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  Headlines and summaries from the pages of Electronic Engineering Times . Previous editions are available from the 1994 , 1995 , 1996 , 1997 , and 1998 News Archives.
Friday, October 25, 1996
ARM weighs asynch spinA team at Manchester University's computer-science department has received working silicon of the Amulet-2e, its second version of the ARM RISC microprocessor designed using asynchronous logic. Early results show it can achieve power efficiency that's superior to commercially available clocked ARM processors in certain instances.NEC to DRAM startups: watch your pricingIn a warning to Taiwan's semiconductor makers, a top NEC Corp. executive said this week that if "newcomers" to the DRAM business bomb memory prices next year, NEC's U.S. arm will file a trade complaint with Washington.Sony, Philips launch CD-rewritable platformStyling themselves as bridge builders between the ubiquitous compact disk and the coming generation of DVD digital video, CD originators Philips N.V. and Sony Corp. are here promoting a phase-change-media CD format they call the CD-rewritable (CD-RW) disk drive. Joining the pair at the announcement were Hewlett-Packard Co., Mitsubishi Chemical Corp. and Ricoh Co., which collaborated with Philips and Sony on the design.High-end processors, memory chips to lead ISSCC to multimediaWhen the 44th International Solid-State Circuits Conference convenes here Feb. 4, multimedia will take center stage. Media data types are influencing architecture -- from the switching infrastructure that must carry the new information to the personal computer and workstation clients, to the new types of devices that will ride the new wave to a role in the industry. Those devices include set-tops, network computers, games and communicators.
Thursday, October 24, 1996IC makers put the X in Xmas with holiday shutdownsFor the first time in several years, a number of semiconductor manufacturers plan to take extended holidays this Christmas as a way to cut costs. Observers say it's the crowning touch of several items that signal a semiconductor industry downturn like the ones of the 1980s and early 1990s.Military electronics still in the moneyGreater emphasis on smart weapons and commercial technologies will boost Pentagon spending for electronics over the next decade, an annual industry forecast predicts.Zoran buys CompCoreIn a strategic, $57 million move to seize the future in a growing DVD market, Zoran Corp. has acquired CompCore Multimedia Inc., a privately held company with the industry's leading MPEG-1 and MPEG-2 core technology.U.S. launches computer-securi ty effortSeveral government agencies have joined forces to combat attacks on Uncle Sam's computers. Announced by the Commerce Department's National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) at a computer-security conference here on Tuesday, the Federal Computer Incident Response Capability intends to give government agencies quicker access to security against computer hackers and viruses.Mentor raises BIST stakesMentor Graphics Corp.'s rollout of logic BIST technology at the International Test Conference (ITC) here has set the stage for a BIST shootout between the two leading contenders: Mentor and LogicVision. Perhaps more important, the inevitable market clash may finally validate the need for such technology, as well as give designers a choice of technologies.
Wednesday, October 23, 1996Desktop CAD comes to bioengineeringHigh-performance computing may b e finding a new market in the growing field of genetic engineering. Computational tools optimized for DNA sequencing and visualization are appearing, offering the same type of CAD capability that has boosted more traditional engineering.Molecular self-assembly instigated in polymer pair with electric fieldsResearchers at the University of Chicago have hit on a method for directing molecular self-assembly of materials that could lead to new avenues for the nanoscale fabrication of electronic devices. The new technique uses a novel polymer adapted from PMMA, the commonly used photoresist. By adding another common polymer, polystyrene, a system for self-assembly of structures on the molecular scale has been created.Porous process creates all-silicon capacitorResearchers at Siemens AG's Munich-Perlach facility have applied nanometer-scale processing techniques to the manufacture of high-p erformance capacitors that can be fabricated in silicon.MicroSim spins DesignLabAiming to become a broad-line provider of "shrink-wrapped" EDA products, MicroSim Corp. unveiled its DesignLab tool suite at Wescon this week in Anaheim, Calif. MicroSim is claiming a pioneering desktop environment for designing mixed analog and digital circuits from schematics through layout, with all tools under a single user interface.Exotic devices and materials meld at IEDMThe most recent innovations that will be reported at this year's International Electron Device Meeting (IEDM) here in December reveal an interesting convergence of advanced technologies. Techniques established in one area are being adapted to new materials systems, fostering surprising new device types and novel approaches to circuit fabrication.
Tuesday, October 22, 1996CEBus controller ICs aimed at enabling "smart homes"Intellon Corp. has unveiled a family of low-cost CEBus controller ICs that it hopes will help to overcome the home-automation industry's decade-old inability to sell consumers on the idea of "smart homes."Cisco spins small-office hubsCisco Systems Inc. is launching new shared-media Fast Ethernet hubs for small offices where large routers and switches are seen as overkill.National spins LVDS-based channel linksNational Semiconductor Corp. has expanded its low-voltage differential-signaling (LVDS) product family to support very-high-speed serial links for point-to-point communications.Actel unveils FPGA familyAs FPGA vendors move toward larger parts, three issues are making them reconsider their architectures. First is the tool-chain problem, second is a related one involving speed and third is the interconnect problem.Dallas Semiconductor's iButton is designed for crypto applicationsDallas Semiconductor has embedded a 1,024-bit math accelerator supporting public-key algorithms, along with ROM and SRAM memory blocks, inside a 16-mm F5 Microcan stainless-steel case. The company is touting the Cryptographic iButton as an alternative to smart cards and other transportable intelligent devices for managing transactions.
Monday, October 21, 1996Microsoft pulls plug on MIPS platformMicrosoft Corp. -- long seen as an advocate for a platform-independent NT workstation market -- stunned its RISC supporters last week by terminating NT development for the MIPS architecture. The move, precipitated by NEC Corp.'s cancellation of its MIPS-based NT workstation line in Japan, served notice that any microprocessor hoping t o oppose Intel Corp.'s Pentium Pro in the NT environment would have to meet Microsoft's criteria for commercial success.GPS comes to the dashboard in Europe, JapanSay you're driving alone through a Tokyo suburb, trying to find your business hotel, and the street names aren't marked (a common occurrence in Japan). Or say you're on a motoring holiday in Germany with a navigationally impaired companion whose only certainty is that you can't get where you want to be from where you are. You'd appreciate the value of a global-positioning-satellite (GPS)-based automobile-navigation system.Corel sees PC future in Net clientSoftware vendor Corel Corp. will move into the hardware business early next year with network computers and personal digital assistants (PDAs) based on Microware Systems Corp.'s OS-9 real-time operating system and an embedded PowerPC from Motorola.DSP developers explore new architectures to increase performanceAcknowledging that they may be close to wringing the maximum utility out of their current digital-signal-processing architectures, DSP developers are quietly working on new architectures to build chips that could achieve 10 times the performance of today's high-end DSPs.Universal bus leads charge into ComdexUniversal Serial Bus -- the low-speed peripheral link that's been revving for the past year and has almost stalled waiting for Microsoft Corp. to fold required driver support into Windows 95 and NT -- is finally ready to break out in a big way.
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