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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, October 10, 1997Digital VHS vies with DVD-based home theaterEchostar and JVC Corp. will offer consumers an alternative to DVD-based home theater by year end. By combining a satellite dish, set-top box and a digital VHS tape recorder, subscribers to Echostar's Dish broadcasting service will be able to record MPEG-2-based movies on D-VHS tapes capable of storing five hours of programming, JVC officials said on the opening day of the Japan Electronics Show.
First fruits of Intelligent I/O effort shown at N+IThe Intelligent I/O initiative got a boost from Intel Corp.'s OEM development partners at last week's NetWorld+Interop (N+I) when the companies displayed the first practical results of the move to a common I/O scheme based on simple message-passing protocols and a tiered PCI bus. I2O-compliant server products that combine Pentium and Pentium Pro hosts with i960 architectures for local I/O coprocessing are shipping this fall.
Year-old VSI effort strives to turn ideas into siliconWith news of pilot projects and testimonials from "early adopters," the Virtual Socket Interface (VSI) alliance claimed solid progress at a one-year anniversary meeting held here recently. But VSI specifications won't start to become public until 1998, making it unclear exactly when chip designers will be able to purchase VSI-complaint "virtual components."
A bid to change the face of fabsCiting spiraling fab costs and 50 percent overall industry fab efficiency, Philips Semiconductors chief operating officer Stuart McIntosh has challenged manufacturing experts to revamp the model by which semiconductor companies plan their production. Speaking here at the International Symposium on Semiconductor Manufacturing, McIntosh said the industry must make some changes if it is to keep chip prices reasonable in the face of increasing manufacturing costs.
Motorola puts its modem business up for saleMotorola Inc. has put up for sale its end-user modem business based here, a decision that reflects both the rapid shift of 33.6- and 56-kbit/second modems to a high-volume, low-margin business and the company's ongoing efforts to re-evaluate its far-flung product groups.
House raids domain account to fund future InternetBudget negotiators voted Wednesday to dip into a domain-registry fund set up for future improvements to the Internet to help pay for the controversial Next Generation Internet project--or Internet2--backed by the Clinton administration.
Thursday, October 9, 1997Processor enables print ID on a cardBy putting an entire video-processing system on a PCMCIA card, Thomson-CSF Semiconducteurs Specifiques has fashioned a uniquely compact way to verify a person's identity. A credit-card-sized system, it uses a small fingerprint scanner designed by Thomson, a single-chip video processor from Oxford Micro Devices Inc., some DRAM for frame buffering and an E2PROM to store sample fingerprints. The system performs all of the image processing and comparison on the card, then sends an encrypted verification to the host or remote system that needs to identify a user.
Smart Modular launches two new divisionsSmart Modular Technologies Inc. is expecting two new divisions to expand its breadth beyond the DRAM and SRAM module businesses that have been responsible for its healthy per-share profit growth and a net revenue approaching $700 million. An embedded-computer division is expected to win the company business for CPU boards based on the MIPS, PowerPC, StrongARM, SH and Intel architectures.
Research pursues foldable displaysIt's the rare road warrior who wouldn't like a larger display for his portable equipment. Few options have been offered that don't compromise portability or ease of use. But research into alternatives for glass substrates is yielding such promising ideas as a foldable display that could be tucked conveniently into a jacket pocket.
Standards sought for Internet dataAn effort to promote the cooperative development of Internet database standards is being launched here by the University of California's National Laboratory for Applied Network Research (NLANR). The push to bridge the wide array of existing data-format standards, which is said to be slowing the advance of the Internet, is being organized as the Cooperative Association for Internet Data Analysis. The National Science Foundation (NSF) has awarded $3.1 million in seed money to get the effort off the ground.
Cycle-accurate' model builtViewlogic Systems Inc. has raised the bar on instruction-set simulation models by developing a cycle-accurate Sparclite model in cooperation with Fujitsu Microelectronics. Both Viewlogic and Fujitsu see the model, designed for Viewlogic's Eagle system, as a breakthrough because of the level of accuracy it offers. The model is also the first to be developed by Viewlogic using a new methodology that will ultimately be encapsulated in a standard applications programming interface (API) for models.
Wednesday, October 8, 1997Suit charges Microsoft breached Java contractCharging breach of contract, Sun Microsystems Inc. is suing Microsoft Corp. for allegedly violating its Java software license with the release last week of Internet Explorer 4.0. Specifically, Sun asserts that Microsoft's browser and its Java software developers kit do not meet the Java compatibility standards required by the license.
Slate of third-party tools awaits M-core's debutThough Motorola is formally announcing its M-core architecture only this week, a wide range of development-tool support for that low-power, 16/32-bit RISC processor core surfaced earlier at the Embedded Systems Conference. A complete tool chain is already available from third-party vendors.
Line of products with USB coming from National InstrumentsNational Instruments is taking the wraps off several products that are equipped with USB. These include an instrument for measuring voltages and temperatures; data-acquisition and digital I/O devices; and an IEEE 488.2 controller.
TRW acquires multichip-module makerTRW Inc. said Monday that it has acquired multichip-module maker MilliWave Technologies Inc., which specializes in designing and manufacturing GaAs-based multichip modules used in high-capacity wireless-communications systems.
ADI implements Dolby Digital code on a SharcAnalog Devices Inc. has implemented the Dolby Digital audio decoding algorithm (formerly known as AC-3) in a low-cost Sharc device, bringing 32-bit floating-point digital signal processing to high-performance audio applications.
Credit-card Pentium PC heads for embedded appsCell Computing Inc. has unveiled a Pentium-based credit-card-size PC for embedded applications. The company was able to rein in the real estate, power and thermal difficulties of using the chip in embedded applications by means of 10 patented technologies from its Japanese parent, PFU Ltd., a joint computer venture of Fujitsu and Matsushita.
Tuesday, October 7, 1997UltraSparc-III targets servers, LAN switchesSignificantly timed to coincide with this week's Networld+Interop rather than next week's Microprocessor Forum, Sun Microelectronics will unveil the internal architecture of its UltraSparc-III CPU. The microprocessor represents a step forward in performance for the Sparc family, while illustrating new issues in systems architecture and IC design that are rapidly changing the industry.
Startup pushes asynch chips toward mainstreamFully asynchronous processors moved a giant step closer to the mainstream last week, as Cogency Technology (U.S.) Inc. revealed a design system that can produce made-to-order, self-timed CPUs and DSPs. In its first commercial use, the suite has produced a digital signal-processing chip that consumes only a fraction of the space and power of a conventional DSP.
Rambus details architecture of Direct RDRAMThe Direct Rambus DRAM architecture, which will be formally announced next week, will double to 16 bits the width of the memory's controller interface and incorporate a revised split-transaction protocol that will allow a microprocessor to access four to eight times as many banks as today's synchronous DRAMs. The result is a new memory that will significantly lower the time it takes DRAM to send back data after receiving a request, and that simultaneously allows a processor to do more work during access latencies, according to analysts and DRAM industry sources.
Sony's Ethernet switch pushes envelope on integrationSony Semiconductor Co. of America (SSA) will extend the reach of its LAN internetworking chips at Networld+Interop this week to include digital media-access control logic. The company will reach for high integration with the introduction of PacITman, a 26-port Ethernet switch that integrates twenty-four 10-Mbit/second and two 100-Mbit/s ports on a single chip. Meanwhile, Cadence Design Systems Inc. (San Jose) will record the design as a big win for its Spectrum Design services group.
Toshiba backs intel's 1394 planToshiba Corp. has thrown its support behind Intel Corp.'s technology proposal to protect copyrighted content traversing a digital serial bus such as 1394. A cross-industry pact on a content-protection mechanism is critical, because Hollywood studios demand that their content be protected during all phases of transmission and playback.
Monday, October 6, 1997Intel not seeking AlphaIntel Corp. is not looking to acquire Digital Equipment Corp.'s Alpha microprocessor technology, according to a source close to Intel. However, the two companies are holding discussions aimed at settling an ongoing patent battle, the source said. Word of Intel's purported interest in Alpha surfaced today in a story in The Wall Street Journal.
Fire Engulfs UICC FabA fire at one of United Microelectronics Corp.'s (UMC) new fabs probably will not cause a significant reduction in memory products output from this major player in worldwide memory production. It does however, bring into question the safety of Taiwan's IC fabs.
Consortium rallies to can the Spam on bloated UsenetAn ad hoc group of network administrators is proposing a way to rescue the Usenet, the Internet's virtual bulletin board, from the glut of extraneous postings that threatens to bury it. Usenet2, a small consortium founded by Usenet veterans working as system administrators for midsize Internet service providers (ISPs), is promoting an additional Usenet hierarchy-- called "net.*"--that Internet news administrators can request as a "feed" over the Network News Transfer Protocol.
China carves a role in consumer design Initiative on Video CD 3.0: signals country's intention to leverage its market cloutAs the sleeping giant that is China's consumer-electronics market awakens to its potential, the country is leveraging its enormous clout as a buyer and producer to influence and define architectures for future consumer-electronics products. Carving a new role in design, China's Ministry of Electronics Industry held an industry-wide meeting here late last month to unveil plans for Chinese extensions to the Video CD 2.0 standard that call for adding Internet connectivity and interactive features to the current format.
Switches, routers regroup to hit Gbit ratesA new wave of communications equipment designed to make public and private Internet Protocol networks faster and smarter will start to flow when the doors open at this week's Networld+Interop here. Established vendors and startups building these new systems agree they stretch beyond traditional switching and routing to bring end users more control over links running at Gbit speeds.
VSI abandons plans for common IP busThe dream of a single on-chip bus standard that would allow designers to mix and match intellectual-property (IP) blocks has apparently died. Having concluded that its initial plan was unrealistic, the Virtual Socket Interface (VSI) alliance is narrowing its scope to the less-contentious issue of developing a common interface among "virtual components."
WinCE 2.0 leaves deeply embedded impressionWith the official rollout of its Windows CE 2.0 and a commanding presence on and off the show floor, Microsoft Corp. made its market prowess felt in a big way at the Embedded Systems Conference here last week. Feelings were mixed on the likely impact the PC-software giant will have in this arena, with some saying Microsoft will bring standards and could force a consolidation in this diverse field, and others contending the company may have little impact despite its latest efforts.
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