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  Headlines and summaries from the pages of Electronic Engineering Times. Previous editions are available from the 1994, 1995, 1996, and 1997 News Archives.
Friday January 10, 1997National sets sights below 0.25 micronNational Semiconductor Corp., which for years trailed the leading-edge companies in semiconductor manufacturing capability, will lead the industry in process technology below a quarter micron, its new chief executive officer said. Brian Halla, who last spring replaced Gilbert Amelio as the head of the struggling semiconductor giant, said National "will get to 0.25 micron with the pack and to 0.18 micron ahead of the pack."
Parallel-processing RAM consortium set upA new consortium is out to change the conventional architecture of personal computers and other such systems. Comprising more than 20 companies and research centers, it will develop systems based on PPRAMs, parallel-processing units with on-board memory.
Canon develops SOI wafersCanon Inc. is entering the silicon-on-insulator (SOI) wafer business and will begin shipping samples of 8-inch SOI wafers this summer. The company is spending $26 million to build a facility capable of creating 5,000 SOI wafers per month from commercially supplied wafers. It later intends to build a dedicated factory for SOI-wafer manufacture.
Momentum grows to build DRAM in logicDesigners will confront the question "to embed or not to embed" with increasing frequency this year, as Japan's largest semiconductor vendors prepare ASICs that offer large blocks of DRAM memory and logic gates. Skeptics argue, however, that the low cost of discrete DRAMs and the need for rapid turnaround of logic designs will slow the merger of logic and DRAM on-chip.
Anam pins timing to rebound for IC foundriesAnam Semiconductor Corp., the world's largest IC assembly corporation but the new kid on the IC foundry block, is betting that IC demand will rebound at about the same time that its first fab begins operations in October. Anam is on track for July pilot production of 0.35-micron test wafers; after several months of yield improvements, it expects to begin supplying commercial devices.
Build-up multilayer boards gain supportChip makers are turning to a new circuit-board technology, build-up multilayer boards, as a way to make chip-scale packages work for high-I/O devices.
Thursday January 9, 1997Net multicast gurus to meet Over 30 of the leading Internet infrastructure vendors will meet in Santa Clara, CA., on Thursday, for the IP Multicast Summit.
Tools checks VME systemsApplied Microsystems Corp. has moved its software verification tools into the VME market with the introduction of CodeTest VME, which lets developers check software on systems with multiple boards and CPUs.
Fiber schemes drive system-level hubsOptical components supplier Vixel Corp. is moving up into the systems business with the introduction of a Fibre Channel hub for arbitrated-loop (FC-AL) storage clusters. The IntraLink 1000 Fibre Channel hub implements FC-AL loop topology using Vixel's short-wavelength Gbit interface converter (GBIC) modules to meet 1.0625-Gbit/second speeds at distances to 500 meters.
STM fuzzy line growsSGS-Thomson Microelectronics (STM) has taken aim at dedicated microcontrollers for fuzzy logic with an upgrade to its Weight Associative Rule Processor (Warp) chip.
Wednesday January 8, 1997Configurable computer runs Windows NTGiga Operations Corp. has undertaken several product upgrades that may smooth the road to FPGA-based reconfigurable computing.The upgrades include the first Windows NT (4.2) release of Giga Operations' Reconfigurable Computing Development Software and that release's inclusion of Xlink, an operating system for reconfigurable computing.
Conductus fields wide-area receiverLooking to open a new growth market for high-critical-temperature superconductors, Conductus Inc. has started a field trial for a long-range cellular system in rural areas. Since widely dispersed users require superior signal-detection, high-critical-temperature (Tc) filters could be a key to establishing the technology in wireless applications.
Atomic scopes probe nanometer frontierA magnetic imaging project at the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) is tapping nuclear magnetic resonance to build a magnetic-resonance-force microscope. Simulations show the potential for atomic-scale three-dimensional imaging that could be applied in fields from materials science to medicine, underscoring the versatility of scanning probe microscopy.
Synplicity takes case to stateSynplicity Inc. has announced the Symbolic Finite State Machine (FSM) compiler as part of its Synplify 2.6b release, adding a logic-synthesis feature that provides "fully automatic" recognition and re-encoding of state machines.
Simulation add-on outperforms SpiceEpic Design Technology Inc.'s Analog Circuit Engine (ACE) provides full-chip simulation of memory circuits and CMOS mixed-signal designs. ACE, an analog simulation add-on engine for Epic's PowerMill and TimeMill products, enables circuit simulation for very large ICs. It provides accuracy comparable to Spice with a fraction of the computer run-time.
Tuesday January 7, 1997Study: router flaws jamming Net trafficA report by a federally funded networking research group here suggests that severe Internet congestion might be linked to "routing instability," wherein heavy traffic emanating from routers bogs down the public network. The researchers further claim to have turned up evidence that Internet autonomous systems supplied by the dominant maker of routers, Cisco Systems Inc., have inherent router flaws that may exacerbate the problem.
Lawmakers propose Net anti-tax billTwo lawmakers said Monday they will introduce legislation soon to "stop new cyber taxes in their tracks."
Plan to merge Fibre Channel and SSA moves aheadThe committee setting the second-generation Fibre Channel standard will move forward again here this week, after setting a schedule to merge that technology with Serial Storage Architecture (SSA). Plans to complete the new specification by October have helped to rekindle the market for the serial interface.
IC-library-migration tool broadens its reachCascade Design Automation has expanded the reach of its MasterPort IC-library-migration tool by adding optional support for hierarchical structures such as memory and data paths. With the option, MasterPort can now retarget higher-level functions from one process to another.
Plug-in boards have PCI bus masteringThe PCI E Series of data-acquisition boards from National Instruments Corp. leverages the PCI bus and a custom direct memory access (DMA) controller to provide high system performance. The family offers further proof that plug-in boards are beginning to rival conventional instruments in applications that require measurement accuracy and speed.
Fault simulator blasts through gatesSharply escalating chip density is taking many designers into unfamiliar territories, including the area of fault simulation. One question about fault simulation is whether it can be avoided in the coming age of million-gate chips. SynTest Technologies Inc. doesn't think so. The company is launching TurboFault, a commercial fault simulator.
Monday January 6, 1997Giants thunder into 3-D-chip marketThe established vendors of personal-computer graphics chips may have to fight for their lives this year, as semiconductor-industry giants storm the market. Big companies that have historically shunned the graphics-controller business are laying out strategies for 1997 attacks on the PC motherboard. As they battle it out, they are likely to devastate the weaker of the existing players, all of which are relatively small companies.
Encryption regulations assailedThe Commerce Department issued regulations last week that transfer controls on commercial crypto products from the U.S. munitions list to a separate Commerce Control List. Despite the reform, industry groups that have accused the Clinton administration of backtracking on earlier promises said the new rules will make a bad situation worse.
Zilog angles to build Net-appliance chip portfolioBetting big on the market potential of Internet-ready TV, Zilog Inc. has embarked on a shopping spree to multiply its chip solutions for embedded Internet appliances.In the past three months, Zilog has entered strategic partnerships or licensing agreements with three companies; each partner will provide a different set of building blocks.
SGS-Thomson spins Video Interface PortHoping to end the anarchy surrounding the transport of digital video inside a PC, SGS-Thomson Microelectronics (STM) has released the Video Interface Port (VIP) specification, which allows digital video sources to communicate directly with a graphics-controller chip at CCIR 601 speeds.
Penn State wins a ticket to ride the Net's fast lanePennsylvania State University's College of Engineering has received a $600,000 grant from the National Science Foundation to join a dozen other schools on an exclusive byway of the Internet: the vBNS (very High Speed Backbone Network Service) or, more commonly, Internet II. The initiative arose because the public Internet is too crowded or high-level research.
Developers claim DirectX driver-install glitchMicrosoft Corp.'s application programming interface for games developers is causing a stir on the Internet, with some software developers claiming the API isn't up to snuff. The complaints center around purported installation problems that can reportedly cause PCs to crash in certain situations when the API, DirectX, is loaded.
Startup develops a CCD-CMOS hybridAn ambitious startup has managed to combine charge-coupled devices (CCD) with CMOS circuitry, an invention that could redefine the digital-imaging industry by combining the high-quality image processing of CCDs with standard CMOS circuitry. Suni Imaging Microsystems Inc. will begin producing the CCD-CMOS hybrids next year for specialty applications.
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