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, May 31, 1996

A new mission for Java: Sun aims it at embedded telecom apps

FCC leery of Euro Commission's 'bit tax' proposal

HDL simulators rated

Smart-card makers ramp up

Zoran unwraps DVD design for PC

Thursday, May 30, 1996

Acer forms networking unit

HTS process yields very high-current superconductor wires suitable for power cables

Genetic program auto-designs analog circuits

Wet films convert light to photocurrent

Cadence's new 'design services' model appears to be a success--for now

Tuesday, May 28, 1996

DOD virtual engi neering project pushes the Net's limits

Hyundai steals march on other DVD-chip makers

Patent issues split industry and academe, threatening R&D

From CES: Web-ready TVs challenge the Network Computer

Brooktree to push HDSL for Internet

TI enters 0.25ý ASIC race

Navy asks PowerPC to come aboard

Monday, May 27, 1996

Memorial Day -- no headlines

Headlines and summaries from the pages of Electronic Engineering Times . Previous editions from 1994 , 1995 , and 1996 are in the News Archive on the News page .

Other news sources on Techweb .

Friday, May 31, 1996

A new mission for Java: Sun aims it at embedded telecom apps

GRENOBLE, France -- Sun Microsystems Inc. is aiming its Hot Java language at embedded applications, most immediately in telecommunications. APIs that allow Java programming of Sun's integrated telecommunications hardware and software solutions will be introduced within "a few months," said Jean-Pierre Baudouin, director of telecom products at the company's software arm, SunSoft Inc.

Baudouin disclosed the Java plans as he introduced the latest version of SunSoft's Telecommunications Management Network (TMN) software. TMN is intended to allow different vendors' equipment to communicate sophisticated management information so that multivendor networks can be managed as a single entity.

The TMN standard is heavily based on object-oriented methods, but the agents are usually written in the C++ programming language. Though reminiscent of Java, the standard and its supposed benefits were fixed before Java burst on the scene. "TMN is based on GDMO -- guidelines for definition of managed objects -- which was drawn up a few years ago," Baudouin said. "Java would add issues of security and reliability."

Baudouin said SunSoft was investigating how Java and GDMO could be merged. "There will be a need for adaptation of the model," he said. "But we'd rather not introduce extra standards." He also said SunSoft was talking to AT&T, developer of Inferno, a potential Java rival.

Return to the headlines at the top of the page.

FCC leery of Euro Commission's 'bit tax' proposal

WASHINGTON -- While Europe ponders a proposed bit tax on information sent over networks, U.S. regulators have adopted a wait-and-see attitude toward the Internet as they struggle to figure out where it fits into a broad new U.S. regulatory scheme.

A European Commission report advocating consideration of a bit tax has elicited little official response here and only informal discussions between U.S. and European regulators. Reaction from Internet users has been overwhelmingly against the EC plan.

The Federal Communications Commission (FCC) has reluctantly addressed Internet regulation in proceedings focusing on telephony and universal service. Policy makers said they are moving cautiously on global regulatory issues raised by the Internet. "The general U.S. attitude is, 'It's too early,' " said Mark Corbitt, director of technology policy in the FCC's Office of Plans and Policy. U.S. regulators are "allowing the technology to evolve [while] monitoring developments," he added.

The Internet telephony proceeding stems from a March petition filed by a phone group called America's Carriers Telecommunication Association (ACTA) seeking to ba n the sale of software that allows computers with Internet access to be used as a long-distance telephone at virtually no charge for the call. In an effort to end the skimming of its revenues, ACTA argued that providers of the software are telecommunications carriers subject to FCC regulation.

Return to the headlines at the top of the page.

HDL simulators rated

GOSPORT, HAMPSHIRE, U.K. -- A benchmark report from DA Solutions provides detailed comparisons of execution speeds and memory requirements for a variety of simulators. Specifically, the report pins gold stars on Fintronic's Verilog-based FinSim for its speed and on Cadence's Leapfrog VHDL simulator for its performance.

The intent of the benchmark, which focuses on performance rather than ease-of-use issues, is to help users choose simulators while minimizing the amount of evaluation needed, said DA Solutions managing director John Hill awi.

"Indirectly, we've also helped the vendors, because we uncovered a large number of bugs and performance deficiencies in the products," he said.

The benchmark exercise included VHDL simulators from Cadence, Ikos, Mentor Graphics, Synopsys and Veda Design Automation, along with Verilog simulators from Fintronic, Mentor Graphics and Intergraph. It encompassed some 19 benchmark circuits ranging up to 3,200 gates at the gate level, and 48,000 lines of code at the register-transfer level (RTL).

"Leapfrog, in my opinion, performed the best overall, but there was no clear winner," Hillawi said. "Really, there are good points in all the products."

Return to the headlines at the top of the page.

Smart-card makers ramp up

ATLANTA -- Smart cards will undergo a number of major tests this year, and vendors are so confident of success they're already planning the technical changes needed for widespread usage of the semiconductor-based cards. Some suppliers are developing chips for contactless reading, others plan a shift to public key encryption, and pretty much everyone is eyeing memory-size increases.

Vendors of chips, readers and cards unveiled second-generation products at the CardTech/SecurTech conference here recently. Forthcoming standards upgrades were also hot topics at the conference, which was by all accounts far busier than in previous years.

One of the most far-reaching of the potential changes is that data encryption may well become more complex. Currently, most smart-card systems use private, rather than public, security schemes. But when usage goes beyond limited tests such as Visa's multi-million-card rollout at the Olympics here next month, these schemes may no longer work.

"We think public key encryption will become the norm," said William Weiss, marketing manager for identification products at Philips Semiconductor s (Sunnyvale, Calif.). "Right now, no one uses it, because they're working with closed systems. The trials are relatively small, and they have definite start and end dates. In that environment, there's no need for high levels of security. [But] as you go from trials to open systems, you need the highest level of security."

Return to the headlines at the top of the page.

Zoran unwraps DVD design for PC

CHICAGO -- At Comdex/Spring here on Monday, Zoran Corp. will take the wraps off a reference design for implementing DVD digital video in a multimedia PC. The company hopes to penetrate the emerging DVD-system market ahead of its competitors by leveraging its AC-3 decoder IC, now in its second generation.

"This reference design, based on the PCI bus, will enable any PC OEM to develop DVD-integrated PCs in time for a fall 1996 launch," said Levy Gerzberg, president and chief exec utive officer of Zoran.

The company's AC-3 chip is the only Dolby Laboratories-certified AC-3 silicon shipping in volume, claimed David Anisman, director of marketing for Zoran's MPEG products. He said the chip is "being designed not only into most of the first-generation DVD players for TVs but also into a majority of the multimedia PCs scheduled for launch this Christmas."

The reference design, designated DVD4PC, is a complete PCI add-in card that allows users to play back DVD streams, either on a PC screen or on a TV monitor, with no additional hardware. The design comprises Zoran's multimedia PCI controller, SGS-Thomson's MPEG-2 video-decoding IC and Zoran's two-channel or six-channel AC-3 decoder chip. All three devices are available in volume.

Return to the headlines at the top of the page.

Thursday, May 30

Acer forms networking unit

TAIPEI, Taiwan -- Acer Inc. has c reated a company to enter the world market for networking-transmission products. Capitalized at more than $11 million, Acer Netxus Inc. will develop, manufacture and sell networking products for both the PC and telecommunications markets.

Lance Wu, president of Netxus, said that the company's first products will be ISDN modems and high-speed digital subscriber line (HDSL) modems. He said that Netxus will also produce standard Ethernet products "to generate cash flow."

Wu sees Netxus oriented toward the wide-area network (WAN) and Internet-connection markets, as opposed to the LAN market on which most Taiwanese network companies focus. "Basically, we are a WAN/telecom company [that is also] looking into LAN/WAN connection products," he said.

Netxus certainly will leverage its close connection to Acer to access the PC market. Wu acknowledged, though, that inroads to the telecommunications market will be an uphill battle.

For ISDN products, Netxus will target Germany, the United States an d Japan. The marketing strategy for the HDSL offerings targets those products at developing countries.

Wu said that Netxus considers HDSL the next transmission step above ISDN. HDSL allows repeaterless T1 transmission over standard telephone lines at 784 kbits/second. It has an optimal transmission distance of about 2 miles, beyond which "the transmission rate falls to about 300 kbits/s--still enough for decent videoconferencing," Wu said.

Return to the headlines at the top of the page.

HTS process yields very high-current superconductor wires suitable for power cables

OAK RIDGE, Tenn. -- A new method for fabricating film-based high-temperature superconductor (HTS) wires that support very high-current densities could accelerate the use of the novel materials in power and utility applications. Researchers at the Department of Energy's Oak Ridge National Laboratory have produced a roll-textured, buffered metal superconducting tape with a critical current density of 710,000 A/cm2 at 77 K, the boiling point of liquid nitrogen.

The samples were reported to offer such high critical currents--33 A in a sample 3 mm wide and 1.5 ým thick--that the width of the superconducting films had to be narrowed by etching, to allow the sample to be measured without heating the contacts. In an applied magnetic field of 1 tesla, the critical current density was reported to be 142,000 A/cm2.

The method is based on a process known as rolling-assisted biaxial-textured substrates (Rabits) technology, in which the superconducting ceramic, yttrium-barium-copper-oxide (YBCO), is deposited on substrates that provide the foundation for the wires. The superconducting materials contain a high degree of grain alignment--within 7ý--in all directions along the wire, thus providing a more efficient current flow.

"This represents an opportunity to wires that will eliminate some of the disadvantages of existing advanced techno logy," said Jonathan Wilson, president and chief executive officer at Midwest Superconductivity Inc., which recently signed a non-exclusive patent-license agreement with Lockheed Martin Energy Research Corp. to use the HTS-substrate technology. Lockheed manages Oak Ridge National Laboratory.

Return to the headlines at the top of the page.

Genetic program auto-designs analog circuits

PALO ALTO, Calif. -- Genetic algorithms (GA) can sometimes rescue software engineers stymied by problems that don't lend themselves to conventional programming techniques. But hardware engineers should be using GAs for designing analog circuits too, claims Stanford professor John Koza.

"Genetic programming can design what-you-want-is-what-you-get electronic circuitry without any prior knowledge about electrical engineering," said Koza.

The problem is that if you chose a problem with just 20 two-terminal componen ts--resistors, capacitors and inductors--millions of different circuits could be randomly created.

"There are something like 10,300 possible circuits that can be created from just 20 two-lead components," said Koza.

The possible combinations are too vast to search using a conventional genetic algorithm. In the standard approach. To bring the analog-circuit-design problem into the realm of the solvable, Koza chose the concept of embryonic circuits. "Embryonic circuits are very minimal circuits matched to your problem," Koza said. A two-component LC circuit, for example, could serve as an embryonic circuit.

Using the embryonic circuit as a starting point, the genetic algorithm "operates" on it with functions that either add a circuit component or modify a connection among the existing circuit components.

As each circuit variation is created, it is also tested against the solution parameters of the problem definition. If the modification solves the problem better, then the change is reta ined. If the change makes the circuit solve the problem less well, then it is discarded.

Return to the headlines at the top of the page.

Wet films convert light to photocurrent

LOS ANGELES -- By trying to imitate one of the complex secrets of nature, researchers at the University of Southern California have discovered a wet-chemical film system that generates photocurrents when irradiated with ultraviolet or visible light.

The work is based on insights into the fundamental photosynthesis process that plants and some bacteria use to convert the sun's energy into carbohydrates. In this case, the sunlight is converted directly into chemical energy using metal bisphosphonate multilayer thin films. The basic reaction can either produce a current of electrons or directly drive catalytic chemical reactions. The precisely layered, molecularly arranged films use photons to separate the charge and control the direction of the current. Potential applications may include photovoltaic and chemical conversion, and reversing the process could result in unique light-emitting diodes.

The films are grown on gold foil with multiple layers of different materials sandwiched between each other, creating a system of interfaces that electronically resembles a series of P-N junctions. One layer, based on phenylenediamine, consists of electron donors that inject electrons when chemically reduced. By generating an excess of electrons, the layer appears much like an N-type semiconductor. The other layer, composed of acceptor molecules made of methylviologen, acts like a P-type material because it injects holes when oxidized. Charge separation takes place at the donor/acceptor interface much like a P-N junction.

"When we shine light on it, the electrons move from the donor side of the stack to the acceptor side, so the current comes from the charge separation at the interface," said Mark Thompson, the lead researcher. The light is absorbed in either the donor layer or the acceptor layer generating an exciton--a combined electron-hole pair that is stable and migrates through the material. The carriers are then swept out of the device and into a liquid medium. All of the work, including the film growth and the photochemistry, is done in an electrolytic cell.

Return to the headlines at the top of the page.

Cadence's new 'design services' model appears to be a success--for now

RANCHO BERNARDO, Calif. -- In the year since Cadence Design Systems Inc. stunned industry watchers by expanding from straight EDA into design services, the San Jose, Calif., company's revenues in that business have doubled, designs are being completed and engineers who once seemed threatened by the model are happily employed.

"It's like a bumble bee," one former Cadence manager said of the business model. "On paper, it has no right flying, b ut it seems to be flying."

Has CEO Joe Costello hit on the EDA business model of the '90s, or does the approach remain, as critics contend, a quick fix for a company struggling to innovate design tools? Is Cadence poised to compete with its own tools customers, as some of them fear, by delivering silicon solutions? Despite the successes of the past year, the jury is still out.

"We're no longer in the EDA market. We're in a different space, and we don't know what it is," said Nick English, vice president and general manager of the design-services operation, here.

Return to the headlines at the top of the page.

Tuesday, May 28, 1996

DOD virtual engineering project pushes the Net's limits

Collaborative engineering over the Internet has taken a giant leap forward, thanks to a Pentagon project that united a geographically dispersed team of academic and corporate scientists to design a complex optical device.

With an eye toward creating a methodology for virtual collaboration, the team of some 50 design and mechanical engineers, representing more than 10 universities and companies, is pushing the Internet to its technical limits. They used Mbone-based videoconferencing, shared technical data and CAD models, created their own network of World Wide Web pages and test-drove complex software tools to finish the project, called Madefast.

"The point of the exercise was to see what could--and could not--be done with state-of-the-art tools on the Internet, and to incorporate what we learned into the next generation of research projects," team leader Mark Cutkosky, a professor of mechanical engineering at Stanford University, told EE Times . "The actual state of the tools both for human-human and software-software collaboration fell somewhat short of the Madefast vision."

Nevertheless, Madefast accomplished its initial goals at a cost of less than $200,000, and its sponsor, the Advanced Res earch Projects Agency (Arpa), has funded more than $45 million for 30 more virtual-collaboration projects.

Return to the headlines at the top of the page.

Hyundai steals march on other DVD-chip makers

MILPITAS, Calif. -- U.S. ASIC companies that think they have the DVD-chip market sewn up may need to think again. The first-generation digital-videodisk players that will debut this fall are based on low-integration, proprietary chip sets developed by the Japanese consumer-products giants. Those companies have been working closely with U.S. ASIC houses on next-generation chip sets that would cut the cost of controller boards. But it now appears that even before the first-generation DVD players and ROM drives hit the shelves, Hyundai Digital Media (HDM; Milpitas) will have completed a second-generation, one-chip DVD solution that will cost less than $45 in volume.

The division says the new chip could help undercut the cost of first-generation DVD players, which are expected to retail for $500 or more.

The rush to bring DVD systems to market is keeping the ASIC companies largely out of the game until the second round, industry watchers noted. Developers of first-generation DVD systems--including Toshiba, Philips, Matsushita and Sony--have built joint-development relationships with the strongest U.S. ASIC houses. But to meet their shipments schedules, the consumer companies had to build their first-generation boxes around chip sets developed in-house.

Return to the headlines at the top of the page.

Patent issues split industry and academe, threatening R&D

RESEARCH TRIANGLE PARK, N.C. --The U.S. semiconductor industry and its university research partners are clashing over intellectual-property issues, and the dispute is intensifying as industry and government research budgets shrink.

With fe deral research funds drying up, experts say chip makers must increasingly look to university engineering departments for new technologies that can be turned into products. At the same time, cash-strapped universities are placing more restrictions on technology transfers in hopes of generating royalties and, ostensibly, protecting the rights of individual researchers.

Experts say the situation is approaching meltdown and threatens to sever vital links between academe and the private sector as international competition stiffens. "How [the intellectual-property controversy] gets resolved will have an enormous impact on the industry," said Larry Sumney, president of Semiconductor Research Corp. (SRC, Research Triangle Park). Negotiations between corporations and universities -- frequently mediated by the SRC -- have become so strained that SRC's attempts to form joint research centers have been delayed in some cases by patent concerns. Patent disputes have even scuttled agreements between high-tech compani es and university researchers after the researchers assumed they had secured corporate backing.

Return to the headlines at the top of the page.

From CES: Web-ready TVs challenge the Network Computer

Believing that Web browsing is not enough, RCA Thomson disclosed a joint effort with Compaq Computer to deliver powerful PC/TV systems within the year. Later this year, Sony is expected to market its first hybrid PC/TVs.

Zenith publicly showed its two Net Vision Web-browsing TVs. Starting at below $1,000 for delivery this fall, the 27- and 35-inch TVs will sport RS-232 and Ethernet ports. That allows use of the sets with Zenith's (and others') cable modems and home Ethernet LANs. Zenith is the first to exploit the Diba Net browsing technology; it uses a Diba browser and flash-memory-updatable video engine and controller.

Return to the headlines at the top of the page.

Brooktree to push HDSL for Internet

SAN DIEGO -- This summer, Brooktree Corp. will try pushing a simplified, lower-speed version of the high-bit-rate digital subscriber line (HDSL), hoping to remove some of the barriers keeping the technology out of the mainstream. HDSL has shown promise as a way to provide T1 (1.5-Mbit/second) services to businesses, particularly the small-office and home-office variety. But the standard, which uses two wires and requires complex DSP and converter blocks, has proven too expensive.

Brooktree's senior product manager, Ron Cates, thinks the upcoming Bt8960 ZipWire chip will give DSL technology the boost it needs by using transceivers with slightly lower speed targe ts but without the costly DSP tasks required in true HDSL.

Brooktree's timing aligns with new efforts to define and market lower-speed symmetrical DSLs. Last week, AT&T Paradyne (Largo, Fla.) launched trials of its proprietary Symmetric DSL (SDSL) systems, part of a joint effort with AT&T spin-off Lucent Technologies Inc. (Murray Hill, N.J.) to test full-duplex, 384-kbit DSLs in the Netherlands. And Orckit Communications Ltd., a Tel Aviv-based HDSL/ADSL specialist, hit the U.S. market last week with a product called FastInternet, capable of supporting SDSL, HDSL, ADSL and very-high-bit-rate VDSL.

Return to the headlines at the top of the page.

TI enters 0.25ý ASIC race

DALLAS -- Texas Instruments Inc. announced last week that it is developing a sub-quarter-micron CMOS process with effective channel lengths as short as 0.18 micron. The technology could challenge IBM Microelectronics' 0.25 -micron-drawn, 0.18-micron L-effective process for an early lead in the next leg of the deep-submicron-ASIC race. But TI's schedule appears to lag behind IBM's, and there are open questions about interconnect, timing and tool chains. And the ASIC technology will come to market with even more advanced processes from IBM and Japan hot on its heels.

TI released few specifics about the process, which has yet to go to beta customers and is not scheduled for production until early 1998--possibly as much as a year behind IBM's. The exact interconnect configuration of the TI process was not divulged. The company would say only that the process will offer five, or perhaps six, metal layers. (The number and pitch of metal layers are primary determinants of the speed and useful capacity of deep-submicron chips.)

The company did give one measure of density, saying that a 19-mm-square chip half composed of logic and half of SRAM would contain 125 million transistors.

Return to the headlin es at the top of the page.

Navy asks PowerPC to come aboard

SAN DIEGO -- The PowerPC is the big winner in a Navy program that may represent the first major use of commercial off-the-shelf computer boards by the U.S. military in a weaponry system. The program is variously estimated to be worth $39 million over two years to $1 billion over seven years for VMEbus boards alone.

Details of the new initiative will emerge later this week when Themis Computer (Fremont, Calif.) announces its acquisition of V.I. Computer, a three-year-old engineering job shop here that could be the program's Cinderella. V.I. has nabbed a contract to supply its PowerPC 604 and 604e VMEbus single-board computers (SBC) for the first stage of the effort. The boards run the VxWorks operating system from Wind River Systems Inc. (Emeryville, Calif.).

Navy officials declined to identify the program in which the boards will be used. However, ana lysts said the contract could be part of the Cooperative Engagement Capability project, the Navy's latest command-and-control system in development. According to Forecast International/DMS (Newtown, Conn.), the program is designed to improve anti-air warfare capabilities by coordinating sensors into a single, real-time picture for use in controlling weapons.

Return to the headlines at the top of the page.

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