Electronic Components

SAN FRANCISCO—Intel Corp. said Tuesday (July 26) that Andy Bryant, Intel's chief administrative officer, was elected to the new position of vice chairman of the board of directors in preparation for him to be elected the company's next chairman following Intel's annual stockholder meeting in May 2012. Bryant will serve alongside Intel's current chairman, Jane Shaw, until she retires from the board in May, Intel said. Intel's board was temporarily expanded to 11 members from 10 members until Shaw's retirement, Intel said. Bryant joined Intel in 1981 and served as the company's chief financial officer from 1994 to 2007. Bryant becomes the second Intel executive to serve on the company's current board, joining Intel President and CEO Paul Otellini. When Bryant becomes executive chairman, the board will re-establish the position of lead director to be held by an independent, non-employee director, Intel said. Bryant will transition out of his role as chief a...

SAN FRANCISCO—Texas Instruments Inc. said Wednesday it has shipped more than 30 million power management devices featuring its PowerStack 3-D packaging technology, which the company says offers performance, thermal, power consumption and board space advantages compared with conventional packaging technologies.    Matt Romig, analog packaging product manager at TI, said the PowerStack technology is the first 3-D packaging technology to stack high-side vertical mosfets. PowerStack  combines both high-side and low-side mosfets held in place by copper clips and uses a ground potential exposed pad to provide thermal optimization, Romig said. TI has been shipping power management devices with PowerStack for about a year, Romig said. So far, most of the adoption has been in applications that require very high performance such as telecomm equipment and servers. "This isn't something you are going to see in a cellphone or a tablet," Romig said. PowerStack's combination of st...

LONDON – The Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE) has published the 802.22 standard for Wireless Regional Area Networks (WRANs). The standard covers broadband wireless access at up to 22-Mbps per channel over distances up to 100 kilometers from a transmitter without interfering with terrestrial television broadcasts that use the same part of the spectrum. The standard covers much the same ground as the Weightless standard being developed by Neul Ltd. (Cambridge, England) in that it is intended to provide a framework for "white space" reuse of UHF and VHF spectrum. However, while Neul's Weightless standard is intended to open up access for relatively small data payloads that are part of an internet-of-things IEEE 802.22 is trying to provide secure high-speed broadband communications that are not served by other forms of wired and wireless communications. Under 802.22 each WRAN will deliver up to 22 Mbps per channel without interfering with reception of...

Four universities won a $1.2 million grant to develop prosthetics that deliver sensory information to patients and can be controlled by their thoughts. Rice University, the University of Michigan, Drexel University and the University of Maryland will work on the four-year project with funds from the National Science Foundation's Human-Centered Computing program. Researchers at Rice will build a prosthetic arm that can be controlled by a cap of electrodes that read electrical activity on the scalp using electroencephalography. The EEG information will be combined with real-time data about blood-oxygen levels in the user's frontal lobe using functional near-infrared technology developed by Drexel's brain imaging lab. The prosthetic will include sensors that gather tactile data from its artificial fingertips and information from the hand about the amount of force it uses in grasping. The data will be fed back to the user via touch pads that vibrate, stretch and squeeze the ski...

SAN JOSE, Calif. – The ZigBee Alliance has released ZigBee Gateway, its tenth standard and the first in a new family of planned ZigBee Network Device standards. ZigBee Gateway defines a low cost ZigBee Pro device that lets service providers, businesses and consumers link to the Internet. Future ZigBee Network Device standards will define bridges and range extenders. ZigBee Gateway supports existing ZigBee standards in areas such as building and home automation, health care, retail, smart energy and telecom. The spec also will be covered under the existing ZigBee certification program . "ZigBee networks today routinely access the Internet and ZigBee Gateway makes the job of integrating Internet connectivity simple, especially for developers with little networking experience," said Bob Heile, chairman of the ZigBee Alliance, speaking in a press statement. Zigbee Network Devices, ZigBee Gateway, ZigBee, Wireless, ZigBee gets gateway specification

LONDON – The Industrial Development Agency of Ireland (IDA Ireland) has announced that chip company Analog Devices Inc. is embarking on a 50 million euro (about $70 million) R&D investment program at its Raheen campus near Limerick. The program is expected to create approximately 100 jobs in areas such as IC design and applications engineering over the next five years, the IDA said. The plan includes the construction of a 140,000-square-foot R&D center. IDA Ireland is supporting the expansion plan but the level of support was not disclosed. The announcement builds on a 23 million euro (about $30 million) investment in Ireland made by ADI in June 2010 as part of a manufacturing expansion program (see ADI to spend $28 million on Irish R&D ). ADI has been operating in Ireland for 35 years and currently employs over 1,000 people in Limerick, where it a wafer fab and conducts R&D on data converters, mixed-signal and RF ICs. "The contributions of our Limerick-based team ...

Celebs who go to Philippe Chow expect more than just a good meal, they want some free press too. Rihanna knows there will be dozens of paparazzi snapping away, so she makes sure she is photo-ready. RiRi steps out of the popular restaurant armed with a Givenchy Leopard Print Flap bag. This uber-chic piece is priced at roughly $3,500 and features a spicy fold-over flap design and ultra-soft calfhair with a nicely done leopard print. I’m not a big fan of single top handle bags though. I think it looks a little awkward when carried around, especially if you’ve got some heavy things inside. Of Red Heads and Leopard Prints Replica louis vuitton, replica handbags and replica bags

IBM, the U.S.-based technology and services giant, recently celebrated its 100 th birthday. But the company was lucky to make it after a ‘near death’ experience in 1993 following the highest loss (US$5 billion) in U.S. corporate history at that time.IBM had failed to take competitors seriously and found its dominant market position in PCs irretrievably eroded as more nimble companies ‘cloned’ IBM’s products and undercut its prices.IBM was saved by then CEO Lou Gerstner’s realisation that it couldn’t compete in hardware and should therefore refocus on services and software. For the first quarter of 2011, IBM generated revenues of US$24.6 billion ($22.7 billion) and a pre-tax profit of US$4 billion ($3.8 billion).This got the Saint thinking about how many of today’s tech giants would still be around in the late 21 st Century. Apple, for example, was founded in 1976, so despite its apparently unassailable position, it has another 65 years t...

A SECURITY researcher has found a way to exploit the microcontroller in Apple’s laptop batteries. According to Accuvant Labs’ Charlie Miller, the security problem could allow malicious exploiters to cause fire or explosions. The microcontroller’s flash memory can also be exploited to create a permanent malware infection which keeps re-infecting a computer after it has been cleansed. Laptop batteries are no longer dumb power-supplying units. Modern batteries include microcontrollers which monitor the battery voltage, current, and temperature. They can also control these factors to optimise battery performance. Miller claims Apple left the default passwords on its Smart Battery System, which he accessed with help from publicly-available documentation. By hacking the microcontrollers, he can reprogram the firmware, causing the battery to erroneously report values, or making the charger overcharge the battery. If the parameters are tampered with incorrectly, the battery co...

GALAXY Resources has signed a partnership deal with US-based K2 Energy for the use of lithium battery technologies. K2 Energy is an established lithium ion battery producer of high energy density batteries. Under the agreement, it will provide expertise, licensing and commercial support for Galaxy’s proposed battery plant in China. Galaxy Resources produces lithium compounds, primarily for batteries. It mines lithium and is also involved in downstream processing to supply lithium carbon. It is proposing to open a processing plant in Jiangsu. Galaxy will have the unrestricted and unlimited use of specific K2 Energy lithium battery technologies, valuable for the Ebike and other battery markets. When coupled with Korean automated plant equipment, Galaxy hopes the technology will allow it to boost R&D and produce world-class lithium ion batteries. K2 Energy is developing large format batteries and battery systems based upon lithium iron phosphate (LiFePO4 or “LFP”) tec...

NEON-EK stock has been supplied with RF-INRA30DS- EB (warm white, 120 degree, 900 mcd) and и RF-WNRA30DS-EB (white, 120 degree, 1200 mcd) packaged  in PLCC-2. It is SMD LEDs based on EPISTAR chips by REFOND Optoelectronics.Apart from such advantages as high quality chips and low degradation they have moderate price 0.036$ Should you have any questions, send an e-mail to julia@e-neon .ru or visit our web-site www.e-neon.ru   NEON-EK presents SMD LEDs based on EPISTAR chips by REFOND Optoelectronics. Electronics News

Energy security, fuel prices, and environmental concerns have increased pressure on the automotive industry to create energy-efficient and environment-friendly vehicle designs. Research in the last decade and a half has led to a range of vehicle designs based on electric drives. These designs include pure electric, hydrogen fuel, and various forms of hybrid electric vehicles (HEV). Challenges abound for electric drive design in general and HEV in particular. Model-Based Design can help automotive engineers effectively address the challenges inherent in implementing these designs in an organisation. The general concept of a hybrid electric vehicle is to combine the right proportion of an electric drive with an internal combustion engine depending on driving conditions, so both can work in their optimal operating range as much as possible. Figure 1: This simplified diagram of an HEV vehicle illustrates one possible arrangement of system elements. Figure 1 shows a simplified schematic of ...

TEXAS Instruments’ second-quarter revenue report indicates the company has been challenged by Japan’s March earthquake. In the second quarter of 2011, Texas Instruments had a revenue of US$3.46 billion, and net income of $672 million. The results represent a profit fall of 13 percent, due mostly to the earthquake. However, the company is also warning of macroeconomic weaknesses ahead. The company experienced growth in the analogue and embedded processing sectors, and resumed production ahead of schedule at the damaged Japan factories. TI said its backlog has increased, and demand from Japanese customers is also increasing. However, the company warned that demand for its chips from some computing and consumer electronics manufacturers is “lukewarm” despite the incoming holiday seasons. TI told shareholders that “mixed macroeconomic and market signals” means growth will only be modest. Japanese earthquake and macroeconomic weaknesses challenge Texas Ins...

SAN FRANCISCO—Intel Corp. said Tuesday (July 26) that Andy Bryant, Intel's chief administrative officer, was elected to the new position of vice chairman of the board of directors in preparation for him to be elected the company's next chairman following Intel's annual stockholder meeting in May 2012. Bryant will serve alongside Intel's current chairman, Jane Shaw, until she retires from the board in May, Intel said. Intel's board was temporarily expanded to 11 members from 10 members until Shaw's retirement, Intel said. Bryant joined Intel in 1981 and served as the company's chief financial officer from 1994 to 2007. Bryant becomes the second Intel executive to serve on the company's current board, joining Intel President and CEO Paul Otellini. When Bryant becomes executive chairman, the board will re-establish the position of lead director to be held by an independent, non-employee director, Intel said. Bryant will transition out of his role as chief a...

SAN FRANCISCO—Texas Instruments Inc. said Wednesday it has shipped more than 30 million power management devices featuring its PowerStack 3-D packaging technology, which the company says offers performance, thermal, power consumption and board space advantages compared with conventional packaging technologies.    Matt Romig, analog packaging product manager at TI, said the PowerStack technology is the first 3-D packaging technology to stack high-side vertical mosfets. PowerStack  combines both high-side and low-side mosfets held in place by copper clips and uses a ground potential exposed pad to provide thermal optimization, Romig said. TI has been shipping power management devices with PowerStack for about a year, Romig said. So far, most of the adoption has been in applications that require very high performance such as telecomm equipment and servers. "This isn't something you are going to see in a cellphone or a tablet," Romig said. PowerStack's combination of st...

LONDON – The Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE) has published the 802.22 standard for Wireless Regional Area Networks (WRANs). The standard covers broadband wireless access at up to 22-Mbps per channel over distances up to 100 kilometers from a transmitter without interfering with terrestrial television broadcasts that use the same part of the spectrum. The standard covers much the same ground as the Weightless standard being developed by Neul Ltd. (Cambridge, England) in that it is intended to provide a framework for "white space" reuse of UHF and VHF spectrum. However, while Neul's Weightless standard is intended to open up access for relatively small data payloads that are part of an internet-of-things IEEE 802.22 is trying to provide secure high-speed broadband communications that are not served by other forms of wired and wireless communications. Under 802.22 each WRAN will deliver up to 22 Mbps per channel without interfering with reception of...

Four universities won a $1.2 million grant to develop prosthetics that deliver sensory information to patients and can be controlled by their thoughts. Rice University, the University of Michigan, Drexel University and the University of Maryland will work on the four-year project with funds from the National Science Foundation's Human-Centered Computing program. Researchers at Rice will build a prosthetic arm that can be controlled by a cap of electrodes that read electrical activity on the scalp using electroencephalography. The EEG information will be combined with real-time data about blood-oxygen levels in the user's frontal lobe using functional near-infrared technology developed by Drexel's brain imaging lab. The prosthetic will include sensors that gather tactile data from its artificial fingertips and information from the hand about the amount of force it uses in grasping. The data will be fed back to the user via touch pads that vibrate, stretch and squeeze the ski...

SAN JOSE, Calif. – The ZigBee Alliance has released ZigBee Gateway, its tenth standard and the first in a new family of planned ZigBee Network Device standards. ZigBee Gateway defines a low cost ZigBee Pro device that lets service providers, businesses and consumers link to the Internet. Future ZigBee Network Device standards will define bridges and range extenders. ZigBee Gateway supports existing ZigBee standards in areas such as building and home automation, health care, retail, smart energy and telecom. The spec also will be covered under the existing ZigBee certification program . "ZigBee networks today routinely access the Internet and ZigBee Gateway makes the job of integrating Internet connectivity simple, especially for developers with little networking experience," said Bob Heile, chairman of the ZigBee Alliance, speaking in a press statement. Zigbee Network Devices, ZigBee Gateway, ZigBee, Wireless, ZigBee gets gateway specification

LONDON – The Industrial Development Agency of Ireland (IDA Ireland) has announced that chip company Analog Devices Inc. is embarking on a 50 million euro (about $70 million) R&D investment program at its Raheen campus near Limerick. The program is expected to create approximately 100 jobs in areas such as IC design and applications engineering over the next five years, the IDA said. The plan includes the construction of a 140,000-square-foot R&D center. IDA Ireland is supporting the expansion plan but the level of support was not disclosed. The announcement builds on a 23 million euro (about $30 million) investment in Ireland made by ADI in June 2010 as part of a manufacturing expansion program (see ADI to spend $28 million on Irish R&D ). ADI has been operating in Ireland for 35 years and currently employs over 1,000 people in Limerick, where it a wafer fab and conducts R&D on data converters, mixed-signal and RF ICs. "The contributions of our Limerick-based team ...

LONDON – Mobile chip company ST-Ericsson is set to close R&D sites as part of the latest round of restructuring, according to CEO Gilles Delfassy. A site in Basingstoke, England, has already been earmarked for closure with a loss of up to 139 jobs, according to a local report. ST-Ericsson announced a net loss of $221 million on sales revenue of $385 million in the second quarter of 2011 and on telephone conference with analysts to discuss the results Delfassy was asked whether closure of R&D sites would happen. "Yes, we have a lot of R&D sites; not always easy to handle; not the most inexpensive solution," said Delfassy on the conference call and webcast. "Yes, you can assume our direction is to concentrate on fewer, bigger R&D sites. That's a safe assumption," he concluded. ST-Ericsson is 50:50 joint venture between STMicroelectronics NV and Ericsson AB and also includes employees from NXP's wireless business that were wrapped up into ST-NXP...

SAN FRANCISCO—Shares of semiconductor equipment vendor Lam Research Corp. halted trading Wednesday (July 27), before the company reported quarterly results that beat analysts' expectations but warned of a significant decline equipment spending that would cause its revenue to contract in the previous quarter. "We are seeing significant near term declines in wafer fab equipment spending, and as result our September quarter shipments, revenues and earnings per share will be well below our June quarter results," said Steve Newberry, Lam's CEO, in a statement. In a conference call with analysts following the quarterly report, Newberry said investment by foundries and in DRAM capacity has slowed in recent months, although NAND capacity and conversion investments remain strong. Newberry said Lam now expects total wafer fab equipment spending to be between $29 billion and $32 billion in 2011, an increase of as much as 10 percent over 2010, but down from Lam's previous 201...

SAN JOSE, Calif. – Industry groups are blasting a much-anticipated report from the Institute of Medicine (IoM) that calls for scrapping the current regulatory process used by the vast majority of medical devices. A panel of 13 experts convened by the IoM said he U.S. Food and Drug Administration should replace the 35-year-old 510(k) process used to approve moderate-risk medical devices. It called for creating an entirely new process but only provided rough guidelines for what that process might be. "It's not clear that the 510(k) process is serving the needs of either industry or patients, and simply modifying it again will not help," said David Challoner, emeritus vice president for health affairs at the University of Florida, Gainesville who chaired the IoM panel . "While current information is not adequate to immediately start designing a new framework, we believe the agency can get the necessary data and establish a new process within a reasonable time frame,...

IBM, the U.S.-based technology and services giant, recently celebrated its 100 th birthday. But the company was lucky to make it after a ‘near death’ experience in 1993 following the highest loss (US$5 billion) in U.S. corporate history at that time.IBM had failed to take competitors seriously and found its dominant market position in PCs irretrievably eroded as more nimble companies ‘cloned’ IBM’s products and undercut its prices.IBM was saved by then CEO Lou Gerstner’s realisation that it couldn’t compete in hardware and should therefore refocus on services and software. For the first quarter of 2011, IBM generated revenues of US$24.6 billion ($22.7 billion) and a pre-tax profit of US$4 billion ($3.8 billion).This got the Saint thinking about how many of today’s tech giants would still be around in the late 21 st Century. Apple, for example, was founded in 1976, so despite its apparently unassailable position, it has another 65 years t...

The first MEMS accelerometers in iPhones and the Wii revolutionized the user interface by introducing natural motion as an input mechanism, but it's taken a while for designers to figure out how best to use these capabilities. Now the inertial sensors are starting to move into a wider range of motion control and precision location applications, helped along by lower costs, and by the generally maturing of the knowledge base and infrastructure that are making the sensor data easier to use. Yole Développement projects these developments will drive accelerometers and magnetometers to be designed in to close to 50 percent of all mobile phones within five years, and gyroscopes to be included in some 20 percent, mostly at the higher-end smart phone part of the market. Gyroscopes are already in almost all tablets, mostly because Apple still so dominates that market with better than 90 percent share. We expect usage of inertial sensors in consumer electronics will increase by about 24 pe...

A SECURITY researcher has found a way to exploit the microcontroller in Apple’s laptop batteries. According to Accuvant Labs’ Charlie Miller, the security problem could allow malicious exploiters to cause fire or explosions. The microcontroller’s flash memory can also be exploited to create a permanent malware infection which keeps re-infecting a computer after it has been cleansed. Laptop batteries are no longer dumb power-supplying units. Modern batteries include microcontrollers which monitor the battery voltage, current, and temperature. They can also control these factors to optimise battery performance. Miller claims Apple left the default passwords on its Smart Battery System, which he accessed with help from publicly-available documentation. By hacking the microcontrollers, he can reprogram the firmware, causing the battery to erroneously report values, or making the charger overcharge the battery. If the parameters are tampered with incorrectly, the battery co...

LONDON – SofCheck Inc., best known as a vendor of software analysis and verification technology and Ada Compilers, is working on a parallel programming language called ParaSail that has been presented at two learned conferences recently. ParaSail – for Parallel Specification and Implementation Language – is being developed "from scratch" and is particularly aimed at safety-critical systems where C/C++, and parallelizations of C/C++ are notoriously unsafe but it is also intended to make use of abundant processing resources that will soon be potentially available. It is SofCheck's assertion that chips with more than 64 cores will become relatively easy to make, but they will prove difficult to program effectively without a well-constructed parallel programming language. SofCheck (Burlington, Mass.) is led by chairman and chief technology officer Tucker Taft who is well known as an industry leader in compiler construction and programming language design. It was Taft, whil...

SAN JOSE, Calif. – A major report on the future of medical device regulations to be released tomorrow is already drawing criticism. The Institute of Medicine will release tomorrow a report commissioned last year by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration. The report is expected to provide recommendations about several of the most controversial issues around regulating medical devices. In January , the FDA released plans for as many as 25 changes it will make starting this year to its so-called 510(k) process, the primary regulatory pathway for medical devices. The agency deferred to the IoM report on about seven contentious questions. They include: Should the FDA have power to revoke a 510(k)? Should the FDA create a new Class IIb category for devices? Should the FDA consider "off-label" uses of a device when reviewing it? Should the FDA continue reviewing products even after they have been approved for use? Should companies be required to keep on hand exam...

SAN FRANCISCO—Digital TV chip vendor Trident Microsystems Inc. Thursday (July 28) announced it reached an agreement to license some of its video processing technology and reported a narrower second quarter loss on sales that fell short of consensus analysts' expectations. Trident said it  agreed to license its motion estimation and motion compensation (MEMC) video processing technology to multimedia SoC vendor Sunplus Technology Co. Ltd. Financial terms of the royalty-based license agreement were not disclosed. Trident (Sunnyvale, Calif.) said the non-exclusive patent licensing deal is part of the company's ongoing effort to make a limited number of licenses for its MEMC patent portfolio available to TV OEMs and consumer electronics semiconductor providers. This is the second patent license agreement that Trident has announced for its MEMC patents. Earlier this year, the company announced a licensing agreement with Taiwan's MStar Semiconductor Inc. covering part of Trident...

NEON-EK stock has been supplied with RF-INRA30DS- EB (warm white, 120 degree, 900 mcd) and и RF-WNRA30DS-EB (white, 120 degree, 1200 mcd) packaged  in PLCC-2. It is SMD LEDs based on EPISTAR chips by REFOND Optoelectronics.Apart from such advantages as high quality chips and low degradation they have moderate price 0.036$ Should you have any questions, send an e-mail to julia@e-neon .ru or visit our web-site www.e-neon.ru   NEON-EK presents SMD LEDs based on EPISTAR chips by REFOND Optoelectronics. Electronics News

SAN FRANCISCO—Chip makers Maxim Integrated Products Inc. and LSI Corp. and semiconductor capital equipment vendor KLA-Tencor Corp. delivered quarterly results this week that exceeded analysts. Maxim (Sunnyvale, Calif.) reported record revenue of $626.5 million for the quarter ended June 25, up 3 percent from the prior quarter and up 11 percent compared to the same period of 2010. The company posted a net income based on generally accepted accounting principles (GAAP) or $125.6 million, or 42 cents per share, down 8 percent from the previous quarter and up 115 percent from the year-ago quarter.   Consensus analysts' expectations called for Maxim to report sales of $625.5 million and earnings of 42 cents per share, according to Yahoo Finance. Maxim said it expects revenue for the current quarter to be between $625 million and $655 million. "We are aware of the current macro economic uncertainty and are prepared to react to various revenue scenarios," said Tunc Doluca, Maxim...

Energy security, fuel prices, and environmental concerns have increased pressure on the automotive industry to create energy-efficient and environment-friendly vehicle designs. Research in the last decade and a half has led to a range of vehicle designs based on electric drives. These designs include pure electric, hydrogen fuel, and various forms of hybrid electric vehicles (HEV). Challenges abound for electric drive design in general and HEV in particular. Model-Based Design can help automotive engineers effectively address the challenges inherent in implementing these designs in an organisation. The general concept of a hybrid electric vehicle is to combine the right proportion of an electric drive with an internal combustion engine depending on driving conditions, so both can work in their optimal operating range as much as possible. Figure 1: This simplified diagram of an HEV vehicle illustrates one possible arrangement of system elements. Figure 1 shows a simplified schematic of ...