EET-i Top of the News
Week of Feb. 27, 1995
- Thursday, Mar. 2, 1995
 GaAs camp defends comm-systems flank
Sandia, AT&T unveil UV lithography tool
Multimedia codec runs multiple functions concurrently
Hitachi aims mini-RISC at 100 Mips
What's new(s) at EE Times-interactive
- Wednesday, Mar. 1, 1995
- IEEE-USA blasts current immigration policy
Capacity of entry-level disk drives in soaring
Mathsoft ups ante on browsers
E/O networks touts "fiber to the farm"
Three DRAM makers set up shop in Taiwan
- Tuesday, Feb. 28, 1995
- Software tool helps harness chaos
Expert system tool adds fuzzy logic
Compass analyzes nets
ATM companies expand reach through alliances
New mini-RISC chips chart embedded course
- Monday, Feb. 27, 1995
- What have engineers learned from the Pentium flap?
AT&T offers densest FPGA to date
Baby Bells threaten to set own set-top standard
Microsoft acquisition changes the 3-D game rules
CD standard effort crumbles as Sony goes it alone
Other news sources on Techweb:
GaAs camp defends comm-systems flank
By Martin Gold
VANCOUVER, Canada -- With silicon-based devices threatening to challenge gallium arsenide for supremacy in the front end of the next generation of communications systems, GaAs producers are turning out devices with performance levels and at frequencies that silicon cannot touch. That's the message that came out of a recent symposium that delved into technology alternatives for wireless communications.
A recurring theme at a panel session on the future of GaAs was the performance
and cost differentials between GaAs and silicon. Robert Bayruns, director of research and technology at Anadigics Corp. (Warren, N.J.), argued that silicon devices cannot come close to the efficiency, output power levels and ruggedness of GaAs amplifiers.
Anadigics executive vice president Charles Huang said that his company's next-generation GaAs-based amplifiers--which does not require negative supply voltages and with features that control the output power levels--is close to market.
The importance of cost in the silicon-GaAs competition was underscored when it was revealed by Hewlett-Packard's Michael L. Frank, project group leader for RF/Microwave & Wireless IC Product R&D (Newark, Calif.), that HP is about to market a family of small-signal amplifiers for wireless communications and for direct-broadcast-satellite applications.
Raytheon Co.'s Advanced Device Center (Andover, Mass.) discussed details of a two-chip set for wireless LAN. The set consists of a monolithic micro
wave integrated circuit (MMIC), 2.4-GHz transmitter and 5.78-GHz receiver. The transmitter upconverts a 360-MHz frequency, applying a gain of 50 dB with an output of 24 dBm. GaAs still offers the highest performance at the lowest cost for the production of wireless-LAN IC components, said Derek P. Fitzgerald, principal engineer at Raytheon for MMIC product development.
Sandia, AT&T unveil UV lithography tool
By George Leopold
LIVERMORE, Calif. -- A laboratory lithography tool that uses "extreme" UV light to pattern devices is being touted by a government-industry research team as a candidate technology for achieving 0.1-micron IC features five times smaller than today's mass-produced chips.
Sandia National Laboratories and AT&T Bell Laboratories assembled the laboratory tool that combines extreme UV light (13.4 nanometers, compared to 198 nm for "deep" UV) with precision,
chemically
coated mirrors, new resists and a wafer-alignment process that uses magnetic levitation. Researchers say theirs is the first complete extreme UV lithography system capable of printing a device.
The tool was unveiled last month at Sandia's new advanced lithography facility here during a meeting of the Semiconductor Industry Association. The group's 15-year semiconductor technology road map calls for selecting a new lithography technology by 2004 and developing 0.1-micron lithography equipment for volume production by 2007.
X-ray and deep-UV lithography techniques are considered the top lithography candidates as the semiconductor industry moves toward the critical 0.18-micron milepost around 2001. Extreme UV is one of a handful of candidate technologies to take manufacturing capabilities down to 0.1 micron.
Multimedia codec runs multiple functions concurrently
By Martin Gold
NORWOOD, Mass. -- Analog Devices Inc. will unveil on Monday a multipurpose analog front-end chip that ultimately will enable running games-compatible audio, fax, modem and video functions concurrently from the motherboard of a multimedia-based PC. Such a single-chip multichannel codec could also become a critical element of Intel Corp.'s strategy to integrate signal processing tightly into a native PC architecture that uses a Pentium or P6 CPU.
Initially, the AD1843 SoundComm codec is targeted at PC add-in-card makers, which are seeking a simple way to combine, affordably on one card, the audio, fax and modem functions running concurrently. However, the longer-range intent is to integrate the codec with a digital signal processor core and bus-interface circuitry on one chip for use on the PC motherboard. ADI is expected to pitch that solution to the PC community at the upcoming Microsoft Windows Hardware Engineering Conference (WinHEC'95), which convenes March 20 for three d
ays in San Francisco.
"A single-chip codec with DSP capability will be the component that enables moving the functionality now on add-in cards ultimately to one chip on the motherboard. It's very similar to what happened with graphics five to seven years ago," said John R. Croteau, ADI's director of strategy and planning for computers, communications and DSPs.
Hitachi aims mini-RISC at 100 Mips
By Ron Wilson
and David Lammers
TOKYO -- Hitachi Ltd. has announced the third generation of its 32-bit SH mini-RISC series, which offers as much as 60-Mips performance with a typical power consumption of just 400 mW.
Tsugio Makimoto, general manager of Hitachi's semiconductor division, said the plan for next year is to use the 0.5-micron SH-3 as a core to propel Hitachi's cell-based IC business, which he described as an area Hitachi has entered "very late."
The "coo
l RISC" SH-3 is aimed at the next generation of PDAs, which will combine digital cellular telephony with data-transmission capabilities. Hitachi has customers that plan to use the SH-3 for car-navigation systems, set-top boxes and multimedia applications that require low power consumption and modest costs, he said.
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IEEE-USA blasts current immigration policy
By Robert Bellinger
WASHINGTON -- IEEE-USA chairman Joel B. Snyder told the U.S. Commission on Immigration Reform here this week that "the current immigration policy is adversely affecting engineering job opportuniti
es, wages and working conditions in the United States."
Snyder expressed "concern that American universities and high-technology businesses are becoming too dependent on foreign engineers and scientists and that this dependence is reducing educational and employment opportunities for U.S. citizens.
"Without foreign students and foreign faculty, American engineering schools contend that they would be unable to meet current demands for educational and research programs. Directors of research at many of our leading technology companies also acknowledge that their industries are depending on foreign talent and that this dependency is growing."
He bolstered his argument with National Science Foundation statistics showing that in the 1980s, 16 percent of the engineers employed in the United States were naturalized citizens or foreign nationals; that increased to 19 percent in 1990. Also, one-third of the master's degrees and 52 percent of the PhDs from American universities are obtained by fore
ign nationals.
"The long-term result of this trend may be to reduce, rather than to increase, our economic and technological competitiveness," said Snyder, who is also the IEEE vice president of professional activities.
Capacity of entry-level disk drives in soaring
By Terry Costlow
MILPITAS, Calif. -- Quantum Corp., in rolling out a denser disk drive this week, underscored market shift not only in entry-level density but in technology as well. The company announced a single-platter, 540-Mbyte disk drive, using a partial-response, maximum-likelihood (PRML) read channel to boost the capacity that can be put on one disk. While several other drive makers will also have single-disk, 540-Mbyte drives this year, 420-Mbyte drives are expected to remain the entry-level capacity throughout this year.
The Quantum drive also highlights to PRML read channels, which only began shippin
g in volume in high-end drives from independents last year. By the end of this year, every drive maker is expected to have at least a handful of drives that use PRML read channels.
"Interest in 420s will remain a bit longer because they are under the 528 barrier," said Jeffrey Edelstein, senior marketing manager at Samsung Electronics America Inc.'s storage products group. "Some people are running into problems with drive compatibility above that level. The last time a shift happened, going from 356 Mbytes to 420, the 356-Mbyte drives died quickly. It won't be nearly as fast this time."
Mathsoft ups ante on browsers
By Brian Santo
CAMBRIDGE, Mass. -- Mathsoft Inc. has come up with what appears to be the first major innovation in browsers in the short history of the product category. Mathsoft's Mathbrowser allows anyone to link to any document resident on the Internet that was cr
eated with the company's Mathcad software.
Mathcad documents allow dynamic interaction with the data, equations and algorithms contained within them. The browser incorporates an incomplete version of Mathcad, which lets users interact with or edit Mathcad documents on the Internet but not to save these documents or create new ones.
What Mathsoft has done with Mathbrowser is turn the Web at once into a vast file server and a whiteboard for Mathcad applications. The company cautions that this is not a full-fledged browser, however.
Mathbrowser is freeware, and can be downloaded from Mathsoft's World Wide Web site at:
http://www.mathsoft.com
, or by ftp at
ftp.mathsoft.com.
E/O networks touts "fiber to the farm"
By Loring Wirbel
HAYWARD, Calif. -- Fiber-infrastructure startup E/O Networks Inc. has developed an FDDI-like
dual-ring fiber network that it is pitching to rural phone companies as an ideal "fiber to the farm" broadband service infrastructure for remote end users.
E/O also launched an international division this week to promote a range of fiber and copper architectures to phone companies in developing nations.
The startup, formed by executives from Raynet Corp. and Telco Systems Inc., is working with several hardware innovators to give rural telephone companies a leg up over regional Bell operating companies (RBOC) in bringing digital TV, advanced data and multi-megabit return-path services to rural phone users. Among E/O's hardware partners are Tut Systems Inc. (Pleasanton, Calif.), for high-speed twisted-pair home drop distribution, and Stellar One Corp. (Seattle), for set-top box converters.
E/O marketing vice president Leif Hoglund said the time could not be more ripe for a networking system aimed at rural-based competitive access providers (CAP). RBOCs are selling off rural parcels to the n
ew CAPs at a rapid pace, primarily because state public-utility commissions have been fining RBOCs for ignoring basic-service gaps in rural areas as the companies focus on adding frame-relay and ATM capability in urban corporate markets.
Three DRAM makers set up shop in Taiwan
By David Lammers
TAIPEI, Taiwan -- Three new DRAM manufacturers--Vanguard International Semiconductor Corp., Powerchip Semiconductor Corp. and the tentatively named Nanya Technology Corp.--are confronting different challenges as they set up shop here. Hanging over all three companies, however, is the threat that a DRAM-capacity glut will materialize by 1997, when the bulk of Taiwan's new production is expected to come on-line.
The challenges notwithstanding, analysts here judge the survival odds to be good for all three companies. Taiwan's DRAM market is expected to exceed $2 billion this year, and as muc
h as 15 percent to 20 percent of the DRAM trade is on the gray market, at relatively high prices, according to analyst John Kuo at Jardine Fleming Securities. The three DRAM startups are counting on orders from Taiwan-based system- and motherboard-manufacturing companies that have seen their own growth crimped by severe DRAM shortages on the island, he said.
Software tool helps harness chaos
By R. Colin Johnson
SUSSEX, England -- Research into emergent computation could lead to a tool that will someday allow software programmers to create applications simply by specifying a few rules, according to experts in the field. To speed the process of discovery, University of Sussex professor Andrew Wuensche has released a repackaged version of his emergent-computation research test bed.
Emergent computation involves the emergence of ordere
d "behavior" out of a dynamic network primed with a set of rules. Wuensche's Discrete Dynamics Lab (DDLab) can be used to construct a wide variety of discrete dynamic networks.
"The program is relevant to the study of complexity, emergent phenomena and neural networks," said Wuensche, who believes emergent computation could be the tool with which chaos is bridled.
Wuensche's Discrete Dynamics Lab encapsulates the research progress he has made in constructing what he now calls discrete dynamic networks--including every possible network topology, from cellular automata (CA) to neural networks to random Boolean networks developed by Stuart Kauffman.
DDLab is available free in beta release over the Internet. Download it from
ftp://ftp.cogs.susx.ac.uk/pub/alife/ddlab.
Sign on as anonymous and use your e-mail address as a password.
Expert system tool adds fuzzy logic
By R.
Colin Johnson
Albuquerque, N.M.
-- One of the world's first expert-system building tools just became the first one to be rewritten for fuzzy logic. In March, Exsys Inc. will announce the fuzzy-logic technology used in its newest version of Exsys Professional.
"Our real goal was to implement fuzzy logic in a way that ordinary people can use," said Dustin Huntington, president and founder of Exsys. Ease-of-use has been the charter of Exsys all along, he said. Its expert system already shields the user from the complexities of knowledge-base construction, especially when using its optional RuleBook front end, which allows expert systems to be built entirely graphically, Huntington said.
"Our fuzzy-logic additions to Exsys are totally intuitive, too--in beta tests, we've given novices just a short explanation of the principles involved and had them writing their own fuzzy-logic rules the same day," said Huntington.
Compass analyzes nets
By Richard Goering
SAN JOSE, Calif. -- A new software tool from Compass Design Automation, the Multiple Drive Analyzer (MDA), claims to be the first automatic delay-calculation tool that can handle clock nets with multiple drivers. Slated for introduction at next week's EuroASIC Conference, MDA is aimed at high-frequency and deep-submicron IC designs.
MDA takes resistance-capacitance (RC) data from Compass's layout extraction software, identifies multi-driven nets, runs a Spice simulation, and then extracts skew data for each element on the net. This data is back-annotated to the Compass database and can be output in Standard Delay Format (SDF) for third-party simulators or static timing analyzers.
While Compass already has an RC extraction capability for single-drive nets, the static algorithms for computing RC timing don't work with multiple drivers, said Mike Grossman, manager of simulation software. Yet, multi-driven clo
cks are becoming the norm in deep-submicron designs, because they can minimize skew and allow higher clock frequencies. There are also multi-driven buses and reset nets, which can be analyzed with MDA.
ATM companies expand reach through alliances
By Loring Wirbel
SANTA CLARA, Calif. -- Two pioneers in Asynchronous Transfer Mode (ATM) technology--First Virtual Corp. and Fore Systems Inc. (Warrendale, Pa.)--have expanded their applications base by forging key alliances with LAN traditionalists. The moves signal a slow maturing of ATM, as private enterprise systems shift from test beds to real-world applications.
First Virtual, a startup founded by former Ungermann-Bass president Ralph Ungermann, released a special version of its Media Operating System (MOS) designed to work with Lotus Development Corp.'s Notes and Video for Notes. The software lets a Notes Server manage streaming vid
eo sessions, which are handled by the First Virtual/Conner Media Storage Server RAID system. The software also allows the Notes Server to replicate services to other servers across a LAN or WAN.
First Virtual president Ungermann said that his company wanted to focus specifically on OS middleware that could bring the scalability of a switching fabric to users who really need it.
Fore Systems has provided the technology forming the heart of the new Synthesis ATM switch systems introduced last week by Cabletron Systems Inc. (Rochester, N.H.). Cabletron will not only support ATM switching in its MMAC-Plus hub through the 9A000 switching module and 9A128-01 ATM Access Module, but it will also integrate the ForeSight ATM network-management software from Fore with its own Spectrum network-management system.
New mini-RISC chips chart embedded course
By Ron Wilson
AUSTIN, Texas -- Mo
torola Inc. and Advanced RISC Machines this week will launch variations on their mini-RISC product lines. Moving in the opposite direction from Hitachi's SH-3 announcement, both ARM's Thumb instruction set and Motorola's first Coldfire CPU are attempts to apply the discipline of mini-RISC to the needs of embedded applications. Specifically, ARM is trying to stick its Thumb into mobile computing/communications applications, while the first Coldfire chip is designed into Hewlett-Packard's new LaserJet 5-series printers.
Both of those environments are sympathetic to the promise of mini-RISC. But in both cases, the technology isn't far enough along to just drop a mini-RISC CPU into the socket. But the specific requirements vary.
In ARM's case, the problem was one of scale. Since Newton, it has been generally accepted that a PDA or personal communicator really needs a 32-bit core. "It has been sort of a software revolution," claimed ARM technical marketing manager Dave Jaggar. "Now you have the softw
are team leader coming in and saying he has to have a large, flat address space to manage the size of his code package. But the system is still compact and needs very high code density."
Many such systems, for either mechanical, cost or battery-life considerations, need to use a 16-bit bus. That dictates either a 16-bit CPU or a 32-bit CPU with a 16-bit bus. But what ARM found in many accounts was that the simple approach of cutting back the bus width on a 32-bit CPU didn't work. The bus instantly became a bottleneck, limiting the observable performance by which users judge mobile devices.
What have engineers learned from the Pentium flap?
By Richard Goering
EE Times was the first newspaper to report the the now-infamous bug in the Pentium microprocessor. Intel's response -- and the aftermath -- will be studied by business schools fo
r decades to come. But what have engineers learned? This is the first of a three-part analysis.
If the electronics design community ever got a wake-up call, the infamous Pentium floating-point-division bug was it. Suddenly, it appeared that microprocessor complexity had outstripped the ability of verification tools to detect flaws, making reliable designs impossible. But a closer look at what went wrong at Intel Corp.--and at the tools and methodologies that could help prevent similar errors--paints a cautiously optimistic view of the future.
The big question was how a serious functional design error could go undetected despite Intel's huge investment in verification tools. A behind-the-scenes look by
EE Times
revealed that the bug was primarily the result of a methodology problem: Intel didn't run test cases representative of the rigorous mathematical applications the Pentium would serve.
Microprocessor-design teams today use register-transfer-level (RTL) simulation, cycle-based simul
ation and IC emulation to ferret out obscure functional design errors. Static timing analysis can eliminate most timing errors. And formal verification, an emerging software technology based on mathematical proofs, may provide nearly 100 percent assurance of functional correctness within a few years.
The Pentium FPU bug stemmed from a simple human error: a few missing entries in a lookup table used in the hardware-implementation algorithm for the division operation.
The FPU uses a radix-4 SRT algorithm for division (SRT stands for the names of its developers). The algorithm uses a lookup table to hold intermediate data for division. But, in an RTL design error, several entries were omitted in a script that was written to download entries into a programmable lookup array, resulting in an occasional error that can occur up to the fourth significant decimal point. Such errors happen all the time in design work. But this one was particularly tough to find, given the level of decimal accuracy needed
to spot it.
After writing RTL code in its proprietary IHDL language, Intel's Pentium team ran exhaustive RTL functional simulations. But the same engineer who wrote the RTL code for floating-point division wrote the simulation script. That's a methodology problem with which Intel had been wrestling before the Pentium project began; indeed, the company was in the process of setting up separate verification teams. But even with a more rigorous test-vector set, the error probably wouldn't have been caught with RTL simulation.
After the RTL design was complete, the FPU was reduced to a gate-level design using an internal logic-synthesis tool.
Then Intel turned to one verification methodology that probably could have caught the error: an IC-emulation system from Quickturn Systems (Mountain View, Calif.). Like the current Enterprise system from Quickturn, the RPM system used by the Pentium designers compiled a gate-level net-list into FPGAs, allowing designers to test some actual applications
software before going to silicon.
Unfortunately, Intel did not test the Pentium FPU on the RPM. The company was new to emulation and had enough trouble getting its 500,000-gate integer unit verified on the machine.
After silicon the bug could have been caught by a relatively simple program that ran floating-point calculations on a 486 and a Pentium and that compared the results to 32 decimal places. Indeed, that's how Intel eventually caught the bug. But the test wasn't run until well after the chip was being shipped.
AT&T offers densest FPGA to date
By Brian Fuller
BERKELEY HEIGHTS, N.J. -- AT&T Microelectronics Inc. shot through the FPGA density ceiling on February 27 when it introduced a 40,000-gate device. Called the ATT2C40, it poaches on gate-array turf and promises to realign logic-design methodologies in that arena.
Up to now, vendors have fought over sy
stem designs only at the low end of the gate-array business--roughly 15,000 gates. FPGA vendors claim more flexibility and better pricing at low volumes, while gate-array vendors insist theirs is the better deal above certain volumes, and that devices are usually denser, Now, with the 40,000-usable-gate offering, AT&T claims to have overcome such problems. The new device, a member of the company's Orca family, licks speed concerns at the higher density because it's built in half-micron CMOS. It will move to 0.35 micron later this year.
Implemented in three-layer metal, the device, with samples being shipped now, comes in speed grades of 5.1 and 3.8 ns between programmable logic cells. The fastest version claims a clock-to-output delay of less than 11.3 ns and setup times of less than 5 ns, with zero hold time.
The FPGA uses 900 programmable logic cells, 3,600 registers and up to 480 user I/Os. RAM and ROM are available up to 57,600 bits.
Both speed grades are priced at $795 apie
ce in volume. Parts are available in 208-, 240- and 304-pin PQFP and 428-pin ceramic pin-grid arrays.
Baby Bells threaten to set own set-top standard
By George Leopold and Junko Yoshida
PHILADELPHIA -- Eager to get interactive services off the drawing board and into the living room, three powerful Baby Bells are readying their own spec for a set-top box, bypassing standardization efforts and threatening to plunge the emerging set-top-box market into chaos.
Bell Atlantic, Nynex and Pacific Telesis, which last week named CBS president Howard Stringer to head their joint interactive-TV venture, are pressing the Digital Audio-Visual Council (Davic) to speed up its work on specs for the home terminals.
"We're in a big hurry because we're a market-driven industry," said Michael McKeehan, a Bell Atlantic systems architect at the alliance's Reston, Va., technical center and a Davic member.
"We're building to meet our requirements, and the standards process is lagging behind. We are not going to wait for Davic."
Set-top manufacturers and Davic plan to present a working reference model for the home terminal at a meeting in London in March. Davic expects to issue an internationally accepted draft spec in December. Should Bell Atlantic, Nynex and PacTel push forward their own spec, vendors may be forced to compete in a market fractured by incompatible standards.
Microsoft acquisition changes the 3-D game rules
By Junko Yoshida
REDMOND, Wash. -- Making a big play for the emerging 3-D games market, Microsoft Corp. has acquired RenderMorphics (London), the red-hot developer of high-performance, real-time 3-D application programming interfaces (API) for desktop PCs. Terms of the deal weren't disclosed.
Microsoft's first move will be to integrate RenderMorphics's Realit
y Lab API into the display driver interface of the upcoming Windows 95 operating system. That will extend the software giant's reach deep into the video game infrastructure. Besides running on Windows and DOS, Reality Lab operates on the Macintosh, Sega Saturn, Sony PSX and other game-console platforms.
To date, the battle for API dominance in home 3-D games has been waged by three British developers: RenderMorphics; Argonaut Software Ltd. (London), with its BRender-API, and Criterion Software Ltd. (Guildford), with its RenderWare API.
The decision by Microsoft to bundle Reality Lab in Windows 95--providing the API to end users at no additional cost--appears to end that competition. Indeed, industry observers speculated that the deal could leave both Criterion and Argonaut in uncertain market circumstances. Argonaut has set a Feb. 28 unveiling for its first production version of BRender.
CD stand
ard effort crumbles as Sony goes it alone
By Junko Yoshida
TOKYO -- The effort to forge a next-generation industry standard CD dissolved into chaos last week as Sony Corp. abandoned support for the Digital Video Disk (DVD) format from Toshiba and Time Warner. Instead, Sony renewed plans to go ahead with its own High Density CD (HDCD), developed in partnership with Philips Electronics.
The news took the industry by surprise. Sony and Philips had been negotiating with the Toshiba-Time Warner alliance in an effort to avert a fractious standards war. The talks had been progressing when they broke down suddenly late last week. Exactly what motivated Sony remained unclear.
The move was a serious setback to consumer-electronics and computer-system makers that had been banking on Sony concessions to avoid a protracted battle over a standard. It also could restart a contentious struggle among companies holding key patent and intellectual property rights to high-density CD technology, which had
been inching toward resolution.
The surprise at Sony's decision was heightened by the fact that the company's statements from Tokyo contained no firm rationale for the move. There was no news about additional developments in HDCD technologies or new software and hardware partners for the expensive and risky development project. In essence, Sony simply reiterated its committment to HDCD.
The decision appears to isolate Sony and Philips, with no consumer-electronics hardware partners--other than the two vendors themselves--expressing interest in building HDCD players. In contrast, Toshiba's DVD format has garnered supported from hardware manufacturers such as Matsushita Electric Industrial Co., Thomson Consumer Electronics, Hitachi and Pioneer. It has also received blessings from Hollywood studios such as MCA Inc., Warner Bros. Inc., MGM/UA and Parmount Pictures Corp.
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