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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, November 8, 1996DVD-ROM PCs ready to rollFujitsu Ltd. will begin selling a desktop computer with a built-in DVD-ROM drive on Dec. 20, while Toshiba Corp. strives to ready a DVD-enabled desktop by year's end, the companies said. With an industry-wide accord on copyright protection, computer-systems vendors are racing to roll out DVD-ROM systems despite a dearth of available software.Aptix files antitrust suit against QuickturnIn a case that threatens to upend the burgeoning hardware-emulation market, Aptix Corp. has filed an antitrust suit against Quickturn Design Systems Inc., asserting that Quickturn's overly broad patents block any serious competition.Europe floats EDA-tools discount planLeverag ing its Esprit research program, Europe has begun negotiating discounts for access to EDA tools.LCDs angle for desktopAided by a new generation of liquid crystals from German chemists, Japan's flat-panel manufacturers are working to improve the viewing angle for vertically aligned (VA) LCD monitors, which are aimed at replacing CRTs on the desktop.Team focuses on softwareTaking a leap of faith into an evolving marketplace, Team Corp. will announce next week that it is dropping its EDA value-added-reseller (VAR) business to focus exclusively on Windows-based component-information-system (CIS) software. Team hopes to revolutionize the CIS marketplace with moderately priced software aimed at "mainstream" engineers.
Thursday, November 7, 1996Acorn, Cirrus spin Internet appliance kitAcorn Computer Group plc a nd Cirrus Logic Inc. (Fremont, Calif.) are teaming up to offer a reference design kit to companies that want to develop Internet appliances. The range of products that could be derived from the design kit include videophones, portable Internet appliances, multimedia kiosks, Web browsers for TVs and set-top boxes, and Internet terminals. The offering is intended to complement the licensing of network-computer designs available from Oracle's subsidiary, Network Computer Inc. (NCI).IBM is building Apple's next laptopThe Japanese opt for subnotebook computers -- the B-5-sized, floppy-less systems -- far more often than computer buyers in the West, where full-function laptops are the overwhelming preference. That is why Apple Computer Inc. turned to IBM Japan for the design and manufacture of a subnotebook-sized Powerbook, expected to hit the Japan market next year.ConferTech diversifies into data, videoThe multipoint conferencing industry, once a voice-circuit brokerage business, is becoming a multi-faceted arena in which high-end service providers must be ready to add H.320 videoconferencing, LAN-based (H.323) videoconferencing and T.120 data-sharing services. Next week's Telecon XVI show is expected to bring nearly 15,000 attendees to the Anaheim Convention Center to spotlight the convergence between computer/telephony integration (CTI) and traditional conferencing markets.Vencap in the U.K. fails to support technology companie sThe British venture-capital market, the most advanced in Europe, fails to support technology-based startups, according to a report by the Bank of England.Cabletron shifts business focusCabletron Systems Inc., the successful LAN and hub-networking company, wants henceforth to be known as an intranet-solutions company. Toward that end, the company ha s unveiled a brace of remote-access products and rewritten its road map.Wednesday, November 6, 1996 Report proposes Rx for telemedicineA national Institute of Medicine (IOM) report proclaims that telemedicine "suffers from a lack of hardware and software standards and is hindered by technology that is not always well-suited to the health-care environment."SaberDesigner simulator spun for NTThe Saber-Designer simulation tool suite from Analogy occupies a special place among analog and mixed-signal design tools, modeling a variety of analog phenomena. Its developers sought to provide the most accurate, easy-to-render portrait over time of voltage and/ or current changes produced by changes in stimulus, environment and the circuitry itself.Java-based neural simulator grows netsA freeware program available on the W eb allows engineers to create and train neural networks using either the popular back-propagation-of-errors learning method or by growing a unique neural architecture specifically adapted to an application.TRW pushes GaAs integrationTRW Inc. researchers have developed a monolithic microwave IC (MMIC) receiver that they believe is the highest complexity design ever achieved using integrated high-electron-mobility transistors and heterostructure bipolar transistors (HEMTs/HBTs).Ramax SRAM design uses single transistor per cellFabless memory technology company Ramax Semiconductor has received a patent on what it describes as a single-transistor static RAM. The technique should allow slow asynchronous SRAMs with 70- to 100-ns access times to be built in 60 percent of the die area of current devices.
Tuesday, November 5, 1996Compa q takes on Sun, HP, SGI, with a Wintel "workstation"Compaq Computer Corp. is trying to drive Wintel architectures straight into the heart of the RISC/Unix camp. The company's newest line of desktop platforms based on the 200-MHz Pentium Pro bear the title of Compaq Professional Workstation.WAN platform introduced for virtual private networks-- VPNet Technologies Inc., a networking newcomer formed by executives from Vindicator Inc. and Via Technologies Inc., has introduced a compression and encryption WAN platform that the company is positioning as the simplest way to create virtual private networks.ADI accelerates integration schedule for GSMAnalog Devices Inc. (ADI) has accelerated its plan for Global Systems for Mobile Communications (GSM) updates by several months. Last summer, the company talked about moving to a two-chip baseband solution by first quarter 1997, with integrated RF/IF to follow soon after.TI samples Flex chips using Motorola protocolThe first generation of Texas Instruments Inc. devices supporting Motorola Inc.'s Flex paging protocol are sampling this month from TI's wireless communications business unit.Mitel enables consumer CTIMitel Corp., which has expanded its centralized call-center architectures for computer/telephony integration (CTI) to increase multimedia services, is moving real-time CTI to consumer markets. This week, the company will introduce Personal Assistant, a telephone attached to a personal computer that is combined with software to provide full telephony functions to a Windows environment.
Monday, November 4, 1996Media engines tackle floating-point tasksThe latest generation of embedded processors is integrating specialized floating-point hardware to h andle tasks once left to the host CPU.Drives set records for high speed, low heightTwo drive makers are outpacing the state of the art for disk-drive speed and form-factor technologies. Seagate Technology Inc. has pushed rotation rates of a high-capacity disk drive to 10,000 rpm, nearly 50 percent faster than state of the art, and IBM's Storage Systems Division has trimmed the minimum height of 2.5-inch drives from 12.5 mm to 9.5 mm.Cadence to buy CCT for $420m, shifting balance of power in board/IC CADUndertaking the most expensive acquisition in EDA history, Cadence Design Systems is buying routing specialist Cooper and Chyan Technology (CCT) for roughly $420 million in stock. The purchase, due to close in the first quarter, alters the competitive landscape in both the pc-board and IC CAD industries.Magneto-optical drive makers push storage capacityAs a group of eight companies wraps up work on a draft specification for a 7-Gbyte, 5-inch rewritable magneto-optical (MO) disk system, two of the participants are already looking to double the nascent form factor's capacity before the decade is out.Alliance brews on embedded DRAMSensing a potential advantage over ASIC vendors and other memory houses, DRAM technology partners Toshiba, IBM, Siemens and Motorola are looking to extend their alliance from discrete parts to embedded DRAM on logic. Given the technology and market clout the four represent, the initiative could influence the shape of embedded DRAM as a mainstream technology.Talks seek fast HDTV resolutionBroadcasters and their HDTV Grand Alliance partners are scheduled to meet here today with computer and movie-industry representatives to work out a schedule for talks aimed at breaking the logjam ove r approval of the controversial digital-TV transmission standard. If a compromise is reached by the Thanksgiving target, U.S. officials said, the digital broadcasting spec could receive final Federal Communications Commission approval at its Dec. 15 meeting.
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