Headlines and summaries from the pages of Electronic Engineering Times . Previous editions are available from the 1994 , 1995 , 1996 , 1997 , and 1998 News Archives.

04/05/96

Intel proposes new accelerator-to-memory connection

Consortia forming worldwide to drive move to 12" wafers

CDT finds partner to produce plastic displays

ARM roadmap targets network computing
What's new(s) at EE Times-interactive

04/04/96

Acorn turns to Strong Arm for set-top boxes

The Philippines aims to enter the PC components business

ADI enters power management IC market

Controller startup rolling fuzzy MCUs

04/03/96

From N+I: management platforms, virtual LANs shine

Optically-aimed antenna steers radar signals

Security systems may soon recognize people's faces

IBM SiGe transistor prom ises blazingly fast CMOS circuits

04/02/96

MicroModule ships Pentium-based MCMs for notebooks

Dr. Spice simulates circuits on Windows and Unix

Two tools combine to verify and debug designs

Raytheon, Micro Linear power up Pentium Pro's

Motorola introduces rugged power MOSFETs

04/01/96

Microsoft boosts FireWire for Simply Interactive PC

PCI roars along, but system design questions are cropping up

Congress forms Internet Caucus

Coming to a PBS station near you: HDTV

AM LCD improvements claim a victim as TI quits FED business

HP pioneer David Packard dies at 83

Intel proposes new accelerator-to-memory connection

By Ron Wilson

San Jose, Calif. -- Intel Corp. stunned much of the personal- computer graphics community here this week, proposing an entirely new method for connec ting graphics-accelerator hardware directly to the PC main memory. The accelerated graphics port (AGP) will open a 32-bit path between a graphics card and the system DRAM controller, allowing access to texture maps and polygon lists in system memory. But it may find application far beyond the 3-D acceleration envisioned by Intel.

"We will implement the AGP in PCI core logic for the Pentium Pro CPU in 1997," said Intel desktop group vice president and general manager Michael Aymar. "At this point, we are putting together a specification for the port. When we have that in place--by the end of this quarter--we will release it to the industry."

Aymar said that Intel had worked with three graphics leaders--ATI Technologies Inc. (Thornhill, Ontario), Cirrus Logic Inc. (Fremont, Calif.) and S3 Inc. (Santa Clara, Calif.)--in developing the port.

Intel channel manager Phillip Mosakowski explained the motivation behind AGP: "We are trying to reduce the cost of frame buffers."

Architecturally, th e AGP will be a third port on the DRAM controller, beside the port that serves the Pentium Pro CPU module and the port for the PCI host controller. Thus, in the new chip sets, the DRAM controller will have to arbitrate between three competing demands on main memory.

Consortia forming worldwide to drive move to 12" wafers

By Peter Clarke

GENEVA -- Two recently formed consortia will likely drive the semiconductor industry's transition from 8- to 12-inch wafers. Japanese chip makers are the basis of one consortium, while a subsidiary of Sematech (Austin, Texas) will include chip makers from the United States, Europe, Korea and Taiwan. Representatives of both groups discussed the transition at the Semicon Europa exhibition here.

The strength of the two consortia has improved chances that the transition to the larger 12-inch wafers will happen around 2000.

On the other han d, while each consortium said it intends to speak with the other, the possibility remains that the two groups will come up with different standards, leading to added costs for equipment makers and materials suppliers. Those groups are already concerned that they are expected to bear the cost of developing equipment with no certainty of when volume production will be required.

Semiconductor Leading Edge Technologies Inc. (Yokohama), known as Selete, was formed in February to represent 10 leading Japanese chip makers. Sematech's International 300-mm, or 12-inch, Initiative (I300I), has 13 device companies within its ranks so far.

CDT finds partner to produce plastic displays

By David Lieberman

HAVANT, England -- Technology developer Cambridge Display Technology Ltd. (CDT) is joining hands with manufacturing specialist Xyratex in hopes of bringing light-emitting plastic displa ys to market.

A tiny, three-year spinout of the Cavendish Laboratory at Cambridge University in the United Kingdom, CDT has been seeking partners to help commercialize its LEP (light-emitting polymer) flat-panel display technology.

The class of displays called organic LEDs, whether monomers or polymers, is essentially synthetic light-emitting plastics, with all the associated manufacturing advantages of plastic. They can be fabricated using familiar, inexpensive coating processes, said Mark Gostick, manager of business development at CDT (Cambridge, England), "including reel-to-reel. This means that large-area panels can be made at low cost, and the substrates used can also be plastic, allowing fully flexible displays to be made."

Among the organic LEDs' other advantages are low-voltage operation, relatively high luminous efficiency compared with existing flat-panel-display technologies and a simple structure.

ARM roadmap targets network computing

By Peter Clarke

LONDON -- Advanced RISC Machines Ltd. (ARM; Cambridge, England) used embedded-systems exhibitions in Boston and London this week to lay out a processor road map that reveals a three-pronged strategy for network computing.

To help those chips get designed in, the company also disclosed real-time-operating-system ports and development tools for the ARM architecture.

ARM already has one chip architecture, the ARM7500, based on the ARM7 CPU core, designed into Web browsers and multimedia-TV set-top boxes. In the third quarter, ARM plans to add to that with the ARM7500FE, capable of floating-point arithmetic in hardware and enhanced to support EDO (extended-data-out) DRAM for off-chip memory.

Next year, the road map calls for introduction of the ARM8500, based on the forthcoming ARM8 five-stage pipeline CPU core. Also expected is a fourth X500 processor, the SA-1500, based on the StrongARM C PU, developed with Digital Equipment (Hudson, Mass.). The X500 family will cover a performance range starting with the ARM7500 and extending to seven or eight times that level with the SA-1500.

Acorn turns to StrongArm for set-top boxes

By Peter Clarke

CAMBRIDGE, England -- With no commercial rollout in sight for Acorn Online Media's set-top box and interactive TV system now undergoing trials here, the company is looking to add the StrongArm processor and cable modem technology to beef up and diversify its offerings.

The higher performance offered by StrongArm could change the technical landscape for interactive multimedia and result in changes in the preferred communications links for such systems. The StrongArm SA-110 processor designed by Advanced RISC Machines Ltd., in which the Acorn Group holds a 43-percent stake, and Digital Equipment Corp. should be able to perf orm MPEG-2 decoding in real-time with minimal hardware assistance, making it a suitable core for the heart of satellite, cable and terrestrial digital TV set-top boxes.

David Boughey, major accounts manager at Online Media, said, "It may be that network computing and the set-top box will merge. We already have Web browser software written for television display and infrared keyboards are also available." Those keyboards communicate with the system using wireless IR, though there is debate over whether traditional television watchers will want to use a keyboard at all.

The Philippines aims to enter the PC components business

By Mark Carroll

MANILA, Philippines -- For most of the 1990s, the Philippines has been the basket case of the Asian economic miracle. A calming of political tensions though, along with attractive economics, has the region poised to become Asia's ne w PC-component center. The opening of a high-tech industrial park along with aggressive government incentives are bringing PC-component manufacturers to the Philippines.

Intel Corp., NEC Corp., Cypress Semiconductor Corp., Matsushita Corp. and Acer Inc. currently have or are planning PC-component manufacturing facilities here. Electronic components are, in fact, the largest export product of the Philippines. In 1995, more than $5 billion in components were manufactured in the Philippines by 50 companies.

"Two main factors make the Philippines attractive," Pena said. "The government investment incentives are more favorable here than, say, in Thailand. These include tax holidays as well as duty-free importation of production equipment and components."

The second main attraction for IC companies operating in the Philippines is the labor force. "The Philippines has a large amount of available labor. Further, this is educated labor. All of our line employees have at least a high-school educatio n. All have basic English skills and are highly trainable," Pena explained.

ADI enters power management IC market

By Ashok Bindra

SANTA CLARA, Calif. -- Aiming to become a player in the power-management IC market by 2000, Analog Devices Inc. (ADI) is leveraging its expertise in analog and mixed-signal design to produce 64 power devices by yearend. The devices will be released by the Power Management Team (PMT), a business unit that ADI launched here two years ago. While several proprietary designs are in the works, PMT will move ahead with second-sourced parts.

"Our strategy is to start with improved second sources and follow up with best-in-class proprietary products," said Thomas Szepesi, product line director for ADI's power-management products. He said that about eight switching regulators will be released in the next four months. Those will be second-sourced parts , stemming from Linear Technology Corp., Maxim Integrated Products and Unitrode Corp., among others, Szepesi added. Meanwhile, ADI is prepping proprietary designs, the ADP3000 and ADP36XX, for launch toward the end of the quarter. Seven more in-house designs are said to be in the works.

Controller startup rolling fuzzy MCUs

By Craig Matsumoto

SAN JOSE, Calif. -- Starting in the next quarter, Adaptive Logic Inc. plans to move into the market for fuzzy-logic microcontrollers with volume production of its first product.

Sampling for the AL220 microcontroller was due to begin this month and has drawn interest from such customers as Digital Equipment Corp. and AT&T Corp.

That doesn't mean they're completely sold on fuzzy logic. Most customers, calling Adaptive out of curiosity, are ordering prototyping quantities for experimentation, said Kirk MacKenzie, director o f marketing.

Revenue is "not a whole lot yet," he acknowledged. "This

is probably going to be our first revenue year."

Still, Adaptive's prospects for spreading the fuzzy-logic gospel were strong enough to attract five venture-capital firms to its side. The 15-employee startup also snared two former Intel Corp. vice presidents in MacKenzie and chief executive George Schneer, both of whom left the chip giant in the 1980s.

From N+I: management platforms, virtual LANs shine

By Loring Wirbel

LAS VEGAS -- While commodity low-end switching and routing platforms may be dominating this year's NetWorld+Interop, several internetworking companies are displaying significant upgrades in network manageability and virtual LAN creation. Digital Equipment Corp. is rolling out a network-management platform, Cabletron Systems Inc. is highlighting virtual-LAN configuration us ing its Secure Fast Packet switching, and LANart Inc. is improving the virtual-LAN segmentation capabilities of its SegWay architecture.

Small companies have come to NetWorld+Interop with big concepts in hand. Integrix Inc. (Newbury Park, Calif.) is showing off network security concepts in conjunction with Teledyne Electronic Technologies Inc. Router and firewall expert Livingston Enterprises (Pleasanton, Calif.) is providing a way to filter Web sites and newsgroups. Fast Ethernet pioneer Cogent Data Technologies Inc. (Friday Harbor, Wash.) has a new theory for moving to scaled Gbit/second Ethernet. And Measurement Techniques Inc. (Stoughton, Mass.) is promoting a method of caching files to servers, based on a file server MTI calls the Shared LAN Cache.

When Digital Equipment (Maynard, Mass.) launched its switched enVISN network architecture a year ago, all the hooks were provided to manage switches and routers from a variety of vendors. This year Digital completes the suite by launching clearVI SN management software at NetWorld+Interop. Software demonstrations were augmented by a week-long Internet forum in which Bruce Sweet, Digital's engineering manager for network management, discussed clear-VISN in virtual- LAN definitions.

Optically-aimed antenna steers radar signals

By Chappell Brown

TORRANCE, Calif. -- Research into millimeter-wave antenna design at Physical Optics Corp. has turned up a new method for steering high-frequency radar pulses.

The simplified system could result in compact, low-cost radar for mass-market applications such as automobile collision-avoidance radar. Like phased-array radar antennas, the new method does not require any mechanical scanning components, which tend to be slow, bulky and unreliable. A 90-GHz source beam is steered with an optically pumped diffraction grating, offering a simple and compact component suited to short w avelengths.

The method uses interference generated by a combination mirror and transparent diffraction grating. The novel aspect of the design is the means of generating the diffraction grating by inducing a periodic electron-hole plasma in a thin wafer of silicon.

The plasma grating is generated by shining light through a physical diffraction grating at the back of the reflector and onto the silicon wafer at the front of the antenna. As a result, the projected light pattern induces a corresponding electron-hole distribution in the silicon wafer creating a varying refractive index. Incident millimeter-wave radiation on the front of the wafer passes through this variable index region and then bounces off an indium-tin-oxide mirror. The combined reflection and refraction effects act to reinforce a reflected wave at a certain angle, which depends on the spacing between the silicon wafer and the mirror surface, as well as

the grating's orientation.

Security systems may soon recognize people's faces

By R. Colin Johnson

WELLESLEY, Mass. -- Neural-based technology may revolutionize personnel-verification systems, including retinal-, finger- and hand-print scanners, by unobtrusively comparing faces instead. Miros Inc. has developed technology that can compare, in under a second, an image from a standard security camera with the stored images of authorized users.

"For personnel-verification applications, where speed and reliability are important, face-recognition is by far the best choice," said Miros founder and president Michael Kuperstein. "Every other biometric technology has problems: for instance, fingerprints carry the stigma of criminality and people who work with their hands often don't have recognizable fingerprints anyway, but everybody has a face with no stigmas attached."

Only a few startups are readying face-recognition systems, making Miros's 80 installations the largest in its category. "With the help of our partners, which include Sun Microsystems, system integrators and security dealers, TrueFace has become the most installed face-recognition product worldwide," Kuperstein said.

IBM SiGe transistor promises blazingly fast CMOS circuits

By Gail Robinson

YORKTOWN HEIGHTS, N.Y. -- Researchers here at the IBM T.J. Watson Center and at the University of Illinois at Urbana are using silicon germanium (SiGe) heterostructures to build p-type transistors that they claim can achieve 500 percent higher hole mobility than p-type transistors based on silicon alone. They believe the approach will significantly push out the performance envelope for low-power circuits, including CMOS devices.

The researchers have employed the process to fabricate 0.1-micron gate-length silicon p-type MOSFETs and modulation-doped field -effect transistors (MODFETs) that clock in at 73 GHz operating from a 0.6-V bias-voltage supply.

"This work dramatically expands the fundamental properties of silicon available to work with in the semiconductor industry," said IBM fellow Bernie Meyerson, who developed the ultra-high-vacuum chemical-vapor deposition (UHV-CVD) process used to grow the SiGe heterostructures. "Now you have the opportunity to take the silicon-based material system once again and drive it hard, because you have tools to work with in terms of changing fundamental physical properties which were not available two or three years ago.

MicroModule ships Pentium-based MCMs for notebooks

By Terry Costlow

DENVER -- MicroModule Systems Inc. is shipping a line of Pentium-based multichip modules (MCMs) designed for notebook computers. The move comes as the MCM industry gears up for the annual MCM Conferen ce, which opens here in two weeks.

MicroModule Systems, which announced the technology but not a formal product early this year, hopes that the modules will find design slots in portable PCs. The Spectrum modules house a range of CPUs with different frequencies, a support chip set, cache memory and a temperature sensor, in an approach that lets engineers design one motherboard that can be upgraded simply by switching modules.

The Spectrum modules' movement into production marks the general effort among MCM providers to forge high-volume markets. Multichip modules have tapped a revenue vein in large computers and military equipment but have yet to land growth applications that require the blend of size and speed that MCMs provide. Convincing notebook-computer makers that MCMs are cost-effective is a goal not only of MicroModule Systems but of the industry overall.

Dr. Spice simulates ci rcuits on Windows and Unix

MOUNTAIN VIEW, Calif. -- Deutsch Research has introduced Dr. Spice, a circuit simulator for Windows and Unix platforms. Claiming fast speeds, accuracy and ease-of-use, this full-featured Spice simulator represents the next generation of a product line previously called Spice Windows Professional.

According to Jeff Deutsch, president of Deutsch Research, one of the major differences with Dr. Spice is tight integration with Orcad, Protel and Viewlogic schematics. Certified Windows 95 and Windows NT support has also been added, along with extensive on-line documentation.

Dr. Spice is based on Berkeley Spice 3 code, in addition to proprietary sparse-matrix, convergence and time-step algorithms. These features result in both speed and accuracy improvements, Deutsch claimed. All basic Spice analysis modes are included, such as dc operating point, ac small-signal response, temperature, time-domain, Fourier, noise, distortion and Monte Carlo.

One enhancement that lends itself to interactivity is a "stop-modify-restart" capability. Users can stop the simulation, modify a component value or waveform, and continue. A "save and reload" feature for bias point information allows users to rerun simulation using a previous dc solution as the starting point.

Two tools combine to verify and debug designs

By Stan Runyon

BLACKSBURG, Va. -- Two tools have pooled their talents in an effort to help in verifying and debugging designs and prototypes. With the combination of capabilities, users can back annotate actual circuit behavior to VHDL, Verilog, Spice or gate-level simulators.

The first, from SynaptiCAD, is the WaveFormer, an EDA tool for drawing and analyzing waveforms and, through its digital stimulus generator, for porting those waveforms to and from simulators, logic analyzers, or other test equipment.

The second, the Pod-A- Lyzer 8020, from Boulder Creek Engineering (Saratoga, Calif.), is a 100-MHz, 18-channel logic analyzer built into a pod. The pod plugs directly into the serial port of any PC; no cards need be installed within the PC.

Together, the tools provide three novel benefits, according to SynaptiCAD: Waveforms captured by the logic analyzer can be used as stimulus vectors for circuit simulation, a fast debugging technique; designers can view and compare simulated and captured results in one environment; and actual circuit operation can be easily documented.

Raytheon, Micro Linear power up Pentium Pro's

By Ashok Bindra

SAN JOSE, Calif. -- Powering Pentium Pro processors has not been a trivial task. Specialized voltage regulator modules based on discrete components are being built to meet Intel's stringent VRM specs for Pentium Pro power needs. Now that task has been simplified with the introduction of single-chip power-supply controllers from Micro Linear Corp. here and Raytheon Electronics in Mountain View, Calif.

Micro Linear's ML4900 and Raytheon's RC5042 are highly integrated, high-efficiency programmable dc/dc converters that generate output voltages between 2.1 and 3.5 V from a 5-V input to meet Intel's specs. To do so, they require passive external components and n-channel Mosfets.

Intel's faster processors are creating a market for voltage regulators that can meet the rapidly changing demands of the Pentium Pro-like processors, said Jim Turley, senior editor with The Microprocessor Report based in Mountain View. The market is big enough, he said, to support such suppliers.

These monolithic controller chips allow users to build cost-effective VRMs with a minimum number of components or easily implement the spec on the motherboard, said George Hill, director of marketing at Raytheon.

Motorola introduces rugged power MOSFETs

By Ashok Bindra

PHOENIX -- Motorola Inc. has unveiled a family of power MOSFETs based on its new HDTMOS-2 process, which the company said enhances the devices' on-resistance and ruggedness. The target is low-voltage (20-V and 30-V), high-speed switching applications.

In addition, the company said it intends to extend this capability to 60-V parts later in the year. Specifically, the HDTMOS-2 based devices will be aimed at applications in which Rds(on) is critical, said Dan Artusi, director of new product development in Motorola's Semiconductor Products Sector. "This technology opens the possibility of eliminating heat sinks and significantly cutting the size of electronic modules by reducing conductive losses," he noted.

Also, the extremely low power losses resulting from the technology will benefit portable, battery-powered products, Artusi said. And the low on-resistance and fast switching characte ristics of these MOSFETs make them suitable for synchronous rectification in high-efficiency converters. The HDTMOS-2 devices have demonstrated specific resistance--Rds(on) x area--that is 40 percent lower than previous-generation low Rds(on) devices.

Microsoft boosts FireWire for Simply Interactive PC

By Ron Wilson

SAN JOSE, Calif. -- When Microsoft Corp. unwraps its Simply Interactive PC this week, the proposal will strip the Peripheral Component Interconnect (PCI) bus from its role as system backbone, bring new buses into play and push the PC in the direction of asymmetric multiprocessing. The SIPC, part of the PC 97 initiative, will be unveiled here at the Windows Hardware Engineering Conference.

However, while Microsoft is pushing in one direction, a powerful industry group is pulling in the opposite, trying to make PCI the single bus around which a PC is built. And In tel, guardian of PCI and primary hardware supplier to the industry, has yet to publicly commit to any strategy.

The strongest impetus for change will come from the PC 97 initiative. But on the surface, the idea does not sound like a manifesto for revolution. Microsoft is billing its Simply Interactive PC as a "more lovable, consumer-friendly appliance," in the words of Carl Stork, Windows Platform director at Microsoft. But implicit in this idea is the need for radical architectural change.

The SIPC would be the center for entertainment and productivity in the home, reaching out to consumer-electronics products as well as conventional PC peripherals, Stork said. The goal extends not just to what you can plug in but also to how you plug it in. Microsoft sees the SIPC as a strictly plug-and-play device--one in which the user would never have to open the enclosure to add or remove a peripheral.

But that raises immediate problems with the existing PC architecture, built around a PCI-bus backbone . PCI does not easily accept numerous plug-in options, and issues have emerged with PCI plug-and-play configuration (see PCI roars along, but system design questions are cropping up).

PCI roars along, but system design questions are cropping up

By Alexander Wolfe

SAN JOSE, Calif. -- The wildly popular Peripheral Component Interconnect, the fast data bus that extends the PC to accelerators and other high-performance architectural add-ins, could become a victim of its own success, industry sources said.

While usage of PCI is growing by leaps and bounds, engineers are uncovering technical issues that are raising thorny questions about how to approach system design. The challenges loom largest in advanced architectures sporting next-generation multimedia-accelerator chips and in multiprocessor-equipped systems. But they have also cropped up in garden-variety Windows 95 PCs.

Microsoft Corp., for one, has issued a technical bulletin warning software developers of potential incompatibilities between many existing PCI implementations and the company's operating systems. Separately, industry experts see challenges ahead due to emerging requirements to incorporate PCI-to-PCI and PC-to-Cardbus bridges into systems architectures. And some multimedia engineers hope to spark a shift from current incarnations of the bus to much faster 66-MHz implementations, as the upcoming generation of accelerator chips hits the market.

No one has suggested that any of these issues will derail the bus--quite the contrary. "PCI is very robust. The problem is, it's a whole new set of concepts people haven't absorbed," said Ed Solari, author of "PCI Hardware and Software Architecture and Design" (Annabooks; San Diego, Calif.). "People from the ISA/EISA world are used to plugging something together and having it work. PCI is very sophisticated. It has delayed transmission as you go through a bridge- -something that never existed in older buses. It allows bus retries and support burst-mode transfers."

Congress forms Internet Caucus

WASHINGTON -- A handful of lawmakers have formed an Internet Caucus to promote better understanding of the growing list of net-related issues facing Congress.

Caucus members include: Sens. Larry Pressler, R-S.D., a prime mover behind telecom overhaul legislation, and Patrick Leahy, D-Vt.; Reps. Anna Eshoo, D-Calif., Rick White, R-Wash., and Rick Boucher, D-Va.

"There is a gaping hole in the knowledge of most members of Congress about the Internet, something that was amply demonstrated by the recent decision to impose heavy goverment censorship on online communications," Eshoo said. "Only when legislators are more familiar with the nuances of this exciting medium can we expect to see better policies for dealing with it."

Coming to a PBS station near you: HDTV

By George Leopold

WASHINGTON -- Marking what could be the beginning of a sudden wave of HDTV demonstrations, public TV officials announced plans last week to build what they claim is the nation's first full-blown HDTV broadcast facility.

WETA, the Public Broadcasting Service affiliate with studios in Arlington, Va., laid claim to being the first U.S. broadcaster to design and construct a facility to produce and broadcast advanced TV programming and the first to fully implement HDTV capabilities. Construction will begin near the end of the year and take about two years to complete.

WETA officials said the project will cost between $10 million and $14 million, with funds coming from a separate fund-raising effort targeting foundations, corporations and individuals. The figures are somewhat higher than most industry estimates of what it will cost local s tations to convert to digital broadcasting. WETA, which purchased a new building last September, will convert to digital operations and add an HDTV capability.

The new station could tie in with a similar effort planned by Maximum Service Television Inc., a Washington-based group representing broadcasters. MSTV delayed plans last November to start the nation's first HDTV station to demonstrate the technology. MSTV vice president Victor Tawil said the group plans to select a station in the next several weeks, and WETA is among several of the Washington, D.C., area candidates. Tawil said MSTV is also looking at candidate stations elsewhere. The MSTV effort also includes the Electronic Industries Association, which represents equipment makers.

AM LCD improvements claim a victim as TI quits FED business

By David Lieberman

DALLAS -- After a 2 1/2-year quest to develop field-emiss ion displays, or FEDs, for its notebook computer business, Texas Instruments Inc. is abandoning the effort, citing adverse market conditions: the recent dramatic price reductions and performance improvements in active-matrix (AM) LCDs.

TI was the first of several companies to license the FED technology of the French company PixTech and sign on to cooperatively develop the technology; it was followed by Raytheon, Futaba and Motorola. And it also headed the team of companies, which included Raytheon, that snagged a sizable DOD development contract for FEDs under the Technology Reinvestment Project.

"Since 4Q 1994, we've seen the price of a 10.X-inch VGA AM LCD drop from $1,200 to roughly $300 to $350, while at the same time, the performance has doubled from about 2 lumens/W to about 4 lumens/W," said Tom Petrovich, who was the business development director for the FED project at TI's Semiconductor Group in Dallas.

"Based on those two things," he said, "we've concluded that it would be very d ifficult for us to have a successful, profitable business in flat panels in the notebook market. We don't have any problems with the technology and believe somebody can be successful in other market segments, but with likely AM LCD performance improvements and price reductions in the future, it'd be difficult in the notebook market."

HP pioneer David Packard dies at 83

By George Rostky

PALO ALTO, Calif. -- David Packard, the co-founder of Hewlett-Packard Co. and the man who had perhaps more to do with the shaping of Silicon Valley than any other industry leader, died on March 26 at Stanford University Hospital after losing a 10-day battle with pneumonia. He was 83 years old.

By now just about everybody in the industry, if not the country, has heard how Packard, with school chum William R. Hewlett, started the Hewlett-Packard Co. in 1939. Hewlett designed the pair's first p roduct, the HP 200-A audio oscillator, around a Wien Bridge circuit

One of the tiny company's first orders came from another startup, Walt Disney Studios, which wanted the 200-A oscillators for making the sound track of the first movie with hi-fi sound, Fantasia.

Packard believed that managers should establish what was to be done, then get out of the way and let people do it. People, he felt, want to do a good job. In essence, the philosophy embodied respect for individuals.

In the days when layoffs were rampant in the electronics industry, there were none at HP. Instead of letting people go during periods of weak sales and rehiring them when business picked up, HP reduced the work week and cut salaries proportionately. Many employees expressed their loyalty to the company by working a full week anyway, even at partial pay.

A Colorado native, Packard graduated from Stanford in 1934 with a bachelor's degree in electrical engineering, membership in Phi Beta Kappa and Sigma Xi fraternit ies, and varsity letters in basketball and football. He moved to Schenectady, N.Y., to work for General Electric Co., where he shared an apartment with John Fluke, who later founded John Fluke Mfg. Co.

They didn't have a lot of money. So when Packard, a heavy smoker, burned a hole in the arm of their only upholstered chair, Fluke expressed intense annoyance. Packard applied a coat of shellac to the burn and announced that they now enjoyed the first upholstered armchair with a built-in ashtray.

Free Subscription to EE Times First Name Last Name Company Name Title Email address   Click here for your Free Subscription to EETimes Europe