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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 August 1, 1997Standard for contactless smart card finds supportTwo major players in smart cards have teamed up to support a standard for contactless cards that consumers will use by waving over a reader. The decision by Motorola Inc.'s Semiconductor Products Sector and SGS-Thomson Microelectronics to develop cards based on ISO 14443 is seen as an important step in building a broad infrastructure for smart cards, since it could widen the applications for which multifunction cards are used.
MO-drive group scales back next-generation specAn industry group developing a new magneto-optical drive standard has revised its goals to speed product to market. The consortium has scaled back the capacity of its next-generation MO-drive standard from 7 Gbytes to 6 and has changed the development's technical name from MO7 to ASMO.
Euro chip makers up for sale"For Sale" signs went up last month at Telefunken Microelectronic GmbH (Temic; Heilbronn, Germany) and GEC Plessey Semiconductors (Swindon, England), two of Europe's largest chip makers. And those are only the latest moves that make it appear as if a significant part of Europe's semiconductor industry is on the block.
Panelists cite pressures that lead to R&D myopiaA roundtable discussion at the recent Portland International Conference on Management of Engineering and Technology (PICMET) concluded that there are numerous incentives for companies to focus solely on the near future, putting long-term research at considerable risk.
LSI pact for Sand's core highlights 1394 conferenceLSI Logic Corp. recently became the first announced licensee for a 1394 interface core developed by Sand Microelectronics Inc. The move was among several taken at the first 1394 Developer's Conference to build an infrastructure for the fledgling interface.
As both prep NetPC National moves to buy CyrixNational Semiconductor Corp. and Cyrix Corp. will take the next step in their plan to redefine and dominate the low-end of personal computing when the two companies unveil in the next few weeks their reference designs for NetPC-class entry-level computers.
Thursday July 31, 1997Study calls MEMS technology 'disruptive' to industryA study of the blossoming mechanical micromachining market is revealing some surprises about the companies dabbling in the technology, according to a paper presented at the Portland International Conference on Management of Engineering and Technology this week.
Test bed seeks basic principles of VRAs virtual-reality (VR) systems mature, designers are beginning to look beyond the surface novelty of artificially generated worlds to search out a deeper understanding of the technology's potential. While VR has proved popular in entertainment and games, the ability to create a shared reality that can be accessed over networks by remote workers could be a key capability in the advancement of information technology.
Tool lets users create 3-D avatars on the desktopThree-dimensional avatars--pictorial representations of virtual-reality participants, automated characters and objects--can now be created on desktop computers with an inexpensive program called AvatarMaker.
At-risk students offered training in computersWhile the debate drags on at the national level about how to provide computer access to every student in America, small programs percolating at the local level are already heading in that direction.
Intel spends $420M to gain stake in graphicsSealing its bid to become the leading force in PC graphics, Intel Corp. this week offered $420 million for Chips and Technologies Inc., the leading vendor of notebook-graphics accelerator chips.
Wednesday July 30, 1997DSPs take on motor controlAnalog Devices Inc. is sampling the second member of a family of motor-control chips based on its ADSP-2171 digital-signal-processing core. ADI and competitors Texas Instruments Inc. and Motorola Semiconductor have all pledged to have optimized DSP ASICs for motor-control applications on the market next year.
Chip set permits upgrade to DVDLeveraging its Far East presence in the video compact-disk market, ESS Technology Inc. has introduced a chip set that will enable manufacturers in Taiwan, Korea and China to upgrade their Video CD players to DVD players. The company's highly integrated, cost-effective, full DVD/set-top solution is composed of three chips.
Cirrus quad-port IC adds PCICirrus Logic Inc. has introduced the most highly integrated member of its serial controller family, a device that merges four independent serial channels with a PCI bus interface. The CL-CD4400 uses an ARM7 embedded RISC processor from Advanced RISC Machines Ltd. for advanced packet-management features.
Internet tool blocks 'push' technologiesPacketeer Inc. is offering a special software adjunct to rid networks of the "push" technologies represented by products from such companies as PointCast, Marimba and BackWeb. The "push-back" software analyzes the URL address from known multicast and broadcast push domains and then can either block the push applications or automatically assign them a lower priority in a network.
Finer processes may bring logic cores on-chipAs programmable-logic companies prepare to shift to smaller process feature sizes in the next 12 months, they are hatching ambitious plans to integrate logic cores on-chip. Lucent Technologies provided a glimpse of such a future with its recent launch of the 0.3-micron, three-level metal OR2TXXA series of field-programmable gate arrays.
Tuesday July 29, 1997Toshiba kicks off core-ASIC plans with MPUToshiba America Electronic Components Inc. has developed a MIPS-based architecture that will place the company among the few vendors offering low-power, low-cost embedded RISC processors. Toshiba also plans to use the designs as its springboard into core-based ASIC design.
Fault simulation arrives for analogBehavioral analog fault simulation may be a reality soon, according to a presenter at last week's Analog and Mixed-Signal Applications Conference. William Kao, group director of R&D for the mixed-signal IC design group at Cadence Design Systems, outlined fault-modeling work his company has done in conjunction with the Georgia Institute of Technology.
National Security Agency markets commercial ASICsOn a scale unprecedented for a government intelligence arm, the National Security Agency (NSA) is expanding its selling of ASICs and design services, even offering commercial semiconductor designs for selected space-based and terrestrial applications.
Chip makers ally for digital-camera pushThe digital-camera market is coming into sharper focus for semiconductor suppliers, as several companies forge alliances with camera companies and take a leading role in shaping camera designs.
PC makers seek cheap way to run graphics on TVAs the PC works its way into the living room, designers are struggling over the best way to display high-resolution 3-D games, DVD movies, Web sites and text on an ordinary TV at the lowest cost. One solution was offered by a group of companies, led by Chrontel Inc., that has defined a "universal" digital interface between a graphics chip and an NTSC encoder.
Monday July 28, 1997Theremania' vibe reverberates in cyberspaceElectronic Engineers are leading a fast-growing online community of "Theremaniacs," devotees of a 70-year-old musical instrument that is perhaps most famous for supplying the spooky "oooo-eee-oooo" sound in the Beach Boys' perennial hit "Good Vibrations."
Sun deals Java license for smart cards to SiemensIn a move tantamount to licensing its crown jewels, Sun Microelectronics last week granted Siemens A.G. the right to execute a subset of Java Bytecode directly on an 8051-compatible microcontroller. The move, aimed at strengthening the position of Sun Microsystems' JavaCard language subset in the emerging smart-card industry, could also create a significant competitor for Sun's own delayed PicoJava CPU.
Oak gives CD-ROMs some breathing roomOak Technology Inc. has teamed with Sony Corp. to spin a "four-in-one" CD-ROM controller, in a move that shines a light both on the outlook for the embattled CD-ROM industry and the emerging market for embedded DRAM. Oak's design integrates a digital signal processor, 1-Mbit DRAM, servo and block decoder into a single chip that will help CD-ROM makers eke out profits from their price-sensitive systems.
Display vendors see hurdles in FED raceAs field-emission displays roll off the assembly line in small quantities, some industry players are looking anew at a technology touted as the heir apparent to the CRT and LCD. A few knotty technical issues have some experts preaching a less-expansive future for FEDs than once imagined, but others think such hurdles are normal for any emerging technology.
64-Mbit synchronous DRAM comes under fireDark clouds are hovering over the evolutionary path of personal-computer main memory. The 64-Mbit 100-MHz synchronous DRAMs--which are supposed to be the bridge between today's fast EDO memories and tomorrow's Direct Rambus DRAM or SLDRAM chips--aren't yet shipping in volume, but they're already the focus of looming price pressure and technical criticism.
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