When Nolan Bushnell and Al Alcorn built Pong, the world’s second video game (often credited as the first) they took it to Andy Capp’s Tavern, a low dive in Sunnyvale. They set it up and left it, recounts Leslie Berlin in her book Troublemakers. ‘Two guys soon separated themselves from the crowd and began inspecting Pong. After a minute, one ...

Renesas is looking at buying IDT for $6 billion, reports the Nikkei.  Renesas is engaged in something of a renaissance under CEO Bunsei Kure (pictured) who took over in May 2016. In February 2017, Renesas bought Intersil for $3.2 billion. Five years before that, in 2012, Renesas had to be bailed out by the Japanese government with the bail-out fund ...

Update: Thanks to Ledil technical marketing manager Samuli Saransalmi for getting in touch to fill in some details (integrated below) on this interesting optic. Ledil is aiming at architecture narrow-beam wall-washing with a sharp cut-off lens called Leia – achieving beams around ±1.5° (3° FWHM) with single chip 3535 high-power LEDs, with a “very strong cut off,” said Saransalmi. “There is very little ...

TT Electronics has announced a series of low profile (2mm)  high power resistors for use on heatsinks. Called WDBR-UL, they are thick-film-on-steel resistors, developed from the existing  WDBR series, with creepage, clearances and power ratings assessed in accordance with the requirements of UL508, “easing the compliance burden for UL approved end-users,” said the TT. “For circuit designers who need to design UL approved systems ...

Socionext has announced acoustics IPs in its “ForteArt” software family. ForteArt enhances the sound-related user experience, with applications including consumer products, public signage and automotive infotainment systems. The software IPs can be implemented with other vendors’ hardware, as well as with Socionext’s SoC products. ForteArt has been organized as a family of solutions to address the increasing amount of broadcast ...

X-FAB is to double six inch SiC capacity at its fab in Lubbock, Texas. In preparation for doubling capacity, X-FAB Texas has purchased a second heated ion implanter for use in manufacturing 6-inch SiC wafers. Delivery of this heated ion implanter is expected by the end of 2018, and production release is planned during the first quarter of 2019 in ...

Custom MMIC has launched a line of GaAs Digital Step Attenuators (DSA). The DSA family is intended to ease the design of high dynamic range receivers and instrumentation. These applications often must accomplish gain control of 50dB or more. Fine step DSAs (e.g., 0.5dB Least Significant Bit [LSB]) are often used for these applications. However, when a large attenuation change is ...

Are the big tech companies getting so arrogant they now feel they can take on governments mano e mano? It turns out that a group of countries including the US, UK, Canada, New Zealand and Australia had asked ‘digital industry leaders’ – believed to include Facebook, Google, Microsoft and Twitter – to a meeting to discuss removing terrorist, extremist and ...

Heat-treating a filament-printed 3D print can make the print stronger by reducing stresses, and increase the operating temperature of the print. The penalty is a few percent shrinkage across the print and some growth in height. For a given batch of print material on a certain printer, these percentages are apparently predictable, allowing them to be taken into account while printing. There ...

The Drummond MTL15 test lamp has a 1,000V CAT IV safety rating, and LED indication for AC and DC voltages ranging from 50 to 690V, “ensuring compliance with health and safety requirements for safe working in all BS EN61010 installation categories”, said component distributor Martindale Electric, which is stocking the test lamp. Built-in LEDs provide a clear indication for voltages at ...