NIWeek: Xilinx honours team for LabView FPGA design

Xilinx has honoured the winner of the LabView FPGA Innovation Award at a ceremony during the NIWeek 2012, National Instruments' technology conference and exhibition in Austin, Texas.

The winning design team was selected by a judging panel of National Instruments and Xilinx represenattives to have the most innovative application using LabVIEW system design software to program the FPGA in NI hardware.

The Data Science Automation design team was recognized for its use of FPGA technology in a mission-critical oil and gas industry field application. 

"I'm proud to honor this year's LabVIEW FPGA award recipients from Data Science Automation for exemplifying the tremendous performance, flexibility and freedom afforded by FPGAs for tackling complex engineering challenges to address practical applications that impact our everyday lives," said Xilinx vice president for processing platforms, Larry Getman.
The company's "Developing a Hydraulic Fracturing Pump Controller" paper describes a new real-time system with built-in operator safety procedures for monitoring and controlling a hydraulic oil well fracturing pump under hazardous environmental conditions in which pressures can exceed 15,000 pounds per square inch at an injection rate of more than 10 barrels per minute.
Using LabVIEW to program the FPGA in CompactRIO, the engineering team built an affordable system that met stringent performance, price and time-to-market requirements. The system not only controls the hydraulic fracturing pump for operator and equipment safety, but carefully monitors surrounding conditions to ensure environmental safety and protection on the job site. 
FPGA technology in the CompactRIO enables high-channel density, high-speed processing and automated control.  

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Microchip signs global deal with Arrow

Microchip Technology has signed a global distribution deal with Arrow Electronics.
This global agreement includes Microchip’s complete line of 8-bit, 16-bit and 32-bit PIC microcontrollers, analogue and interface semiconductors, wireless solutions, and memory devices, along with related development tools.

Arrow is also a principal distributor for Standard Microsystems Corporation (SMSC) that was recently acquired by Microchip.
“This is a strong addition to our global linecard,” said Jeff Eastman, Arrow's senior v-p of global supplier marketing and asset management.

“Microchip’s resources aid in almost every aspect of a customer’s design, from concept to production,” said Eastman.
“Arrow is already franchised with SMSC products,” said Mitch Little, Microchip’s v-p of worldwide sales and applications. “This partnership is an important part of our ongoing efforts to make it easier for customers to create successful end products.”
Microchip completed the $900m acquisition of  SMSC earlier this month.
“We believe SMSC’s smart mixed-signal connectivity solutions aimed at embedded applications are an ideal complement to Microchip’s embedded control business,” said Steve Sanghi, Microchip’s president and CEO.

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Discordant bits and single photons boost quantum power

Exploiting the weirdness inherent in the quantum world to create new technologies just got a little easier, thanks to two breakthroughs. One suggests that an untapped quantum phenomenon previously dismissed as mere "noise" could give quantum computers a boost. The second harnesses objects known as quantum dots, used previously in brain science and computing, to make quantum code-sharing more secure.
The quantum world, with particles that can be in multiple places at once, is known for its strange properties. Perhaps the most famous example is entanglement, which inextricably links particles no matter how far apart they are in space.
Most quantum computers exploit entanglement: the idea is that some problems could be run much faster on a computer that has entangled quantum bits, or qubits, instead of ordinary ones. But entanglement has proved difficult to tame, especially outside the lab.
Now Mile Gu of the Centre for Quantum Technologies at National University of Singapore and colleagues have shown that a property called quantum discord might replace it in quantum computing.
Quantum discord is a type of interference and was previously dismissed as unhelpful noise. But when Gu's team used the phenomenon to encode information into laser light, they found that this increased the amount of original information that they could retrieve afterwards. Their experiment doesn't count as a quantum computation, but it hints at a new way of doing quantum computing that is free of pesky entanglement. Gu told PhysOrg:
"Our research has identified that quantum discord, a more robust and easy-to-access phenomenon than entanglement, can also deliver quantum advantage."
Computing isn't the only potential application of quantum weirdness. Sven Hoefling and colleagues at the University of Würzburg in Germany have found a way to increase the security of quantum key distribution, in which a secret key that can subsequently be used to encrypt a message is transmitted via single photons.
QKD is secure because once a quantum object, such as a single photon, has been observed, it is irrevocably changed. So if the key is intercepted by an eavesdropper, the receiver would know about it.
The trouble is that producing just one photon is not easy. Until now most QKD experiments have been performed by winnowing down streams of photons emitted by lasers. But there is always a chance that an extra photon has slipped through, in which case the key might be intercepted without the receiver's knowledge.
Hoefling and colleagues instead transmitted a key using photons produced by quantum dots, nanoparticles capable of producing single photons without the need for a filter.
Quantum dots, also touted for their potential to form computer memories, and more recently to activate brain cells, have the advantage of being made from semiconductors, which may make them easier to convert into a commercial technology. As Hoefling told the BBC:
"Semiconductors are at the heart of all the technology we use. You can really benefit from that, because you don't need to make a whole new chain of technology."

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NIWeek: First RF vector signal transceiver unveiled

National Instruments has unveiled at NIWeek in Austin, its first RF vector signal transceiver on the PXI virtual instrumentation bus.
The PXIe-5644R RF vector signal transceiver is a software-designed instrument which combines a vector signal generator and vector signal analyser with a user-programmable FPGA into a single PXI modular instrument.
As a result engineers can use the LabView design system to optimise the FPGA-based hardware for specific mobile and other wireless applications.
“When we first started our company, we envisioned the central role software would play in instrumentation, and now we are truly seeing LabVIEW revolutionize the way engineers approach RF design and test,”  said Dr. James Truchard, president, CEO and cofounder of National Instruments.
The instrument covers up to 6.0GHz and has an 80MHz instantaneous RF bandwidth. This makes the transciever suitable for wireless standards such as 802.11ac and LTE.
It can be expanded to support multiple input, multiple output (MIMO) configurations or parallel testing in a single PXI chassis.

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Smartphones drive strong mobile DRAM sales

Due to growing smartphones and tablet sales, mobile DRAM is set to hit a record $6.56bn in revenues this year, up 10% from 2011, according to an IHS iSuppli Mobile & Embedded Memory Market Brief.
Mobile DRAM density in smartphones increased from 2.28Gbit to 5.85Gbit in the last two years.

The expansion is even greater in tablets, with the mobile DRAM average density soaring fourfold during the same period from to 8.33Gbit.
Mobile DDR DRAM chips differ from standard DRAM with power-saving features including lower operating voltage and optimised refresh rates.
“The mobile DRAM segment is achieving impressive growth as mobile operating systems, streaming apps and games require more memory to handle sophisticated tasks,” said Ryan Chien, analyst for memory & storage at IHS.

“Crucial features like multitasking, media decoding and decompression, data synchronization and background operations are all driving DRAM needs—and new phones and tablets are meeting those needs with their rise in mobile DRAM densities,” said Chien.

The standard DRAM market grew by 3% over the same period.
Owing to the lagging sales of PC computing behind handsets and tablets, revenue growth for standard DRAM this year is anticipated to be weak.

While mobile DRAM average selling prices have been falling over time in line with the overall memory space, prices remain relatively firm for mobile DRAM chips because of a number of factors, including high demand, a smaller supply base and healthy density growth.

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Xilinx pushes Zynq-7000 to 1GHz on TSMC 28nm process

Xilinx says it has increased the top processing performance spec of its Zynq-7000 programmable SoC devices to 1GHz.

This is a 25% increase over initial specifications for the two largest Zynq-7000 devices.
Target applications are likely to be in high-end image and graphic processing applications within the medical, aerospace and defence markets.
“A significant factor behind our ability to take the Zynq-7000 family to 1GHz is Xilinx’s choice of TSMC’s 28nm HPL process, which we are using for our entire 28nm generation to bring the value of low-power with high-performance to customers,” said Vidya Rajagopalan, Xilinx’s vice president of processing solutions.
Based around an ARM dual-core Cortex-A9 MPCore processing system, the Zynq-7045 device is the largest member of Xilinx’s family of All Programmable SoCs with more than 5 million equivalent Asic gates (350k logic cells), sixteen 12.5Gbit/s serial transceivers and 1334 GMACS of peak DSP performance.

The Zynq-7045 devices pushes programmable systems integration a step further by providing a hard PCIe Gen2 x8 block, (PCIe x8 Gen3 can be implemented using a soft core in the programmable logic), with high performance SelectIO technology supporting up to 1866Mbit/s for additional DDR3 memory interfaces and 1.6Gbit/s for LVDS interfaces in DDR mode.
Zynq-7010 devices are also available in the CLG225 package measuring 13 x 13mm.
Zynq-7045 devices are currently shipping to select Early Access customers. Broader availability will begin next quarter. 

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Toshiba will start volume production of a 3Tbyte HDD this month.

The 3.5 inch drive is aimed at consumer products. It complies with the EU RoHS directives.
There are variations: one for desktop PCs; one for digital video; one for low power consumption applications.
High-speed data transfers are secured by adoption of SATA I/F capable of a 6Gb/s transfer rate.

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UMC growing sales

UMC, the No.3 foundry, saw July revenues climb 3.49% on June and over 9% on July 2011.
July revenues were $320m up from the $310m of June 2011 and up on the $293m of July 2011.
So far this year, UMC has had revenues of $2.03bn which is 6.3% down on the $2.17bn of the January to July period last year.

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Energy harvesting design explored

Everyone’s talking about energy harvesting – but what exactly is it? The term is often used as a paraphrase for the whole range of low-power applications, yet the “harvesters” themselves are only one part of a larger system, writes Ingo Seehagen, a field application engineer at Avnet Memec.
Energy harvester circuits are used in electronic systems that need to be self-sufficient in energy – in other words, those that are not powered by mains electricity or batteries. They can also be used to extend battery life.

In all these systems, the collection, transformation, storage and use of energy need to be coordinated with one another. They capture and transform energy from different sources, including thermal, kinetic and optical. One of the issues here is that the energy that results from these transformation processes is often not sufficient to power electronic systems in a reliable way. This is where integrated circuits come in.

These manage all power management functions like capture and storage of the charge, protection against undervoltage, and provision of energy for the system – more or less autonomously.  Once they have gone to the trouble of capturing energy, the device clearly shouldn’t waste it. This is why it’s a good idea to use elements that have the lowest possible energy consumption. What do these circuits need to do when they’re in use?

Their objective is to transform, store and make available the energy surrounding the system as effectively as possible so that it can be powered without needing any other energy sources.

Autonomously-powered systems are coming into their own with the widespread and growing availability of electronic components that have very low energy requirements, and the energy harvesting trend is another factor contributing to the rapid growth of these technologies. Taking the example of a wireless sensor, the point is not only to save money implementing it but also reduce its operating cost throughout its useful life.  

An energy harvesting evaluation platform developed by Avnet Memec in collaboration with Maxim Integrated Products and Energy Micro is intended to enable developers to learn about energy harvesting and start using these energy-independent systems. The first version is based on the existing evaluation platforms for Maxim Integrated Products’ MAX17710 energy harvester and for the EFM32TG840F32 energy-saving microcontroller from Energy Micro’s Tiny Gecko range.

The MAX17710 incorporates all the power management functions needed for energy harvesting applications. These include functions for charging and protecting the THINERGY Micro-Energy Cell (MEC) from Infinite Power Solutions (IPS), which is integrated in the evaluation kit.

The IC can manage poorly regulated sources such as energy-harvesting devices with output levels ranging from 1µW to 100mW. The device also includes a boost regulator circuit for charging the cell from a source as low as 0.75V. The evaluation board is powered by a solar cell and an internal regulator protects the cell from overcharging. Output voltages supplied to the target applications are regulated using an efficient adjustable low-dropout (LDO) linear regulator with selectable voltages of 3.3V, 2.3V, or 1.8V.

It also includes protection against undervoltage and output buffer management for the lithium cell. The IC’s lithium charger only requires 1nA standby power (IQBATT).

The MAX 17710 does not require any complex external wiring and is delivered in a 3mm x 3mm x 0.5mm 12-pin UTDFN package.  It charges the cell via an external energy source on the CHG pin.

Whenever the voltage on the CHG pin is greater than the battery voltage (BATT), the cell is charged with no intervention. If CHG exceeds the VCE threshold, the internal regulator limits the voltage to 4.125V to protect the cell from overcharging.  Also at this time, any undervoltage lockout (UVLO) is reset, allow¬ing the LDO to power the application load and the UVLO is reactivated as soon as the charge is removed.

Whenever the external harvest source drives the CHG pin above 5.3V, an internal shunt regulator protects the CHG pin. This shunt can sustain currents of up to 50mA. If there is any chance of the harvest source exceeding this power level, an external protection circuit should be added to prevent damage to the MAX17710. 

A simple internal boost regulator also enables the use of low-voltage harvest sources, such as solar cells or thermo-electronic generators (TEG). The boost regulator can work with power from as low as 1µW (in pulsed harvest mode) and up to 100mW (continuous conversion). As a result, the IC can provide over 20mA (80mW) if it has a suitable harvest source (0.8V) and a lithium cell of 4.1V. 

An important component of the evaluation board is the THINERGY Micro-Energy Cell (MEC) from Infinite Power Solutions (IPS). These MECs are a completely new type of battery – a solid-state battery that lasts for a system’s entire lifecycle, has many advantages compared to conventional small batteries and supercapacitors, and actually combines the benefits of both.

This makes MECs ideal for use in energy harvesting systems, as they can handle high current levels, have up to 50 times more energy density and 4000 times less leakage than a supercap, and can be recharged 100 times more often than conventional rechargeable batteries. In addition, they are extremely compact with a thickness of just 0.17 mm and are flexible too, making them easy to use. These features also allow them to be used in applications that cannot use ordinary batteries.

The MCU used in the energy harvesting evaluation platform is from Energy Micro’s Tiny Gecko range. Based on a highly efficient ARM Cortex-M3 core, Gecko microcontrollers are currently the best devices available on the market from the energy consumption point of view.

They achieve 150µA/MHz in active mode and 900nA in deep-sleep mode (EM2), in which the real-time clock, brownout detection, power-on reset and RAM and CPU retention remain active. 

The evaluation platform uses the Tiny Gecko Starter Kit (EFM32-G8XX-STK) which includes an EFM32TG840F32 microcontroller. The device’s extremely low power consumption derives from a combination of the following ten factors.
1. Very low active power consumption in active mode:
210 µA/MHz at 3V at 1MHz
150 µA/MHz at 3V at 25 MHz
150 µA/MHz at 3V at 32 MHz
2. Reduced processing time due to the performance of the Cortex-M3 at  1.25 DMIPS/MHz
3. Very fast wake-up time from the sleep modes – only 2µs
4. Ultra-low standby current at 20 nA shutoff at 3V / 900 nA deep sleep (POR, BOD, RTC, RAM and CPU retained)
5. Autonomous peripherals work with sleeping CPU; comprehensive DMA support
6. Peripheral Reflex System – direct, configurable connections between the peripherals
7. Well-architected energy modes
EM0 “Run Mode”   : 150µA/MHz
EM1 “Sleep Mode”  : 45µA/MHz
EM2 “Deep Sleep Mode” : 900 nA (RTC, BOD, POR, RAM & CPU)
EM3 “Stop Mode”  : 600 nA (BOD, RAM & CPU)
EM4 “Shutoff Mode”  : 20 nA  (Pin / GPIO reset)
8. Ultra energy efficient peripherals
Analogue digital converter 12-bit at 1 MSamples/s  : 350 µA
    6-bit at 1 kSamples/s  : 500 nA
Low-power UART    150 nA at 9600 baud/s
LCD Controller   4 x 40    : 550 nA
9. Low Energy Sensor Interface
Autonomous monitoring in EM2, up to 16 sensors simultaneously, configurable
10. Advanced Energy Monitoring with a debugging tool for the real-time analysis of power consumption, dependent on object code.
Simplicity Studio is used as the IDE in the kit. From the interface, users have access to all updates and news about Energy Micro, as well as to the latest documentation for the MCUs, software and kits. They also have a direct link to the integrated “energy aware tools”. 

These enable developers to identify and eliminate any energy-related weak points in their software during the development phase. Compilers from IAR, KEIL and ROWLEY and an Eclipse-based free toolchain can be integrated if required.

As with all the evaluation boards from Energy Micro, the EFM32-G8XX-STK includes a fully-functional USB J-Link debugger. That enables developers to debug software cost-effectively on Energy Micro boards and use the debug-out interface later for their Energy Micro based hardware.

The Energy Micro ecosystem also includes debug adapters, IDE and compilers as well as middleware and programmers.

Energy Micro will also soon be launching the first of its low power radios that will initially support three system implementations:

1. Transceiver + MCU
2. Network Processor + MCU
3. System-on-Chip (SoC).

These support frequencies from 167MHz to 2.5GHz, enabling them to be used anywhere in the world. Third-party and Energy Micro protocol stacks are also available and include Wireless M-Bus, Bluetooth LE, KNX, and io-Homecontrol as well as ZigBee and RF4CE based on 802.15.4(g).

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Microchip moves serial EEPROMs to 5V

Microchip has introduced its first serial SRAM which operates off 5V. Likely applications are in automotive and industrial applications. 

The EEPROM market has completely moved to serial interfaces, and the flash market is also making this transition, due to the higher cost, board space and power consumption of parallel devices.

These 512kbit and 1Mbit SPI devices come in 8-pin packages. Speeds of up to 80Mbit/s are achieved via the quad-SPI, or SQI, protocol, providing the zero write-cycle times with near instantaneous data movement needed for offloading graphics, data buffering, displays and audio.
With their fast dual-SPI (SDI) throughput of 40Mbit/s and low active and sleep currents, these serial NVSRAM devices feature high-speed operation without the high pin counts of parallel NVSRAM, and power consumption comparable to FRAM, at lower price. 
This is beneficial for applications such as meters, black boxes and other data recorders, which require unlimited endurance or instantaneous writes in addition to non-volatile storage.
The integration of a SPI enables these SRAM to support the trend towards serial interfaces.

All six devices from the new serial SRAM family are available in 8-pin SOIC, TSSOP and PDIP packages, with density options of 512kbit and 1Mbit. 

The 23A1024 and 23LC1024 are available now for sampling and volume production, whilst the 23A512 and 23LC512 are expected to be available for sampling and volume production in October. The two non-volatile devices, 23LCV512 and 23LCV1024, are expected to be available for sampling and volume production in October.

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NIWeek: LabView 2012 has iPad app

National Instruments has introduced the latest version of its LabVIEW system design software on the first day of its NIWeek conference in Austin, Texas.

"New features and resources in LabVIEW 2012 promote training and drive development practices to help our customers deliver high-performance and high-quality systems in less time, thereby minimizing development and maintenance costs," said Dr. James Truchard, president, CEO and co-founder of National Instruments.
There are new design templates and sample projects, intended to give users gain ready-to-run starting points for different LabVIEW applications.
National Instruments has also introduced its first RF vector signal transceiver, the NI PXIe-5644R aimed at FPGA-based LTE mobile system design.

"When we first started our company, we envisioned the central role software would play in instrumentation, and now we are truly seeing LabVIEW revolutionise the way engineers approach RF design and test," said Dr Truchard.
The NI PXIe-5644R covers up to 6.0GHz and has an 80MHz instantaneous RF bandwidth. This makes the transciever suitable for wireless standards such as 802.11ac and LTE.

LabVIEW 2012 also includes new tools for high-performance analysis and advanced image processing.
There are also mobile apps for display and control on an iPad.

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NXP adds DSP to turn up volume in smartphones

NXP is using a DSP and measurement of both output current and voltage to push 2.6Wrms through phone speakers.

The product, called TFA9887, is a single chip intended to replace standard audio amplifier ICs in phones.
Loudspeakers inside phones are already marvels of acoustic engineering, producing clear sound from remarkably small packages.
Two things limit the amount of power than can be driven into phone speakers: over-heating and over-excursion.
“These microspeakers are typically rated at 0.5W max,” Shawn Scarlett, director of mobile audio at NXP, told Electronics Weekly. “After that, heat melts the glue and resonant excursions crack and tear the speaker membrane.”
According to Scarlett, these issues are usually addressed by simple amplitude limits and filtering, or basic open loop techniques.
“Essentially, in development, phone makers turn the audio up till they have reliability problems, and then turn it back a bit,” he said. And to avoid resonance “right now, all phones on market have high-pass filter at around 1kHz”.
The open-loop techniques, said Scarlett, include calculating voice coil temperature from knowledge of its impedance, derived from sensing output current and voltage, and knowledge of its temperature/impedance characteristic.
This allows power to be limited when the coil gets hot.
Through knowledge of the speaker’s resonant frequency drift with temperature, it further allows a notch filter to be placed over the inferred resonant frequency - so bass music can be reproduced with the notch keeping the speaker safe from over-excursion.
However, this way of applying a notch requires that it be over-wide - wide enough to allow for initial manufacturing tolerance in the speaker, variations in thermal drift coefficient, and aging.
“Some guys focus on temperature to predict resonance shift, but if dirt clogs the speaker port, resonance changes,” said Scarlett. “Putting the phone in a poor case which blocks the speaker port can change resonance to around 2kHz.”
After three years of work, NXP claims that, from the output voltage and current, its DSP can remove all guess-work by calculating resonant frequency live, as well as carving an appropriate notch out of the incoming audio spectrum.
“A current-sampling stage built into amplifier allows us to really know what is going on in the speaker,” said Scarlett. “We look at impedance over the whole frequency range and see the resonance. We can use a notch with much tighter margins because we are actually measuring it.”
Because distance/volt force factor does not vary significantly between speakers, he said, speaker diaphragm movement can be estimated to calculate how much can be let through the notch.
“We are running a co-processor, compressing on speaker excursion not voltage, so we can look at when speaker becomes non-linear,” said Scarlett. “With us, you can add 6dB compared with state-of-the-art phone today and get twice the perceived volume. And there are no low frequency problems - you can add 10dB at 400Hz.”
So, what practical difference does that make?

“If you play Queen’s Another One Bites the Dust, the bass guitar is there, which is isn’t normally on a phone,” he said.
NXP claims its chip will work with any phone speaker, providing four speaker-related parameters including the thermal coefficient of the coil are saved to the chip.
As with many phone amplifiers, to save power the output stage’s voltage rail can be changed depending on the output amplitude required.
In this case, the rail is either direct battery volts, or 5V generated by an on-chip dc-dc converter - which is turned off when it is not needed.
“An advantage of integrating a DSP is that, if battery voltage starts to drop, it can calculate when clipping is going to happen and turn on the dc-dc converter.
With control over the dc-dc converter and knowledge of the speaker’s excursion, different operating modes are possible.
“We can go for maximum volume for the ring tone, then load a profile to extend bass as much as possible to watch movies,” said Scarlett. “We give the phone designer a set of tools to optimise for sound quality: for example, to set how much clipping they will allow.”

There are actually six parameters fed back into the local DSP.
“It is not looking at just I/V resonance. We sense six points which really allows us to look at sound pressure level and sound quality,” said Scarlett. “If you try to do that on a separate DSP, current and voltage would have to be provided full bandwidth real-time. If you tried to pass it all to the application processor, you would use up every bus you have.”
Audio is delivered to it over an I²S bus and control including volume and mute over I²C.
Digital quiescent current is 5mA with the DSP off, and 20mA with it on at full speed.

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Comment: Eastman Kodak patent auction highlights value of IP

Patent portfolios are rapidly becoming the single most valuable asset for technology companies
With Eastman Kodak’s long-awaited patent auction taking place tomorrow, it is rapidly becoming clear that patent portfolios should now be regarded as the single most valuable asset for technology companies.
Eastman Kodak’s patent auction is in fact a last ditch attempt to recoup some of the company’s financial losses and save it from bankruptcy and while the outcome is by no means certain, reports that some major bidders are circling has led to speculation that the proceeds could reach around $2 billion.
See also: Electronics patent of the month: Aiding pilot choice of flight path modes
If last year’s Nortel patent auction is anything to go by, Kodak will be expecting to secure this kind of sum and this could be enough to ensure the business lives to see another day despite its financial losses. Ultimately, it may even have a chance to rebuild itself.
The fact that a patent portfolio can come to the rescue in this way is highly significant.  In the past, technology companies have been valued first and foremost based on capital considerations and other physical assets. More recently, brand and goodwill have been regarded as valuable and now patent portfolios are emerging as the single most valuable asset a technology company can own.
As speculation mounts as to which bidder will succeed in acquiring Kodak’s patent portfolio, the auction, which takes place on 8th August 2012, is expected to attract a high level of interest.
Consisting of about 1,100 patents, Kodak’s portfolio includes a large chunk of fundamental digital-imaging technology found in almost every image capable device and this will be viewed as potentially very useful to a variety of technology companies. However, the value of the portfolio has been compromised by a series of recent decisions by the US International Trade Commission. Its most recent decision has rendered some of Kodak’s most valuable and most litigated patents, such as the technology that makes it possible to preview images using a digital camera, invalid.
We will have to wait and see whether the auction achieves the funds expected, but if it does, it will underline the growing importance of patent portfolios as a valuable asset.

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Murky Q3

Traditionally the strongest quarter of the year, Q3 is proving to be a tricky quarter for the industry to forecast with some wider than usual spreads on guidance.
Seeking Alpha points out that Intel is guiding 2-10% growth; Qualcomm -4 to +5%; TI -4 to +4%; ST -5 to +5.5%; Broadcom 1 to 9%; Altera 2 to 6%.
There are some notable exceptions who see a stellar Q3: Cirrus Logic is guiding 72 to 92% growth for the quarter which might say something about Apple's plans for a 7 inch tablet and/or iPhone 5. Apple is Cirrus' largest customer.
Then there's SanDisk guiding 11 to 21% suggesting that SSDs could be in big demand. "Our SSD SKUs continue to grow nicely," it was said at the earnings call, "and we are moving the company higher up the value chain with our SSD software solutions."
Skyworks is guiding 7 to 8% growth after rising 6.6% in Q2 on Q1, MediaTek is guiding 13-18% growth and Triquint is another one predicting a great quarter guiding 10 to 15% growth.
There are some big spreads: ST at -5 to +5.5%; Freescale at -7 to +2%; PMC-Sierra at -6 to 0%; Maxim at 0 to +5% - all suggesting that the difficulties of knowing what you're doing in the semiconductor industry have not got any easier.

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MediaTek soars

MediaTek, the Taiwan wireless chip vendor which is challenging Qualcomm and Broadcom, saw sales soar 18% in July to $309m. Sales have topped $1.5bn for the year so far.
For Q3 the company expects 13-18% growth to around $840m with a gross margin of  41-43%.
The company expects to sell 95m wireless ICs this year mainly because of the demand from China.
MediaTek is about to maerge with its Taiwanese neighbour MStar.

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Pervasive magnetic sensors

Magnetic sensors grew 22% last year. The biggest application areas are automotive, in current and motion-control positioning and navigation systems.
The six largest suppliers of magnetic sensors who collectively mop up 80% of the $1.5bn market, are:
Asahi Micro Devices
Allegro MicroSystems
Infineon Technologies
Micronas
Melexis
NXP
The automotive market was worth $731m last year; the wireless-consumer market was worth $550m; industrial-military-energy-medical sector was worth $153mand the data processing segment, was worth $65m.
This year the market is expected to grow 13%.

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Interview: Congatec CEO says processor choice is key

Gerhard Edi, CEO of Congatec talks to Electronics Weekly about the impact ARM is having on the Intel dominated embedded processor market.  
As a provider of embedded computer modules for Intel, ARM and AMD, what’s your take on the current processor market? How do the different processors size up against each other?
Gerhard Edi: Most of our COMs utilize Intel processors which scale from power saving Intel Atom up to the 3rd Generation Intel Core i7 processors. AMD comes into play when high performance integrated graphics are required.

In order to offer a solution for applications which require even lower power consumption we offer Qseven modules based on ARM Cortex 9 (Freescale i.MX6) processors.

These processors are used on standardized COM form factors like COM Express and Qseven, which provides the ability to exchange modules. Qseven allows designers to switch between ARM and x86 architecture without changing the carrier board or the system design.
Congatec is a founding member of SGET, a new Standardization Group for Embedded Technologies. Does the industry really need another standards group and how is this initiative different from previous ones?
Gerhard Edi: Existing committees for standardization are quite old and slow in their structure and organization. The young and fresh SGET group allows new specifications to be generated in less time. This is necessary because technology is changing fast and new standards for upcoming technologies need to be established as early as possible in order to avoid multiple vendor driven, non-standardized solutions with no interchangeability.

What functionalities and/or technical features will drive the next generation of embedded standards?
Gerhard Edi: Right now we see no requirements for a completely new COM standard. COM Express was recently updated to Rev. 2.1 and provides a very complete set of interfaces thanks to the Type 6 pinout definition.

Qseven was defined from day one for low power applications in combination with a legacy free set of interfaces and covers the required features for x86 and ARM applications within one common definition.

There might be a need for minor updates within the next years but no need for something completely new.

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ST buys technology for MEMS pico projector

STMicroelectronics has is MEMS sensor product business by acquiring the intellectual property and taking on most of the staff of Israeli company bTendo.

ST has been working with the Israeli company to combine bTendo’s scanning laser projection engine with ST’s MEMS technology, video processing know-how and semiconductor process technology.
They have produced evaluation samples for integration into next-generation smartphones, digital cameras and laptops. These samples are now in the hands of potential customers.
The Scanning Laser Projection engine produces a focus-free high-resolution output that will allow users to display their video, pictures and presentations on external surtfaces.

The bTendo module is smaller than 1.7cm3 and less than 5mm high, and is suited for integration in even the sleekest smartphones and other portable devices.
"As a pioneer and the industry’s leading innovator in MEMS, we’re making pico-projectors small, power-friendly, and convenient enough to suit smart phones, digital cameras and laptops,” said Benedetto Vigna, Executive Vice President and General Manager of ST’s Analog, MEMS and Sensors Group.

”Combining ST’s IP and technical expertise with bTendo’s Scanning Laser Projection engine is enabling us to meet the demands of the emerging market of embedded projectors in next-generation portable consumer devices while preparing to simultaneously open up new markets.”

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NIWeek 2012 presents Big Physics summit

National Instruments launches its 2012 technology summit in Austin, Texas this week.
NIWeek 2012, which starts tomorrow (August 7), will include a keynote presentation from White House Science and Technology Office advisor and Georgia Institute of Technology professor, Dr. Thomas R. Kurfess.
The three-day conference will include presentations on a range of topics including energy technology, RF and communications, vision, aerospace and defence, big physics, and robotics.
The Science and Big Physics summit brings together scientists and engineers from major national and research labs to discuss topics in the areas of control, measurement and diagnostics for particle accelerators, synchrotrons, fusion reactors and telescopes.

There are presenters from facilities such as Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, Oak Ridge National Laboratory and CERN.
Polar explorer and renewable energy champion, Robert Swan, will host a session on reducing social disparity and environmental impact through innovation in emerging countries.
“Attendees will have an opportunity to hear from some of the world’s foremost thought leaders in science and technology,” said Ray Almgren, v-p of marketing for core platforms at National Instruments.
There will also be new product launches for National Instruments' modular design and test platforms and its LabView design software tools.
“LabView is at the heart of what we do, from controlling Lego to the Large Hadron Collider,” said Alex Davern, chief operating officer of National Instruments.
For Davern, modular instruments can be more cost-effective because they do not have the built-in redundancy of box instruments. “You do not buy eight of everything to get the high speed A-to-D which is what you really want,” said Davern.
NI started as a supplier of data capture cards and then moved in to developing test and measurement systems. More recently it has applied its same philosophy of reusable software in to embedded development systems.
For Davern, the trigger for the move into embedded design has been the FPGA, and NI has developed close technology links with suppliers such as Xilinx.
“FPGAs are the disruptive technology in this market,” said Davern.
“Our platforms do not compete with programmable logic firms, we compete with a customer’s internal tools and design cycles, and for us the heart of it is again LabView,” said Davern.
“I believe we have potential to bring even higher value to the embedded space than we do to the test and measurement space,” said Davern.

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Three new Mali cores from ARM

ARM has produced three new Mali graphics cores in its T600 series.

The cores can be configured with between one and eight processors. The T624 and T628 versions are for phones and TVs; the T678 is for tablets and high-end TVs.

The cores use ARM’s Adaptive Scalable Texture Compression (ASTC) technique.

The cores claim a 50% performance improvement over previous cores but no performance metrics are announced.

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Space: SpaceX, Boeing among spacecraft development winners

Three companies were today charged with developing crewed spacecraft that will take American astronauts to low-Earth orbit, replacing the NASA space shuttle, which was retired last year.
NASA chose SpaceX of Hawthorne, California; Boeing of Chicago, Illinois; and Sierra Nevada Corporation of Louisville, Colorado to develop commercial crewed spacecraft that must be ready to fly within five years.
A major aim of the commercial crewed spaceflight program is to end NASA outsourcing of human spaceflight and create high-paying jobs across the country, says NASA chief Charles Bolden. Right now, NASA has to buy seats to the International Space Station from its space race arch rival, Russia.
Boeing was granted $460 million by NASA for its crewed development program. The company is a trusted pair of hands with a spaceflight pedigree that dates back to the Apollo moon program. Boeing has developed a solid seven-person crewed capsule design, called the CST-100 (pictured above in an artist's rendering) based on its decades of experience.
The appointment of SpaceX, a spaceflight neophyte compared to Boeing - and run by Tesla Motors chief and PayPal co-founder Elon Musk - has been on the cards ever since the firm successfully launched and docked its Dragon cargo capsule at the space station in May. It was awarded $440 million by NASA. But SpaceX isn't waiting five years to get people into orbit, as its design is well advanced, and has even been pictured with a mock crew aboard.

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Dynex opens £1.8m power chip R&D centre in Lincoln

Dynex Semiconductor has officially opened a new Lincoln-based £1.8m R&D centre as part of an £11.25m investment which will create up to 40 engineering jobs and safeguard its 315-strong workforce in the city.

Dynex designs and makes high power bipolar semiconductors, insulated gate bipolar transistor (IGBT) modules and electronic assemblies, and the project is a partnership with Zhuzhou CSR Times Electric, the majority shareholder of its parent Dynex Power Inc., Canada.

“Our major investment programme started in May 2010, when we announced the start of the R&D project to expand that team, by forming a joint operation with CSR,” said Dynex’s president and CEO, Dr Paul Taylor.
"We are still recruiting, with the aim of having 50 engineers working in the new building,” said Dr Taylor.
Dynex's R&D projects involve power technologies for energy, transport and industrial sectors.
“The power semiconductor device is at the very heart of all modern power electronic systems. Whether wind, solar, tidal, wave, coal, gas or nuclear energy, we need safe, smart and reliable interconnection to the electric grid and safe, smart and reliable power transmission and power quality,” said Dr Taylor.
“Whether for driving motors and power equipment for cars, locomotives, metros and manufacturing, for powering our communications, aircraft, keeping the lights on or for keeping us warm in winter and cool in the summer, the power device is the workhorse that enables the control of electric energy to drive these sectors and more,” said Dr Taylor. 
Dynex’s R&D teams work closely with university groups, such as Nottingham, Loughborough, Warwick and others, on advanced research topics and knowledge transfer projects.
“We are now building relationships with the new Engineering School at the University of Lincoln and we have benefited for many years from educational links with Lincoln College,” added Dr Taylor.
Trade & Investment Minister Lord Green said: “With the world’s spotlight on Britain this summer, the Government is delighted to see UK companies such as Dynex expanding and creating jobs."

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Bare die are key for design miniaturisation

Using unpackaged die in embedded designs can have important benefits for designers offering new options for small-footprint designs, writes Shahram Tadayon
Embedded system designers have benefitted from procuring integrated circuits (ICs) such as microcontroller (MCUs) in die form for many years. Because the dimensions of die are much smaller than when the IC is packaged, the use of unpackaged die allows the product designer to significantly reduce the size of the electronic circuit.
High-volume products such as hearing aids, cell phones and RFID cards have become more comfortable, more portable and thinner due to the integration of die in the circuit design. Until recently, lower volume products have not benefitted from the same level of innovation as it has been historically difficult to procure reasonably priced die in low volumes.
The benefits of using unpackaged die in embedded designs can be substantial. The availability of IC products in die form gives customers a convenient option for small-footprint designs, enabling them to optimize their product designs for limited space and to implement innovative, proprietary packaging solutions.
Handling die, however, is not as straightforward as buying an IC in a conventional quad flat pack package and soldering it onto a printed circuit board (PCB). For this reason, a die sales industry has emerged to simplify the handling and utilization of unpackaged die.
For example, when an embedded designer procures a wafer containing thousands of die, the wafer is diced and placed on a leadframe or substrate that interconnects each die with other components (including other unpackaged die) in the embedded system. The resulting circuit is very small and may be placed in a module or a package that is used directly in a system or is then placed on a PCB.
Buying raw die from a semiconductor supplier is seldom a simple, straightforward process. High-volume semiconductor suppliers have fine-tuned the art of producing vast quantities of packaged ICs in a very efficient manufacturing flow and supply chain.
However, shipping wafers in small volumes is a non-standard process that can interrupt the efficiency of the manufacturing cycle.
Due to the recent demand by product designers to pursue product miniaturization and develop innovative electromechanical packaging, semiconductor suppliers are opening up to the market potential of shipping fully tested wafers. It is now possible to purchase die in wafer form (see Figure 1), and a single 200 mm wafer typically will contain a few thousand die.

There are additional benefits of using die in system designs rather than packaged ICs. Because the electronic circuit is contained in a smaller space, the length of the interconnections between the chips is reduced, which in turn reduces the effects of capacitance and inductance and thus minimizes the switching latency. Electrical noise is also minimized, which is particularly beneficial if there are radio frequency signals in the system.
Die utilization can be particularly effective for sensor-based products. MCUs often include an integrated on-chip temperature sensor that exploits the known characteristics of a bipolar junction transistor to make an accurate temperature measurement.
This integrated sensing technology can be useful for temperature compensation effects when, for example, implementing a temperature-compensated real-time clock. When there is an IC package around the die, additional thermal resistance is introduced into the system. A more accurate temperature measurement can be achieved when there is no package on the die.
Several technologies have emerged to accommodate the integration of unpackaged die in an embedded system. Multi-chip modules (MCM) have become quite popular in many product implementations. Variations on this theme also include multi-chip packages (MCP) and system-in-packages (SIP).
Numerous assembly house vendors can accept wafers, dice them and place them in these package types. Custom packages often are developed that take a mechatronics approach to optimizing both the electrical and mechanical properties of the system to provide a tiny footprint solution. A prime end-product example of this approach is a state-of-the-art hearing aid, which requires a very space-efficient design and high levels of circuit integration.
Product designers should consider using die if this approach will bring tangible benefits to an end product, such as shrinking form factors, reducing weight and making the product more ergonomically appealing to consumers. Close consideration should be given to the manufacturing technology.
There are a couple of common technologies used with die implementations today. For example, chip-on-board technology enables the die to be mounted on a substrate and electrically connected using conventional wire-attach techniques. The die is sometimes encapsulated to protect the fragile silicon during the manufacturing process.
Flip-chip technology is more elegant but requires some additional processing steps to the wafer to add solder balls underneath the die. The resulting implementation can be smaller and more robust but also more expensive to manufacture.
The die also must be sourced carefully. After a suitable die product is identified, it cannot simply be assumed that it can be procured in wafer form. It is necessary to check with the semiconductor supplier regarding product availability in wafer form. If the expected product volume is not very high (such as in the many thousands of units), most suppliers will not offer to sell wafers, or if they do, the wafer price will be prohibitively high.
Before procuring unpackaged die, the developer should identify ICs that will operate effectively in the system and that are guaranteed to be offered in wafer form. It is also prudent to ensure that the die are fully tested to the same levels that are applied to packaged products. It will be necessary to find an assembly house that can handle unpackaged die and that can perhaps offer additional services such as backgrinding (thinning the wafer to reduce the chip height, which is desirable for ultra-thin chips used in smartcards).
The good news for embedded developers is that all of the appropriate wafer handling technologies, IC products in die form and services are now becoming more commonplace and affordable. The availability of fully tested die in wafer form is enabling the development of innovative, tiny mechatronics devices that might not have been feasible using conventional packaged semiconductor products.

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Mediatek and Broadcom inch out Qualcomm

Intense competition in the low-end Android smartphone market has seen Mediatek and Broadcom reduce Qualcomm's share of the smartphone apps processor market to 44% compared to 51% in Q1 2011, says Strategy Analytics, while ST-Ericsson is bounding back with 600% revenue growth in Q1.
The total market from Q1 2011 to Q1 2012 grew 55%, says Strategy Analytics.
The top five players were Qualcomm, Samsung, TI, Broadcom and Mediatek. Marvell dropped out of the top five following the troubles at RIM. Mediatek joined the top five for the first time following success in the sub-$200 smartphone market.
ST-E won design-ins for Thor and NovaThor at Tier One customers.
Stand-alone processors accounted for 44% of smartphone apps processors in Q1 and multi-cores accounted for 30% of the all smartphone apps processors.
Nvidia remains stuck on 2% market share becasue it doesn't integrate the baseband, says Strategy Analytics.

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Space: NASA's Curiosity rover lands safely on Mars

NASA's control room erupted with cheers as confirmation reached Earth that the Curiosity rover successfully landed on Mars. Scientists and engineers hugged, sobbed and punched the air as the first images from the rover's cameras came down.
The first pictures, low-res thumbnails taken through the rover's rear hazard avoidance cameras and a clear dust filter, showed the Martian horizon and one of the rover's wheels. Shortly after, the front cameras took the rover's first self-portrait: its shadow on the Martian surface.
Now safely on the ground in the Gale Crater, Curiosity can begin its two-year mission: to find whether Mars has the crucial ingredients that could once have supported life.
No wonder mission control went wild: the landing was the most ambitious and daring ever attempted Movie Cameraon another world.
Curiosity's predecessors, Spirit and Opportunity, arrived on Mars swaddled in airbags that cushioned them as they crashed into the planet's surface and bounced and rolled to their final landing sites.
But Curiosity is 10 times their weight, and would punch straight through any airbag NASA could build. So mission engineers designed the Sky Crane. For the last 20 metres of its trip to the surface, Curiosity was slowly lowered on three nylon tethers from a hovering descent vehicle, held in place by retrorockets.
But that was just one element of the landing choreography. The capsule containing the rover and descent vehicle entered the Martian atmosphere at 5900 metres per second. Almost immediately, small charges detonated and ejected two blocks of tungsten – each about the size of a laptop, and weighing 75 kilograms.
Jettisoning these weights tilted the capsule so it could catch air and fly across the Martian landscape much like a skydiver in a wingsuit. The capsule steered itself using small rockets and autonomous navigation software. Similar software was used for the Apollo missions, but this is the first time that a robot on another planet navigated itself without human input.
At an altitude of 11 kilometres, the spacecraft dropped six more 25-kilogram blocks to shift its orientation once more, then deployed the largest supersonic parachute ever sent to another planet. The parachute slowed the spacecraft from 400 metres per second to 80 metres per second in less than two minutes.
At about the same time, the capsule dropped its heat shield, exposing the rover – and its cameras and landing radar – to the cold Martian air. The cameras started looking for the ground, snapping photos once every four seconds. (In the coming days, these images will be stitched together into a video of the nerve-wracking final descent.)
At 1.6 kilometres up, the parachute let go, and the descent vehicle plummeted in free fall for a fraction of a second. Then eight retrorockets roared to life, slowing the vehicle to an eventual stop for the ambitious Sky Crane manoeuvre.
"It looks a little bit crazy," admitted Adam Steltzner, who heads the landing team, in a press conference before landing. "I promise you it is the least crazy of the methods you could use to land a rover the size of Curiosity on Mars."
Curiosity is the first rover to use its own wheels as landing gear. The six wheels are half a metre in diameter and as thin as cardboard. They move independently beneath the rover, so that if it had to, it could drive over an obstacle as tall as a coffee table.
Though its landing was entirely different, Curiosity learned some tricks from Spirit and Opportunity. Those rovers' wheels had small holes by which they were clamped to their landing pads before being released. Later, the rovers' handlers found they could see when the wheels were slipping on the sandy Martian surface by measuring the distance between the marks left by these holes in the rovers' tracks.
So Curiosity also has holes in its wheels, which spell out "JPL" (for NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, where the rover was built and is operated) in Morse code.
The wheels will have to wait to make their first tracks, however. First, the rover has to stretch its robotic "arm" and "neck". The former carries a suite of instruments including a camera that will be used to peer at rocks, like a geologist using a hand lens. The latter is a mast carrying high-resolution cameras that will reveal panoramas of Curiosity's surroundings, and a laser that will zap rocks from a distance to help reveal their composition.
Once it gets into its scientific stride, Curiosity will use its onboard chemistry lab to look for organic molecules required as the basic building blocks of life, and chemical energy sources that could have been used by Martian microbes.
The final destination is Aeolis Mons, a five-kilometre high mountain in the middle of Gale Crater. Gale is an impact crater, but is thought to have been full of water for hundreds of millions of years. As Curiosity climbs Aeolis Mons, it should encounter layers of sediments revealing what mission leader John Grotzinger calls "the dimension of deep time".

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TSMC putting $1.4bn into ASML

TSMC has followed Intel in buying a stake in ASML and putting up money for ASML's 450mm and EUV R&D projects. Of ASML's three major customers, Samsung is now the only hold-out on ASML's co-development project.
TSMC is to pay Euros 838m for a 5% stake in ASML and will put up another Euros 276m for the R&D projects.
ASML says it expects 450mm tools to be availalbe in 2018, but TSMC has said it expects to be using 450mm tools in 2014.
Intel paid $2bn for a 10% stake in ASML and said it would put another $1bn into the R&D projects.
Intel also said it would be willing to pay another $1bn for another 5% stake in ASML.
ASML has said it is only offering a limit of a 25% stake to its three top customers.
No announcement has come from Samsung.

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ADI aims ECG chip at consumer health monitors

Analog Devices is targeting consumer body monitor designs with a heart-rate monitor analogue front end (AFE).
The AD8232 AFE is designed to meet the ECG signal conditioning requirements of emerging fitness, portable/wearable monitoring and remote health monitoring equipment.

"The intention has been to create a device which supports a range of heart rate and ECG monitoring applications ranging from consumer style fitness monitors to remote health management devices," Jan-Hein Broeders of Analog Devices told Electronics Weekly.
A feature of the front-end chip is its two-pole, high-pass filter that is tightly coupled with the IC’s instrumentation amplifier architecture, and an uncommitted operational (gain) amplifier that enables the user to employ multi-pole low pass filtering techniques to remove line noise and other interference.
There is a reference buffer, right leg drive circuit and shutdown function.
The AD8232 also includes user-selectable (AC or DC) leads-off detect circuitry that monitors when an electrode is disconnected from the patient or user, providing an alert to the system.
It has a fast-restore mode that automatically recovers the cardiac signal in the event a user temporarily loses contact with an electrode during exercise, or other activity, greatly improving the quality of the end-user experience. 
According to Broeders, the AD8232 can accommodate electrode DC offsets while operating on a single supply voltage without sacrificing performance or signal quality.
“The chip’s analogue can be paired with either a discrete A/D converter or a microcontroller with an embedded A/D converter, which provides system designers with the flexibility,” said Broeders.
Supply current is 180µA and noise figure is 20µVp-p (0.5Hz to 40Hz). The chip is available in a 4 x 4mm, 20-pin LFCSP package.

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Organic electronics ready for boom years, says analyst

The market value of organic devices such as TFT dispalys, transistors and non-volatile memory will grow to nearly $1bn in revenues by 2018, according to NanoMarkets.

Over the same time period, the value of the market for printed electronics devices enabled by these organic components will reach $4.6bn.

Analyst firm NanoMarkets announces the release of its latest report on the emerging organic/printed logic and memory market, titled “Markets for OTFTs, OFETs and Organic Memory – 2012.” 

A decade ago, organic TFTs, FETs and memories were seen to have great promise, but the technology failed to live up to early hype. Materials performance was low and manufacturing proved more difficult, and more costly, than originally expected.

"Today there are signs that things may be turning around. There is renewed interest and commercialisation activity in this sector, and we believe that the industry is poised to take off in the 2014-2015 timeframe," said NanoMarkets.
This will be supported by new materials and processes, collaboration between suppliers and the launch of new products that will add credibility to the whole sector.
"But commercial success will only happen if suppliers can help to close the remaining technology – and cost – gaps that could hold back the realization of low-cost/high volume fabrication," said NanoMarkets.
Applications covered by the report include smart packaging, brand protection, security, smartcards, distribution tagging and RFID, interactive media, disposable electronics, and (flexible) display backplanes.

Material categories discussed include organic and/or polymeric semiconductors, ferroelectric materials, dielectrics, and electrodes.
Key players mentioned in the report include Acreo, BASF, Bemis, Fujifilm Dimatix, Hewlett Packard, Heraeus, Holst Centre, InkTec, JAPERA, LG, Merck/EMD, OE-A, Optomec, PARC, PEA, Polyera, PolyIC, Qolpac, Samsung, Solvay, Sony, Thin Film Electronics, Toppan Printing, and others.

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QinetiQ transceiver to monitor NASA Mars landing

A transceiver designed by UK-based QinetiQ is in orbit around the Mars on the European Space Agency’s Mars Express and will soon monitor NASA’s Mars Science Laboratory (MSL) through entry, descent and landing on to the surface of the planet on Monday, 6 August.

QinetiQ has modified a transceiver, launched in 2003, to allow it to record transmissions from MSL during the critical seven minutes as it approaches the Martian surface, which will be sent back to Earth to allow scientists to analyse the performance of the system.

“This is a landmark achievement for the QinetiQ Space Team, and sets a solid base for future innovations," said Sanjay Razdan, managing director new technologies at QinetiQ.
"We are also currently developing the next generation of the UHF transceiver, which will be used as the communications system on the Mars landers for ESA’s upcoming ExoMars missions,” said Razdan.

After the landing phase has completed successfully, MELACOM will support the mission on Mars by sending commands to the rover vehicle and relaying science data and pictures back to Earth, alongside the transceivers on NASA’s satellites Odyssey and MRO. 

During this phase of the mission, recent software enhancements will increase the volume of data that can be transmitted to MSL on the Martian surface.

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