Tony Frere of DT Electronics reckons broadcast equipment, GPS development and ARM embedded micros will drive UK business in 2005  Despite concerns about a flattening of the global electronics business next year, we see a number of markets and products where design-in activity is at an all-time high. These will contribute significant growth in 2005 and beyond, despite the shift ...

Rajeev Madhavan of EDA firm Magma proposes silicon compilation as a solution to the problems posed by 65nm process rules and the huge costs and risk incurred Developing today’s increasingly large and complex digital IC and SoC devices is becoming cost-prohibitive in terms of engineering resources and development time. Packing the advanced functionality of a microprocessor, a graphics processor, or ...

Moshe Gavrielov of Verisity looks at how productivity gains can be achieved in verification through a process-led approach Some look to “the platform” in pursuit of productivity gains. However, if you apply this approach to verification, a design team really shouldn’t expect gains greater than 20 per cent or so. Sure, automating the simulation platform is a reasonable thing to ...

Paul Double of EDA Solutions says changing demands from designers are pushing business towards lower cost, smaller EDA specialists in the analogue and mixed-signal arena The 1990’s saw consolidation of the EDA industry with many smaller companies being bought by larger ones and a few market leaders emerging with massive market share, and profits to match. Today, the situation is ...

Hampshire-based fabless chip firm Quantum Research Group has developed a sensing technique that can produce iPod-style rotary sensors of any size. Called Qwheel, “there are no known diameter restrictions other than those governed by human factors”, said the firm. However, sensitivity drops as the electrodes grow compared with the size of a finger, so a really big one would need ...

Texas Instruments has combined a digital signal processor with power-switching logic to produce a controller family for complex power supplies. “If you have a simple 1A buck regulator, this technology is not going to save you any components,” said TI European analogue business director Larry Spanziani. However, if you need a multi-rail supply with supply sequencing and non-linear control loops, ...

With avionics, defence and aerospace being such specialist sectors there is demand for engineers who can perform in these areas, which of course means training is needed. The obvious first stop for suitable training is universities. The Royal Aeronautical Society (RAeS), the professional institution for the aerospace industry, says many universities offer aeronautical engineering courses and UK universities are renowned ...

Fresh out of university, debts looming in the back of your mind and you land a job at British Aerospace. It is secure because the firm is so well-known and has been around for so long. It is safe because of the size of the company, winning big multi-million dollar contracts. It has good prospects because it has sites around ...

Philips sees the wireless communications market exploding with a proliferation of new applications and possibilities. “Comms is full of new ideas and possibilities, the innovation climate is strong, customers are putting new ideas to us,” Indro Mukerjee, executive v-p and general manager of marketing and sales at Philips Semiconductors, told Electronics Weekly. The result is a mix and match approach ...

We’re only 15 months away from the RoHS lead-free deadline. Do you know where your compliance certification is? As electronics manufacturers, contract manufacturers and component suppliers move through the conversion to parts that are free of hazardous materials, it’s beginning to dawn on industry executives that the shift to lead-free products carries with it the need to certify the cleanliness ...