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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 31, 1997FPGA-, PC-synthesis vendors reshuffleStrategic realignments in FPGA and Windows-based synthesis took place last week, as Synopsys Inc. announced it would sell its FPGA Express through OEM channels for the first time, and Exemplar Logic won major ASIC vendor support for its Leonardo product.
3-D engine ups graphics anteThe battle for a share of the personal-computer 3-D graphics market continues to escalate, with the appearance of yet another formidable competitor: TriTech Microelectronics International Inc.
Adaptec maps out peripherals thrustAdaptec Inc. is expanding its marketing scope to address target hardware. The new effort will span the gamut of products that link to hosts via both the SCSI interface and the new 1394 serial data channel.
Storage market ponders changes wrought by RAIDAfter years of mediocre market growth, storage devices based on redundant arrays of independent disks are exerting sufficient influence to alter the design landscape. Computer systems, disk drives and interface boards are all being developed with RAID products in mind. The arrays are showing up in most large-system introductions and are fueling the shift to the Fibre Channel interface.
ACM to look at future of computingLike boomers all over the country, the Association for Computing (ACM) is throwing a 50th birthday party for itself and for the computing field, and it's asking some of the biggest names in information technology to attend. They will speculate on "The Next 50 Years of Computing" at the ACM97 Conference and Exposition in March.
Thursday January 30, 1997Chip simplifies ATM designNEC Electronics Inc. has developed an asynchronous-transfer-mode controller that integrates segmentation-and-reassembly (SAR) functions with Sonet physical-layer functions on a single chip.
Cajun ASICs spice Gbit Ethernet mixWith its receipt from the foundry this month of three switching ASICs, Gigabit Ethernet startup Prominet Corp. will put a new twist on efforts to accelerate legacy Ethernet markets. Whereas most startups plan to implement simple full-duplex uplinks, Prominet is eyeing complex multilayer switches for the campus LAN.
Fairchild leaves National roostThe reborn Fairchild Semiconductor separated last week from parent National Semiconductor Corp., becoming an independent company under majority owner Sterling LLC, an investment arm of Citicorp Venture Capital Ltd.
Broadcasters set to deploy US digital TVThe rollout of a U.S. digital TV infrastructure is picking up steam as broadcasters on both coasts announced deployment plans.
Lithium niobate fuels a startup's telecom lineFive years after its formation, Integrated Optical Components Ltd. (IOC) is set to reap the benefits of its pioneering work with an unusual material, lithium niobate.
Wednesday January 29, 1997VLSI Tech taps ARM to power security siliconVLSI Technology Inc. is launching two security ICs, based on the ARM RISC architecture, as application-specific standard products for consumer encryption uses.
Al hits sub-0.25 micron viasA novel, low-cost interconnect process being developed here by Sematech may make it possible to extend aluminum/copper deposition technology several generations beyond its current limitations.
Immigration debate unlikely to reignite in '97A booming economy, new legislation and a changed political climate appear to have taken some of the wind out of the sails of the immigration issue. Where last year immigration -- both legal and illegal -- was a hot topic in Washington, this year appears to be a different story.
Drives push PRMLDisk-drive capacities continue to climb at around 60 percent per year, which means the data-transfer rates that dictate read-channel speed are also rising rapidly. Partial-response, maximum-likelihood (PRML) read channels have helped drive makers push capacity and performance. But drive designers haven't let up in their quest for ever-faster devices, leaving developers of the complex, mixed-signal PRML chips scrambling to pace demand.
Associative chip drives image boardAssociative processing -- the technique of providing memory access based on content, rather than on address computation -- is a mature concept whose complexity and cost have kept it out of the mainstream. The chip architects at Associated Computing Ltd. (ACL) are among those hoping to change that, in ACL's case with a second-generation associative processor that is claimed to perform 3 billion search operations per second, peak, for enhanced cost/performance in electronic imaging applications.
Tuesday January 28, 1997Hot LCD-projector industry faces shakeoutAs the display industry gears up for the DisplayWorks 97 conference this week, one of its hottest application segments -- electronic projectors -- is rumbling toward a shakeout.
Government's grip pinches Taiwan Internet linkPrivate Internet service providers (ISPs) and telecom companies here are chafing at restrictions they say are keeping Internet service under the government's thumb. The most onerous obstacle: exorbitant fees for off-island connection.
TI narrows its focus, sells mobile-PC unitTexas Instruments Inc. continues to shed businesses that don't fit its new strategy. Last week, the company sold its struggling mobile-computing operations to Acer America Corp. for an undisclosed sum.
Spectron wins Pentagon pact for middlewareSpectron Microsystems has won a defense contract to produce a language linking digital-signal-processing software-development tools with multiprocessor DSP hardware platforms that run the Spox real-time operating system.
Sparse interest delays STM's 64-bit Chameleon coreSGS-Thomson Microelectronics (STM) has delayed until late this year the launch of a 64-bit microprocessor superscalar RISC core, code-named Chameleon. The move is market-driven, said president and chief executive officer Pasquale Pistorio, who disclosed the delay at a conference here to announce a 16 percent 1996 revenue jump.
Monday January 27, 1997Cadence mounts synthesis threatA new tool from Cadence Design Systems' Alta Group may seriously challenge the hegemony of Synopsys and Mentor Graphics in the emerging behavioral-synthesis market. Alta last week unveiled Visual Architect, an application-specific product that's "open" to third-party tools and capable of handling both control and data-path domains.
CMOS imager clicks for digital cameraCMOS imaging is set to make its mainstream consumer-market debut in a Toshiba Corp. digital still camera. The $500 camera uses a proprietary Toshiba-developed CMOS chip in place of the conventional charge-coupled device (CCD) image sensor, cutting cost and complexity.
DOD questioned on off-the-shelf technology tackCommand-and-control programs that rely heavily on data and voice communications are providing an early test of the Defense Department's commercial off-the-shelf (COTS) acquisition strategy, but so far the program has gotten mixed grades.
Workstations parry high-end PC thrustAdvanced interconnect technology will collide with fierce downward pressure on system prices this week, as workstation vendors struggle to maintain an edge in the face of increasingly competitive high-end Wintel PCs.
Japanese team rolls digital-TV field trialJapan's Ministry of Posts and Telecommunications launched field trials of a terrestrial digital-TV broadcast system last week as a prelude to recommendations for a Japanese standard, expected by midyear 1998. The activity underscores Japan's intent to pace the U.S. lead in digital TV.
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