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, August 2, 1996

Mitsubishi first out of chute with Internet TV

Motorola, IBM set PowerPC path

LSI Logic rolls second-generation ATMizer

Avant! enters gate-array CAD

NASA closes book on crystal-growth project

Thursday, August 1, 1996

IBM defends its (glitch-filled) Olympic coverage

Cray files dumping suit against NEC

Pirated-software business thrives in Asia

Two real-time OS pacts aimed at telecom market

Simtek learns a profitable lesson -- the hard way

Wednesday, July 31, 1996

Genetic programming ev olves

Compaq's Presarios head for niches

Prototypes get virtual

Cadence, Motorola, shrink CSIC turnaround to 7 days

Tuesday, July 30, 1996

Contract for teraflops supercomputer captured by IBM

DVD vendors consider anti-copy method

Flash firms push two enhancements

Avant! wins $50M EDA contract

Newbridge funds Net-server startup

Monday, July 29, 1996

X86 silicon to ring smart phones' bell

IBM, Motorola, and VLSI Technology license CPU cores

Gripe sites: wanna know a secret?

High-flying MicroUnity in disarray

CCT to buy UniCAD for analysis lift

FCC shows spectrum plan for digital TV

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, August 2, 1996

Mitsubishi first out of chute with Internet TV

TOKYO -- Adding a Web-browsing feature to a conventional TV is turning into an almost unstoppable movement among consumer-electronics companies. This week Mitsubishi Electric Corp. sprinted to the head of the pack to unveil the first Internet-enabled television, the 28-inch "Internet TV." Price d at $2,500, it will hit the Japanese market on Oct. 21.

Other major manufacturers -- including Hitachi Ltd., Victor Company of Japan Ltd. (JVC) and Sharp Corp. -- are expected to announce similar products at the Japan Electronics Show, Japan's biggest consumer-electronics trade show, in early October.

Meanwhile, Sony Corp. and Philips Consumer Electronics are due to introduce their first Web-surfing TVs for the U.S. market in the next several weeks. The two giants are founding licensees of WebTV Networks Inc., a Palo Alto, Calif., startup offering a TV-based on-line service together with its own set-top reference design.

Mitsubishi's Internet TV is an NTSC set with a 16 x 9 aspect ratio and built-in Internet browser. It features a 32-bit RISC processor and a one-chip proprietary ROM with browser software -- jointly developed with Access (Tokyo) -- to connect to the Internet. Equipped with an external 14.4-kbit/second modem, the TV can surf the Web and send and receive e-mail.

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Motorola , IBM set PowerPC path

AUSTIN, Texas -- IBM Microelectronics and Motorola Semiconductor on Monday will unveil a four-year road map for the PowerPC. It calls for two more major generations of the architecture before the end of the decade, encompassing both gradual evolution and radical change. But even as the Somerset Design Center's program unfolds, startup Exponential Technology Inc. may be stealing a march on the IBM/Motorola venture.

Dispelling any notion that the PowerPC architecture had lost commitment from its sponsors, IBM Microelectronics product line marketing manager David Ryan outlined changes in the design effort.

Plans call for this newly expanded design effort to produce a matrix of CPUs over the next few years. These efforts will be divided into three generations of parts: the current architecture, an evolutionary architecture ca lled G3, and a completely new PowerPC microarchitecture called G4.

Within each generation there will be a number of chip families, each one aimed at a particular product area. Also, the consortium is not through yet with the current processors. The 604e processor is being reworked to surpass its current 200-MHz clock rate to eventually exceed 300 MHz. In addition, the long-delayed 620 superscalar CPU is now scheduled for release at the end of calendar 1996.

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LSI Logic rolls second-generation ATMizer

MILPITAS, Calif. -- Nearly three years after launching a MIPS-based architecture for Asynchronous Transfer Mode networking called "ATMizer," LSI Logic Corp. is introducing the ATMizer II, based on a MIPS CW4010 core. By embedding support for Available Bit Rate services in the same die as a segmentation-and-reassembly (SAR) processor, LSI is setti ng the stage for an 'ABR battle' among semiconductor vendors at NetWorld+Interop this fall in Atlanta.

The ATM Forum's traffic management working group finalized ABR specs in the spring, allowing hardware implementation of effective ways to handle bursty data traffic over ATM.

Isochronous traffic such as voice and video can be handled in Continuous Bit Rate (CBR) or Variable Bit Rate (VBR) channels, but ABR requires ways to notify an ATM switching source of congestion in the network. Both semiconductor vendors and OEMs can add plenty of proprietary value on top of ATM Forum standards in order to promote architectures that can handle data-oriented traffic efficiently.

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Avant! enters gate-array CAD

SUNNYVALE, Calif. -- In a redesign of its IC CAD product line, Avant! Corp. claims to have fully integrated tools that originated at ArcSys and In tegrated Silicon Systems. And with a new product called Aquarius-GA, the company is signaling its intent to actively pursue the gate-array market.

Version 2.0 brings all Avant! offerings under a unified user interface. The ArcCell products are now called Aquarius-BV or Aquarius-XO; the VeriCheck IC-verification suite has been renamed Hercules. The tools feature upgrades in placement, routing and timing optimization.

Aquarius-GA replaces ArcGate, which Avant! has been quietly selling for two years but has not actively marketed. "We're trying to put all the pieces together to form an overall deep-submicron solution," said Chi-Ping Hsu, vice president of product management."This is pretty much the first time all the pieces have been in place and working together."

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NASA closes book on crystal-growth project

HUNTSVILLE, Ala. -- One practical application of space flight is the ability to grow nearly perfect crystals, since materials can be melted and solidified without a gravitational pull on the cooling material. The lack of gravity gives researchers better control over crystal growth.

Researchers here are closing the book on a seminal project that had grown crystals in space-shuttle labs to determine how the lack of gravity could best be exploited for potential commercial use. The crystal-growth furnace (CGF) flew on two space-shuttle missions and has an outside chance of flying on a third, though if it is put into further service, it will likely be on the ground.

Having arrived at the probable end of its run, the CGF has helped lay the groundwork for similar furnace experiments on the upcoming International Space Station Alpha. That project will host crystal-growth experiments as part of its charter.

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Thursday, Aug ust 1, 1996

IBM defends its (glitch-filled) Olympic coverage

ATLANTA -- While IBM took it on the chin for its computer system's Olympian technical glitches during the first week of the Olympic Games, many of the problems that erupted were outside of Big Blue's control.

IBM supports the Olympics with four major systems: Accreditation, Results (with the Commentator Information System (CIS), Info '96, and a Web site , utilizing communications technology deployed at 30 interconnected venues.

IBM's problems began when the Associated Press reported it was having trouble getting stats it needed. IBM's Results system was said to be "spewing out bizarre results," such as new world records in track events that had not even started yet. Olympic boxers were listed as half a meter (two feet) tall and 6.35 meters (21 feet) high. IBM insisted that that rumors that the problems stemmed f rom IBM's Lotus Notes were not true

In an interview with EE Times , Fred McNeese, IBM Olympic technology spokesman in Atlanta, said poor data input fed into the Results system from processors at various fields of play was one cause of incorrect information. IBM fed this faulty data to the Games' 12 major news wire organizations.

Time delays in getting game results was another complaint from the wire services, but as McNeese explained it: "IBM can only display the official results that come in. So if the judges delay posting of their decision, the press is waiting, and so is our system."

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Cray files dumping suit against NEC

NEC will lose $65 million on its proposed sale of SX-4 supercomputers to the National Center for Atmospheric Research (NCAR; Boulder, Colo.), according to Cray's petition. NEC is offering "four supercomputers for the price of one," or about $15 million, charged Cray president Robert Ewald. "NEC's behavior undermines open competition and could permanently distort pricing in the supercomputer market."

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Pirated -software business thrives in Asia

HONG KONG -- Despite the best efforts of the U.S. government and computer software companies, the software piracy business is booming.

Hong Kong remains the top location for low-budget software buyers, though the market in China and Taiwan is booming . Even with recent pressure from the United States about copyright violations, the Hong Kong government seems unwilling to curb this non-licensed trade. A new copyright-protection bill, being drafted, will most likely not fine landlords who rent to software pirates.

Current law punishes landlords whose tenants engage in prostitution and drug dealing. "A vice establishment is a very heinous crime that affects the moral fiber of society at large," said Peter Cheung, assistant director of Hong Kong's Intellectual Property Department. "Drugs are also a serious crime. Is copyright infringement such a serious crime? Landlords have economic rights, too."

Judging by the current situation in Hong Kong, it not only isn't a crime but is, rather, a very respectable business. Several large buildings house dozens of small companies happily offering CD games, videos and software applications. Some shops sell the unlicensed CDs out of cardboard boxes stashed under tables, while others are as organized and open about their trade as a Blockbus ter video store.

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Two real-time OS pacts aimed at telecom market

SUNNYVALE, Calif. -- Two separate pacts reached this week in the real-time operating system market indicate how embedded OS specialists are increasing their moves into the networking and telecommunication markets. Integrated Systems Inc., based here, made an offer to acquire Epilogue Technology Corp. (Albuquerque, N.M.), a specialist in Simple Network Management Protocol and SNMP Remote Monitoring (RMON) suites. In a separate arrangement, Lynx Real-Time Systems Inc. (San Jose, Calif.) reached an integration deal with BMC Software Inc. (Houston) and its Peer Networks subsidiary to offer the BMC/Peer Patrol SNMP tools along with Lynx's OS products.

The moves underscore a growing trend by RTOS developers to make telecom and networking their primary business focus. Wind River Systems Inc. (A lameda, Calif.), for example, has shifted to a business model that concentrates on OEMs who work on telephony and internetworking products, while Microware Systems Corp. (Des Moines, Iowa) is putting much of its development efforts into the cable TV industry with David, its interactive TV architecture.

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Simtek learns a profitable lesson -- the hard way

COLORADO SPRINGS, Colo. -- Simtek Corp., a non-volatile memory specialist that unexpectedly returned to profitability two weeks ago, has learned the hard way that manufacturing costs can make the difference between success and failure, particularly when new processes are used. While its silicon-on-nitride process used in nvSRAM devices has been well-characterized in the DRAM industry, Simtek went through a difficult period in the mid-1990s optimizing its memory design methods for foundries at Chartered Semi conductor Pte. Ltd. in Singapore and Zentrum Mikro Dresden (ZMD) in the former East Germany.

In 1994, few analysts believed Simtek would survive more than a few more months. Yields have finally improved on a 1.2-micron process for 64-kbit nvSRAM devices at Chartered, a factor primarily responsible for the return to profitability. And last week, Simtek announced the completion of characterization of a 0.8-micron process for 64-kbit and 256-kbit memories at the ZMD fab.

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Wednesday, July 31, 1996

Genetic programming evolves

STANFORD, Calif. -- The inaugural Genetic Programming (GP) Conference, being held this week at Stanford University, is spotlighting recent successes in the automatic writing of computer programs. The conference compared automatically evolved programs to manually written ones, measured progress toward genetic programming's grand goals and addressed some of GP's limitations.

Are evolved programs better performers than human-written ones? In some cases, yes, according to David Andre, a visiting scholar at Stanford University. In a paper co-authored with Stanford professors Forrest Bennett and John Koza, Andre described how GP has discovered a rule for cellular automata that outperforms every known set of human-written instructions.

The gauntlet was tossed in 1978, when the manually written Gacs-Kurdyumov-Levin (GKL) rule was devised to solve the majority-classification task for one-dimensional, two-state cellular automata. "Our automatically evolved rule exceeds the performance of the GKL rule, every other known human-written rule and all other known rules produced by automated methods," said Andre. The evolved rule is also said to be qualitatively different from all the other rules in that it created a more intricate internal representation and communications method.

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Compaq's Presarios head for niches

NEW YORK -- Compaq Computer Corp. took a few cautious steps toward the convergence of the computer and television with its recent launch here of its new lineup of home PCs. Rather than roll out a merged PC/TV, the Houston-based PC maker partitioned off several new niches for the home computer, creating five product families with which it hopes to surround and conquer the market this fall.

Highlights of the launch include a desktop that uses a built-in flat-panel display, a consumer-oriented notebook computer and a software tie-in with Sega Entertainment Inc. (Redwood City, Calif.).

Compaq's Consumer Division launched a total of 15 new desktop models, all of which use the same Pentium-based motherboard and the Intel Triton VX chip set. Compaq is said to have had a major role in debugging the VX, and that chip set and the relate d Triton II set are used in Compaq business desktops.

Via daughterboards, the systems use a variety of 2-D accelerators, including S3 Corp.'s Virge and Aurora; sound chips from Advanced Micro Devices Inc. and ESS; and modems from Lucent Technologies.

Rod Schrock, vice president of Compaq's Presario Business Unit, said that the company has a working prototype of a merged PC/TV in its labs but that the product is not ready for launch.

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Prototypes get virtual

PLEASONTON, Calif. -- Two small companies have created tools that allow users to develop and debug software on simulated hardware before a physical prototype exists. While neither CPU Technology Inc. nor CAE Technology (San Jose) is currently shipping off-the-shelf products in volume, both are providing fresh "virtual prototyping" approaches that facilitate hardware/software co-design.

CPU Technology has announced the general availability of SystemLab, a combined product-and-service approach that gives the user a system-level software prototype along with a simulation environment that mimics lab instruments. Users can evaluate architectural trade-offs such as cache size or bus width, and can load and run code on the prototype.

CAE Technology's Virtual Simulation Framework (VSF) comes into play a little later in the design cycle, after a VHDL or Verilog model exists. It's basically an applications programming interface (API) that lets users run C language code with a simulated ASIC.

While their approaches differ, the companies are alike in that both tools grew out of efforts to solve in-house design problems. CPU Technology is a contract designer that develops processors, while CAE Technology develops PCI and USB synthesizable cores.

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Cadence , Motorola, shrink CSIC turnaround to 7 days

AUSTIN, Texas -- Motorola CSIC Microcontroller Division has completed a two-year development program done in conjunction with Cadence Design System that makes it possible to develop customer-specified ICs in just seven days. The linkup reflects a dramatic change in design tools and methodologies for Motorola, as well as a "defining moment" for Cadence's Spectrum Services division, according to representatives of both companies.

Designers will now be able to use library modules to design cost-effective chips that can be taped out and moved into production in a week. That trims several weeks off the current timetable for designing parts that go into high-volume embedded systems. Motorola's CSIC devices are designed around cores like the 68HX08, which was hand-packed to increase density and reduce costs. Software and new modules will make it possible to get customized parts without sacrificing costs.

The capabi lity is currently available for Motorola's 68HC08 processor, but will be available on the 68HC11 and 68HC05 lines over time. At this point, there are 28 modules in the library.

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Tuesday, July 30, 1996

Contract for teraflops supercomputer captured by IBM

IBM will build the system for Lawrence Livermore National Labs, as part of the Energy Dept.'s Advanced Strategic Computing Initiative (ASCI). Last year, Intel's Supercomputer Systems Division received the first ASCI contract: to build a teraflops system for Sandia National Labs.

The Energy Dept. is seeking the high-end hardware to run software that can simulate and predict the behavior of nuclear weapon s -- an increasingly critical application because the U.S. nuclear stockpile is aging and most real-world weapons tests are banned by international treaty.

The contracts have also provided a boost to the sagging supercomputer world.

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DVD vendors consider anti-copy method

The DVD Consortium, composed of the original 10 companies -- including Toshiba, Sony, Philips and Matsushita -- that had developed the DVD specification, agreed to rally around a digital-to-digital copy-protection method proposed by Matsushita Electric Industrial Co. Ltd.

The DVD Technical Working Group represented by all three industries, not to be confused with the DVD Consortium, recently received the proposal from the consortium and has now agreed to "look int o it," said sources in the computer industry and Hollywood studios.

The proposal by Matsushita is believed to contain two approaches for copy protection -- one on content-scrambled DVD, the other on the bus authentication and encryption.

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Flash firms push two enhancements

The four offered a common platform by unifying the interface with a CFI query data structure that contains the necessary information, such as flash-device architecture, density, voltage requirements and interfaces to the system.

In another flash development, M-Systems Flash Disk Pioneers Inc. (Santa Clara, Calif.) came up with an operating system that should make it easier to adopt the emerging compact flash-card formats. The FLite operating system works with the Miniature Card, CompactFlash and other formats being promoted for digital cameras and other portable products. The operating system is based on the flash software used in PCMCIA cards but is small enough, at 1.5 to 14 kbytes, to be used in small, inexpensive consumer products such as cameras. FLite will let future technologies communicate with existing systems by providing a standard format for communications between the host and the memory chips on a card.

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Avant! wins $50M EDA contract

Moreover , in spite of legal problems with Cadence Design Systems, Avant! reported strong second-quarter earnings. The company posted revenue of $14.1 million, a 59 percent increase over the year-ago quarter, and net income of $2.9 million.

Gerry Hsu, Avant! president and CEO, said the contract award "confirms the competitiveness" of the company's product line. Hsu disclosed that Avant! incurred more than $1.6 million in legal costs in the second quarter.

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Newbridge funds Net-server startup

The equity financing for Vienna represents the 13th company in which Newbridge has placed majority or large-minority equity funding, to create "affiliates." These range from router manufacturer Advanced Computer Communications Inc. (Santa Barbara, Calif.) to the former Newbridge Microsystems, now rechristened Tundra Semiconductor.

Vienna is the second startup Newbridge helped to launch this month. Two weeks ago, the company provided funding for Applied Silicon Inc. Canada (Asic), which, despite its name, is involved in developing video-transmission units. Several Newbridge affiliates are involved in cable-TV infrastructure and software products.

Vienna's gateway product will provide PBX functions to intranet and IP Internet networks, allowing remote users to take part in conference calls and packetized video calls. The Vienna products will form an adjunct to Newbridge's Vivid products for ATM switching in the private environment, though no specific reseller arrangement between Newbridge and Vienna has been formed. Kent Elliot serves as president of Vienna, and board members include Newbridge chairman Terence Matthews and Ungermann-Bass founder Charlie Bass.

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Monday, July 29, 1996

X86 silicon to ring smart phones' bell

CHANDLER, Ariz. -- A flurry of back-room design activity is setting the stage for a stampede into smart phones -- cellular handsets combined with electronic organizers or PDAs -- according to mobile-computing insiders.

Sensing potential design starts, a raft of high-integration embedded X86 silicon is now in the works at Intel, Advanced Micro Devices and National Semiconductor, EE Times has learned. On the software front, Phoenix Technologies Ltd. last week announced BIOS-level code for controlling smart phones.

Said David Tuley, a technical marketing manager at the embedded-products division of AMD, here: "There are a lot of companies -- like Ericsson, Motorola, Oki, NEC and Sony -- looking for ways to enhance cell phones to make them more powerful and more graphical. Everyo ne's expecting [the market] to grow."

What's widely credited to be the first full-fledged cell-phone/organizer combo will hit the market next month, when the Finnish telecom vendor Nokia Corp. begins shipping its model 9000 to GSM (Global System for Mobile Communications) customers in Europe.

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IBM , Motorola, and VLSI Technology license CPU cores

AUSTIN, Texas -- Three leading semiconductor vendors disclosed license agreements last week, each granting the core of its premier embedded RISC CPU to a major OEM or competitor.

IBM Microelectronics will give Mitsubishi Electric the rights to sell 400-series PowerPC chips and to design new chips using IBM's processor cores. Motorola Inc. has granted Hewlett-Packard Co. a license to the 68000, 68020, 68030 and ColdFire RISC cores for use in HP products. And VLSI Technology Inc. and Hit achi Ltd. plan a broad exchange of ASIC cores, including licensing of Hitachi's SH-3 and SH-4 cores to VLSI.

The immediate motivations in each case differ. But the agreements form part of a trend in which major OEMs are wresting control of CPU designs from semiconductor makers, forcing them to settle for royalties in place of chip sales. "This is not our only licensing agreement with a CPU manufacturer, just the only one we can disclose," said a Hewlett-Packard spokesperson. "It often fits our needs better to be able to use the CPU core instead of buying the microprocessor chip."

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Gripe sites: wanna know a secret?

Like many a crusader before him, Robert Collins has found there's a price to be paid for ruffling corporate feathers. Collins has incurred the wrath of the legal department of the company whose products he critiques for an audience of EEs and says he's even being monitored.

A design engineer and manager of the Advanced Microprocessors Group at Texas Instruments Inc. in Dallas, Collins has created a Web site called Intel Secrets , which he said gets 22,000 hits a day.

"Intel Secrets: What They Don't Want You to Know." "Welcome to Packard Hell." "Windoze 95 Hate Page." Web pages critical of companies or products -- or sites on which to post general gripes, like the complaint board Moan and Groan Page -- are sprouting up all over the Internet like mushrooms after a rain. Together they lay siege to high-tech companies, catching their errors, in some cases disclosing undocumented technical information, and generally causing enough corporate hand-wringing to warrant legal threats, electronic monitoring and other forms of what site creators call intimidation.

"We don't want to throw cold water o n the Internet. As we understand it, it is a great free-speech forum," said an Intel spokesman, who called Web content a "two-edged sword." Except for sites devised by "reputable publications," where consumers can have some level of confidence about accuracy, their credibility is questionable, he said. The data is not subject to the editorial scrutiny of established publications.

See also: The Windows 95 Hate Page and the Micro$oft Hate Page .

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High -flying MicroUnity in disarray

SUNNYVALE, Calif. -- MicroUnity Systems Engineering Inc., perhaps the most charismatic -- and most lavishly funded -- silicon startup in recent years, appears on the verge of a meltdown. The company's plan to develop a 1-GHz BiCMOS Med ia Processor in the hope of dominating the interactive multimedia market has imploded, leaving behind only a single-thread, CMOS cable-modem chip based on the original grand design.

Symptoms of MicroUnity's potential collapse included a spate of emergency meetings, a plan for major layoffs and a fab for sale. John Moussouris, chairman and chief executive officer, is shopping MicroUnity's new Sunnyvale-based BiCMOS facility, regarded by the industry as the linchpin of the seven-year-old company's business.

Driven by the expectations of leading U.S. cable operators -- including Tele-Communications Inc., Time Warner, Comcast and Cox, which have together invested $60 million in MicroUnity -- the company is under pressure to roll out cable modems aimed at Internet delivery by the first quarter of 1997. The product represents a U-turn from the ultra-high-bandwidth digital set-top box for interactive television originally conceived as MicroUnity's core product, and used to justify the unique fab.

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CCT to buy UniCAD for analysis lift

CUPERTINO, Calif. -- In a bid to make signal-integrity analysis available to large numbers of pc-board designers, Cooper & Chyan Technology (CCT) has agreed to buy UniCAD Inc. in a stock swap valued at $8 million. The acquisition promises to embed the Ottawa company's signal-integrity, thermal and electromagnetic-interference (EMI) analysis tools into CCT's Specctra pc-board routers.

Given that Specctra is resold by a number of Unix and PC-based pc-board CAD companies -- including Accel, Harris EDA, Mentor Graphics, PADS Software and Zuken-Redac -- CCT is in a position to spread new technology quickly. But the Cupertino company is also reassuring OEMs that it won't compete with their base CAD tools, and that Specctra will remain open to links with third-party analysis tools.

Technology was the driving force behind the acquisition, according to representatives of both companies. "We feel very strongly that analysis kernels need to be co-resident with routing algorithms, and we wanted to have control of what we consider to be critical technology going forward," said Jack Harding, CCT president and CEO.

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FCC shows spectrum plan for digital TV

WASHINGTON -- The Federal Communications Commission last week adopted a channel-allotment plan for digital TV that will initially reclaim nearly 60 MHz of spectrum for new services. Long term, a total of 138 MHz could be reclaimed. To take space for the new services, the plan squeezes digital TV broadcasters into channels 7 through 51 of the spectrum. Channels 60 through 69 will be the first block of spectrum targeted for recovery, since they are used sparingly by broadcasters.

However, the plan has already run i nto opposition from broadcast groups who say they will need the full TV spectrum to make the transition from analog to digital broadcasting. Broadcasters also want to retain exclusive use of channels 60 through 69 to maintain their service areas and avoid interference.

FCC officials said they want to auction parts of the reclaimed spectrum for non-broadcast services and to allocate other parts for public-safety uses.

The FCC also will issue a draft channel-allotment plan that would provide each of 1,600 TV stations broadcasting on analog channels with a digital channel. FCC officials said revisions to the allotment plan are likely.

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