read full article: System protects industrial IoT networks from cyber attacks
Personalised air transport is moving beyond the helicopter and the light aircraft with a jet-powered flying taxi from German start-up Lilium and a flying car from AeroMobil of Slovakia. Lilium has demonstrated a vertical take off jet powered vehicle. It can fly at 180 mph and has a range of 200 miles. It has 36 jet ...
Read full article: Flying cars and taxis
Hybrid capacitors from Panasonic Automotive & Industrial Systems have been designed to combine the advantages of electrolytic capacitors with those of solid polymer capacitors. The supplier claims the use of hybrid technology offers low leakage current and long life in combination with low ESR (20mΩ) in miniature case sizes. The EEH-ZE series (Type V-ZE) hybrid ...
Read full article: Hybrid electrolytic capacitor has best of both worlds
MediaTek has teamed up with Here to integrate the positioning specialist’s technology into chipsets designed for the IoT.
Read full article: MediaTek integrates Here positioning tech into its chips
MIT is taking a close look at archer fish. Not for their famous trick of spitting water at insects to make them fall into the water, but for their ability to beat other fish to that falling food. So that it doesn’t miss its meal, the archer fish can jump out of the water and ...
Read full article: Study fast fish for jumping aqua robots
Keysight Technologies has completed the $1.6bn acquisition of test and measurement business Ixia.
Read full article: Keysight completes $1.6bn Ixia acquisition
Flying car design looks very much like it did 30 years ago when flying cars appeared in Bond films and boys’ comics. AeroMobil of Slovakia has developed a flying car and says it will make 500 of them and sell them in 2020 for €1.2 million to €1.5 million. Here are some photos of the ...
Read full article: Flying Car Design Old-Fashioned
Whenever WW3 has looked like breaking out we’ve always been aware of where it might happen and who the protagonists will be. Not any longer. It could be the USA and North Korea over North Korea’s nukes. It could be NATO and Russia over the Baltic States. It could be Russia and the USA over ...
Read full article: WW3
US makers of semiconductor manufacturing equipment had $2.03 billion in billings in March, says SEMI. The March figure is 2.6% higher than February’s $1.97 billion, and 69.2% higher than the March 2016 billings level of $1.20 billion. “March billings reached robust levels not seen since March 2001,” says SEMI’s Dan Tracy, “the equipment industry is clearly ...
Read full article: SEMI equipment billings leap 69%
SCALE-2 IGBT gate drivers from Power Integrations include galvanic isolation, protection, and DC/DC conversion in a single module, and are suitable for driving power mosfets and devices based on new materials such as silicon carbide (SiC) operating at switching frequencies up to 500kHz. Available through Mouser, each type is based on an asic chip-set that ...
Read full article: Complete IGBT gate drivers from Power Integrations
A team from Korea created extra-flexible neural electrodes that minimise tissue damage without losing signal fidelity. According to the researchers, from the Daegu Gyeongbuk Institute of Science & Technology, smaller conventional brain electrodes are generally easier on the brain tissue, but detect signals less well. The new probe electrode starts with a thin gold base ...
Read full article: Nanowires offer less damaging brain probe
Microlease, test equipment distributor and rental firm, will now sell instruments from GW Instek in the UK, Ireland and Italy. Microlease, which is already a distributor of Keysight and Viavi instruments in the UK, will sell over 300 GW Instek instruments including oscilloscopes, signal sources, power supplies, and digital meters. Raffaele Gatta, European sales director at Microlease, writes: “This ...
Read full article: Microlease adds GW Instek to test offering
53 years ago, a computer company made a momentous decision – to cut its product line down to one family. Before the single product family was introduced, it was just as complicated for a customer to move from one of the company’s computers to another company’s computers as it was to move between the different ...
Read full article: Fable: The Momentous Decision
The average British adult spends an average of 57 minutes on their gadgets in bed before going to sleep, according to LaptopsDirect, which surveyed 1,012 UK adults. 68% used smartphones in bed, 32% watched television in 19% use tablet computers, 14% listened to music and 8% played on games consoles. Those aged 18-24 were most likely ...
Read full article: Britons spend an hour looking at screens before sleeping
14% of over-60s learning to code are doing it for their current job, and 9% want to improve their future job prospects. These results come from a survey of 504 people from 60 to 85 years old from 52 different countries – including working, retired and semi-retired people – using pythontutor.com, which teaches Python, Java, ...
Read full article: Why over 60s learn to code
Xilinx says its Virtex UltraScale+ FPGAs are available in Amazon Elastic Compute Cloud (Amazon EC2) F1 instances which bring in extra servers to cope with heavy loads. The application provides programmable hardware acceleration with FPGAs and enables users to optimize their compute resources for the unique requirements of their workloads. F1 instances make it easy to ...
Read full article: Xilinx FPGAs boost AWS workloads
SeeedStudio - the prototype specialists behind such things as the BeagleBone Green Wireless - develops the Wio GPS Board, based on the MT2503 and Arduino M0 MCU.
Read full article: Track IoT movement with the Wio GPS Board
NXP Semiconductors has released the MCUXpresso integrated development environment (IDE) for its LPC and Kinetis MCUs based on ARM Cortex-M cores. Intended to make use of the capabilities of its MCUXpresso SDK and configuration tools, the Eclipse-based framework provides access to new project wizards and clone projects. The MCUXpresso IDE supports full-featured, advanced debugging with ...
Read full article: NXP completes MCUXpresso picture with IDE
The Institution of Engineering and Technology (IET) and Prospect trade union are working together to help employers in the engineerings and technology sectors on how to attract a wider talent pool, including career returners. A new guide for employers comes hot on the heels of the government’s new investment in schemes to help returners back ...
Read full article: Tech firms should attract career returners, says IET
Socionext, the Matsushita-Fujitsu SoC jv, has come up with a prototype media edge server which uses Socionext’s multi-format codec MB86M30 and SC2A11A central processor. The M820 server is, says Socionext, ‘the optimal combination of high-speed data processing using dedicated hardware and flexible, software-based processing by a general-purpose CPU.’ It enables data processing such as video decoding ...
Read full article: SoC specialist Socionext designs media edge server
Facebook has revealed that it is developing technology to allow people to type directly to their phones using just their thoughts.
Read full article: Facebook developing tech to allow users to type with their brains
I am starting with a caveat here – I have no way of judging the medical side of this – for example if it will be rejected by the body, or do something awful long-term. That said, here is some news: I know lots of runners, and quite a few of them have got very ...
Read full article: Possible 3D printed knee cartilage repair
MasterCard plans to launch a biometric credit card in Europe later this year. The card will authenticate a purchase via fingerprint ID. The system is currently being trialled in South Africa. Apple Pay and Android Pay both use fingerprint ID. The benefit of fingerprint over four digit pin is that there is said to be ...
Read full article: MasterCard to bring fingerprint credit card ID to Europe this year
Hon Hai, which is trying to sanitise its bid for Toshiba’s chip unit, has proposed a consortium bid involving Amazon and Dell as well as Sharp and Apple. Hon Hai’s bid has run into regulatory concerns that, because of its extensive manufacturing interests in China, the Toshiba technology may leak to the China companies trying ...
Read full article: Amazon and Dell join Toshiba saga
Q of the day is: Why won’t May debate? Is she frit? Seems unlikely looking at her Commons performances. Does she think her head girl act will go down badly with viewers? Seems likely looking at her Commons performances. Is it because she can’t honourably defend her U-Turn on an early election? Residual guilt from ...
Read full article: Why Won’t May Debate?
Imagination is likely to see its royalties from Apple reduced to a third before they are finally cut out altogether in 15-24 months’ time, says UBS. Negotiations between Imagination and Apple are likely to see a cut in royalties from 30 cents per product sold using Imagination IP to 10 cents per product sold. The ...
Read full article: Apple to cut Imagination royalty to a third, says UBS.
Goepel Webinar deals with two different strategies for X-ray inspection of joints
Read full article: X-ray inspection of solder joints
Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute and the University of New Mexico have got together to develop a way of growing cubic GaN on silicon substrates. Compared with the hexagonal GaN used in all commercial leds, cubic GaN has a lower bandgap and therefore emits longer weavelengths for a given level of indium doping – potentially stretching efficient ...
Read full article: Cubic GaN on silicon substrates, and the green gap
US researchers have patented a way to make cubic GaN for LEDs, which show promise for bridging the ‘green gap’ – the spectrum of visible light for which no efficient semiconductor emitter exists. InGaN/GaN materials emit efficiently at shorter wavelengths, and AlInGaP at longer wavelenghts. Not only might they bridge the green gap, but the ...
Read full article: Cubic crystals for greener LEDs
Electronics Weekly joins forces with Goepel Electronics to discuss an important issue in the area of test, the X-ray inspection of solder joints in modern electronics productions.
Read full article: Webinar: Why only sample if a 100% x-ray inspection is possible?
Wolfspeeed has introduced a 1,200V 75mΩ SiC mosfet. Called C3M0075120K, and available from Richardson RFPD, it comes in a four-lead TO-247-4 package – with a separate driver source explainng the fourth pin. The package has 8mm creepage distance between drain and source. The intrinsic diode is saisd to be fast, with low reverse recovery (Qrr). ...
Read full article: 1.2kV SiC mosfet from Wolfspeed
Cree is to introduce a more intense led family, called XD16. “The first product available in the new family of XD leds is the XLamp XD16 LED that delivers a breakthrough lumen density of up to 264 lm/mm2, which is 50% higher than the best leds currently available. and up to four times higher than ...
Read full article: Cree claims intensity record with 264 lm/mm2
An interesting development for Android Pay - it is now supported by PayPal, tying it in with the popular online payment platform.
Read full article: Android Pay ties in with PayPal payment platform
At the turn of the century the great Japanese vertically integrated tech companies thought things were going their way. With worldwide defence spending reducing and rising prosperity the future was consumer electronics and they were the masters of consumer. Matsushita from Osaka and Sony in Tokyo bestrode both Japan’s consumer electronics industry and the world’s, ...
Read full article: An Idea Whose Time Has Come
MicroMill is a 3-axis CNC (computer numerical control) milling machine with an A4 footprint and 115 x 100 x 64mm working area. Intended to cut wax, foam, wood, plastics, some PCBs, brass and aluminium (not all brass and Al, see below), it is controlled via USB from a computer running open-source software. “Whether you need to produce ...
Read full article: Mini-CNC mill sits on A4 sheet
The Cyber Security Breaches Survey 2017 run by the Department of Culture Media and Sport reveals that nearly seven in ten large businesses identified a breach or attack, with the average cost to large businesses of all breaches over the period being £20,000 and in some cases reaching millions. The survey also shows businesses holding ...
Read full article: 70% of large UK firms have suffered cyber attack, says DCMS
Tech companies have significant concerns about red tape and delays that could result from the UK’s departure from the Customs Union, says UK tech body, techUK. Concerns focus on increased delays for goods in transit and new contractual obligations on tech companies which could add interruptions in supply chains. All of this would mean added ...
Read full article: Brexit: tech firms fear threat of snap exit from customs union
TDK has added a 3,200W 48V (66.7A) model to its TPS3000 series of industrial power supplies. Capable of operating from a 350-528Vac three phase delta or wye input, the TPS3000-48 avoids the need for the step-down transformer a 208/230V input PSU would require, said the firm. Efficiency is up to 92.5%, allowing it ti ...
Read full article: Three-phase input power supply delivers 48V at 66A
Avnet has hired its former head of components in the Americas, Phillip Gallagher, to head up its global distribution business.
Read full article: Avnet names Gallagher as new head of global distribution
3D NAND output will overtake 2D output in Q4, reports Digitimes. Samsung is expected to ramp 64-layer NAND in H2 with a new plant coming on-stream in Pyeongtaek in July. Micron is expected to be in volume production of 64-level 3D NAND in Q2. Toshiba is producing 64-layer chips and Hynix says it has a ...
Read full article: 3D NAND to overtake 2D in Q4
AP7380 is a 1.8µA (3µAmax) quiescent current low-dropout (500mV at 50mA, 1.5Vmax at 150mA) regulator with 3.5-24V input voltage range. Output voltage is fixed, with a choice of 3.0, 3.3, 4.15, 4.4 and 5.0V, at 1% tolerance. They are all available with or without an enable pin in a SOT25 package, or without an enable pin in SOT89. ...
Read full article: LDO with 1.8µA tail current and a 24V-capable input
The order on H-1B visas for skilled foreign workers signed by President Trump yesterday was not so stringent as feared. Instead of requiring much tighter surveillance of the H-1B programme, the Presidential order merely asked for a multi-agency report and other measures which could take years to complete. So, for the time being it looks ...
Read full article: H-1B order less stringent than feared
ASML expects to collect €200 million from sales of EUV systems in Q2. Customers are using EUV for 7nm logic and ‘mid-10nm’ DRAM, says ASML. The company started shipping its first NXE:3400B system in Q1 and completed the shipment early in Q2. ASML says it is committed to delivering better than 125 wph with better ...
Read full article: ASML EUV backlog is 21 systems
Imec has developed bifacial n-PERT solar cells using an industrially-compatible process with a front-side conversion efficiency of 22.8 percent. Used bifacially under standard front illuminations conditions in conjunction with an additional 0.15 sun rear illumination, these cells can produce the equivalent energy of 26.2 percent monofacial cells. With a projected potential low cost-of-ownership at module ...
Read full article: Imec develops bifacial n-PERT solar cells with 22.8% conversion efficiency
The Central African Republic is the poorest country on earth, according to Global Finance Magazine, and here are the other nine with their GDP per head of population measured in $: Central African Republic. 656 Congo 784 Burundi. 818 Liberia 882 Niger. 1.1 Malawi 1.1 Mozambique 1.2 Guinea 1.3 Eritrea. 1.3 Madagascar 1.5
Read full article: The Ten Poorest Countries
The Prime Minister’s shock decision to call a General Election could be extraordinarily important for the UK’s digital economy, says Julian David, CEO of techUK. “Tech businesses will be looking to the UK’s political parties to set out clear plans for how they intend to support economic stability and to keep the UK at the forefront of global ...
Read full article: General Election “extraordinarily important” for UK digital, says techUK
Rohm has introduced a current-mode buck dc-dc converter optimised for powering dc fan motors in applications such as cold air circulation in refrigerators. It has a PWM input, usually from a local MCU, which, rather than turning on and off the output, is internally smoothed to change the dc voltage at the output – output ...
Read full article: Dc-dc converter replaces fan drive in fridges
The Arduino CTC 101 education kit for teaching the fundamentals of electronics, programming and mechatronics is now being sold exclusively in Europe by RS Components. Intended as an educational aid for the 13 to 17 age group at secondary schools, the Arduino-based kit supports programming and mechatronics with five themed modules and offers more than 25 hands-on experiments. Each ...
Read full article: Arduino education kit takes on Raspberry Pi in the classroom
The latest member of the Arduino MKR family is the MKRFOX1200 IoT development board with Sigfox wireless connectivity. It has a similar form factor (67 x 25mm) and a Microchip SAM D21 32-bit Cortex-M0+ microcontroller as the previous MKR1000 and MKRZero boards. But this board has been designed for low power IoT wireless nodes and so an ATA8520 module provides long-range ...
Read full article: Arduino board adds Sigfox low power wireless for IoT
Tektronix has introduced a 10Gsample/s 16bit eight channel arbitrary waveform generator. Called AWG 5208, it can be paralleled with an identical unit to provide 16 synchronised channels (see photo). Applications are foreseen designing and testing radar and electronic warfare equipment, as well as in research. “Engineers developing radar/EW systems and components require high-fidelity, tightly ...
Read full article: 16bit arbitrary waveforms at up to 10Gsample/s
A blessing has been bestowed on Europe’s bid to bring semiconductor technology to the USA. “We pray that you will bless all that’s going to happen here,” said Pastor Nathan Blackwell before a Florida congregation at the opening of the Imec lab near Kissimmee reports the Orlando Sentinel, “let this be a change maker, not only for ...
Read full article: Imec Lab Is Blessed
Compound Semiconductor Technologies (CST) Global, the Scotland-based volume-producer of III-V compound semiconductor lasers, has been acquired by Swedish firm Sivers IMA Holdings. Targeting the high growth networking markets, Sivers IMA already supplies wireless products for WiGig and 5G wireless network applications. Its merge with CST Global will add fibre optic network products such as edge optical lasers used in data ...
Read full article: Scottish III-V laser supplier bought by Swedish firm
Rambus and Microsoft are to extend their collaboration on new memory technologies to cryogenic memory. “With the increasing challenges in conventional approaches to improving memory capacity and power efficiency, our early research indicates that a significant change in the operating temperature of DRAM using cryogenic techniques may become essential in future memory systems,” says Rambus’ ...
Read full article: Cryogenic DRAM may be ‘essential’ for future systems, says Rambus
Listening to the radio this morning, I heard about a bacteria called Bdellovibrio (silent ‘B’) that kills other bacteria – the programme was talking about its use as an antibiotic. It is a fast-swimming bacteria, and this reminded me reminded me that some bacteria, including this one, swim using a real rotary motor attached to a ...
Read full article: Rotary motors in nature
Apple has received an official permit to test autonomous cars on Californian roads in the first official confirmation that it is planning to enter the self-driving car market.
Read full article: Apple receives permit to test autonomous vehicles in California
Earlier today, the chairman of the Japanese government-owned Innovation Network Corp of Japan (INCJ) Toshiyuki Shiga, said that the INCJ is looking at participating in the second round of bidding for Toshiba’s chip unit. The Japanese government is concerned about Toshiba’s technology leaking to China and the biggest bid in round one is reported to ...
Read full article: INCJ may join Toshiba bidding
The chip market will grow 12.3% this year, says Gartner, reaching $386 billion. PC DRAM pricing has doubled since the middle of 2016, said Gartner. A 4GB module that cost $12.50 has jumped to just under $25. NAND flash ASPs increased sequentially in the second half of 2016 and the first quarter of 2017. Pricing ...
Read full article: 12.3% semi growth, forecasts Gartner
Linear Technology has launched the LTC2358-18, an 18-bit, 8-channel simultaneous sampling SAR ADC featuring integrated picoamp input buffers. The LTC2358-18 saves board space by eliminating front end signal conditioning circuitry normally required to drive unbuffered switched-capacitor ADC inputs. The combined component savings of three amplifiers, six resistors and two capacitors for each channel, a total ...
Read full article: LTC launches SAR ADC with integrated picoamp input buffers
Uber had 2016 revenues of $6.5 billion for a loss of $2.8 billion, the company reported. Q4 bookings were up 28% from Q3 at $6.9 billion, but Q4 losses grew to $991 million. Uber has raised $13 billion and gained another $1 billion when it sold its China operation to a local rival. Uber is ...
Read full article: Uber loses $2.8bn
DDR4 represented 45% of total DRAM sales last year, says IC Insights, and will take 58% of the market this year, Previously, DDR3 DRAM, including low-power versions used in tablets, smartphones, and notebook PCs, accounted for 84% of total DRAM sales in 2014 and 76% in 2015, but in 2016, DDR4 price premiums evaporated and ...
Read full article: DDR4 to be dominant DRAM generation of 2017, says IC Insights
“ABOUT a year ago we were glad to celebrate the 10th anniversary of the discovery of the transistor. During the whole decade this device has occupied a central position in semiconductor science.iWvm a central position in semiconductor science. So, 57 years ago, started an article in Electronics Weekly’s edition of December 28th 1960, written ...
Read full article: Semiconductors Soviet-Style
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Read full article: Mannerisms, Gadget Master, the Daily and the Weekly, in newsletter form
In another monumental eye-off-the-ball experience, I failed to notice that SiFive have released a chip implementing a 32bit version of the RISC-V architecture, and an Arduino-esk development board to go with it. Called the Freedom E301 or FE310, alongside the RISC-V core are a whole bunch of peripherals (see diagram). The core runs at 320MHz, ...
Read full article: RISC-V silicon available, and pcbs
NXP Semiconductors is offering a reference design that runs Amazon’s far-field voice recognition technology known as Alexa, and which is used in voice-control devices. This is the far-field technology developed by Amazon for Amazon Echo. The NXP hardware incorporates an ARM-based i.MX processor and works with Amazon’s 7-microphone array design, far-field audio processing technology, and Voice Service (AVS) client ...
Read full article: Amazon Echo voice recognition runs on NXP’s ARM platform
Researchers at Princeton University have discovered errors in the RISC-V instruction specification, leading to changes in the architecture, soon to be released. They were testing a technique created for analysing memory use, and found over 100 errors involving incorrect orderings in the storage and retrieval of information from memory in variations of the RISC-V processor ...
Read full article: RISC-V bugs found by Princeton
Check out Google's opens source Light My Piano, an application to help teach novices to play the piano, using MIDI output from a digital keyboard.
Read full article: Google shines with Light My Piano
32 years ago a new company hove to on the computer scene. It sold a package for £399 which included screen, keyboard, disc drive, printer, CP/M and BASIC. It sold 750,000 units in two years. A year later, 31 years ago, the company launched a PC-compatible computer, also priced at £399 which, within 18 months, ...
Read full article: Fable: The Rubber Band Processor
NI is working with the wireless research centre within New York University Tandon School of Engineering to fund the development of mmWave communications, channel measurement and channel emulation research for 5G communications. NI has donated almost $1m (£806,000) to the NYU’s wireless group. This will include equipping labs with software defined radio hardware and software. ...
Read full article: NI donates $1m to New York University for 5G radio work
An energy efficiency benckmark for microcontrollers and Bluetooth radios used in IoT designs has been created by the US-based EEMBC. Called the IoTMark-BLE, it is the first of a suite of benchmarks that the EEMBC is proposing to create through its IoT working group, which includes Ambiq Micro, Analog Devices, ARM, Intel, Microchip, Nordic Semiconductor, ...
Read full article: ARM and Intel part of IoT MCU benchmarking group
Excessive smartphone use leads to problems, and females are especially susceptible to addiction, according to a small (182 subject) research project from Binghamton University, New York. “Our smartphones have turned into a tool that provides short, quick, immediate satisfaction, which is very triggering,” said Isaac Vaghefi (pictured), assistant professor of management information systems at Binghamton ...
Read full article: Are you a phone addict?
A new patent licensing effort from Google - the Android Networked Cross-License - is dubbed "PAX".
Read full article: Google bids for patent peace with PAX Android
Diode’s ZXGD3112N7 active ORing mosfet controller supports redundancy power systems with rail voltages up to 400V. The chip controls an n-channel mosfet so that the mosfet behaves like a low-drop diode “providing a highly efficient power system that is well-suited for target applications in telecoms systems, data centres and servers, where OR’ing two or more ...
Read full article: Active OR controller powers up to 400V
Apple’s incursions into silicon engineering extend to bio-medical device development, reports CNBC, with a five year-old project about to begin feasibility trials of a non-invasive blood sugar monitor for treating diabetes. Apple is reported to have hired a team of biomedical engineers from other companies who are working on the project in Palo Alto. The ...
Read full article: Apple developing optical sensors for blood sugar monitoring
Toshiba has introduced a 1.3A output current CMOS LDO regulator for mobile device power supplies with a typical dropout voltage of just 92mV (@0.9V, 1.0A) in a 0.8mm x 1.2mm x 0.33mm WCSP6F package. The regulator can be used in a variety of applications including Wi-Fi chipsets for smartphones and tablets and power supplies for ...
Read full article: Toshiba launches 0.8×1.2×0.33mm CMOS LDO regulator
UltraSoC and Moortec Semiconductor are cooperating on SoC monitoring and analytics IP to enable Process, Voltage and Temperature (PVT) sensor sub-systems. Integrating UltraSoC’s digital monitoring and optimization capabilities, with Moortec’s PVT products enhances powerful, SoC performance and reliability. Moortec’s PVT sensor sub-systems are used to allow intelligent control of system clock frequencies and voltage levels ...
Read full article: UltraSoC and Moortec team On PVT sensor systems
. There was a very odd report in Digitimes earlier this week that Yangtze River Storage Technology, whose controlling shareholder is Tsinghua, was: Thinking about developing DRAM and 3D NAND in-house and Thinking about partnering with Micron to make DRAM and 3D NAND. All this against a background of building a $24 billion fab in ...
Read full article: Up The River Without A Paddle
