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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, April 10, 1998Intelligence agencies reach uneasy truce with comm, imaging companies(3:00 p.m. EST, 4/10/98)The U.S. intelligence community is slowly realizing that it must collaborate with the newly privatized space communications and space imaging companies, rather than threaten them with litigation over perceived national security violations. At the recent Space Symposium forum, representatives from government and industry agreed there is little to gain from holding private companies to unrealistic standards.
Startup gives a peek at Intel's interconnect bus plans(3:00 p.m. EST, 4/10/98)Hitching its star to the still unannounced plans of Intel Corp., a small startup company is ready to roll out an interconnect technology that it hopes will sweep across the high end of the PC I/O world. Giganet Inc. is betting that its Cluster LAN is compatible with an interconnect under developmen t at Intel — one it hopes will eventually spread across the motherboards of high-end servers and workstations as a server, storage and system link.
Sparring continues on DTV formats(3:00 p.m. EST, 4/10/98)Despite insistence by the PC industry and some broadcasters that a consensus is taking shape on procedures for the fall deployment of digital TV, the behind-the-scenes picture that emerged from the National Association of Broadcasters (NAB) convention earlier this week revealed parochial arguments over HDTV demonstrations, charges of political pressure by the networks to subvert video demonstrations, and a continuation of the hard-ball maneuvering that has characterized the digital-TV debate for several years.
Japanese chip makers tap U.S. system-on-chip knowhow(3:00 p.m. EST, 4/10/98)To shore up their system-on-chip programs, two midsize Japanese semiconductor ven dors, Oki Electric Co. Ltd. and Sharp Corp., have turned to U.S. EDA companies for help. Oki's three-year contract with Cadence Design Systems Inc. (San Jose, Calif.) includes training and development of intellectual-property cores, EDA tools and overall design methodology. Sharp and Mentor Graphics Corp. (Wilsonville, Ore.) also will focus on IP creation, design-for-reuse methodologies, training and an exchange of engineers.
SGI readies spinout of MIPS division(3:00 p.m. EST, 4/10/98)Silicon Graphics Inc. is expected to detail a new technology road map and announce plans to spin out its MIPS processor division at an announcement here on Tuesday. Chief executive Rick Belluzzo will outline his plans to streamline SGI's operations and return the company to profitability. The company declined to comment on details of Belluzzo's plans which are said to include cancelling plans for 64-bit MIPS processors the company tipped last year.
Seiko introduces PC-on-a-watch(3:00 p.m. EST, 4/10/98)The calculator wristwatch is getting a big upgrade from Seiko Instruments Inc., which introduced a wearable PC called the Ruputer to the Japan market.
Avant! to purchase fabless chip vendor(3:00 p.m. EST, 4/10/98)In a move to bolster its design staff and build a portfolio of cores in one fell swoop, the Galax! subsidiary of Avant! Corp. plans to purchase Arcus Technology Ltd., a self-proclaimed fabless semiconductor company based in Bangalore, India."We are getting a lot of silicon intellectual property and design expertise with this deal," said Roy Jewell, CEO staff, corporate affairs at Avant! "We are putting Galax! in a good position to be a premier provider of silicon intellectual property and design services."
Hitachi prepares 0.20-micron process for production(9:00 p.m. EST, 4/9/98)Hitachi Ltd. will start volume production this fall of cell-based ICs using a 0.20-micron (drawn) process technology.
Teradyne division launches ATE-on-a-board(9:00 p.m. EST, 4/9/98)A new Teradyne Inc. division, formed to provide low-cost test for embedded applications, has drawn on highly integrated CMOS technology to shrink a 100-MHz, 64-channel digital ATE system down to one printed-circuit board. Embodied initially in the Integra J750 digital microcontroller tester, the chip tester technology requires no mainframe or interconnection cabling; the board resides in the test head.
Thursday, April 9, 1998EE unemployment still under 1 percent(3:00 p.m. EST, 4/9/98)Though rumors of hiring freezes and a few layoffs in the electronics industry have surfaced recently, such actions are not showing up unemployment figures.
Warning sounded on implications of PC-100(3:00 p.m. EST, 4/9/98)The extremely tight timing and impedance specifications required by the PC-100 memory bus will have profound effects on the infrastructure of the personal computer market, according to Paul Popadak, design engineering manager at Kingston Technology Corp. Popadak predicts that PC-100 will lead to a shakeout in the module industry, raise serious issues for memory expansion modules, and present a barrier to the adoption of double-data-rate (DDR) DRAM.
GI picks two small players to deliver set-top silicon(3:00 p.m. EST, 4/9/98)General Instrument Corp.'s selection of two relatively low-profile silicon vendors — Quantum Effect Design Inc. (QED) and Broadcom Corp. — as suppliers for its next-generation digital cable set-top boxes shows that small companies can still be big players in the emerging set-top market. GI's choice also reflects a midgame rewriting of the rules as the CableLabs industry consortium's OpenCable specs come together and as Microsoft Corp.'s Windows CE strategy throws set-top developers a curve.
Nichia pushes blue laser diodes to violet(3:00 p.m. EST, 4/9/98)High-power gallium-nitride laser diodes that emit light in the violet region of the spectrum have been developed by Nichia Chemical Industrial Co. Ltd. (Anan, Tokushima). By operating at a shorter wavelength than blue, the laser diodes could allow optical disks to store greater amounts of data, and may find application in other areas that require blue laser light, such as flat-panel displays. Nichia researchers described their work at the recent Spring Meeting of the Japan Society of Applied Physics and Related Societies.
No near-term exit seen for corporate CAD(9:00 p.m. EST, 4/8/98)In-house tool development by corporate CAD organizations will continue to be essential for leading-edge designs, according to panelists at this week's International Symposium on Physical Design (ISPD-'98). EDA representatives on the panel didn't disagree, and even acknowledged that their companies face some limitations when it comes to innovation.
EDA revenue topped $2.70 billion in 1997, report shows(9:00 p.m. EST, 4/8/98)Revenue for the EDA industry grew 17 percent to $2.70 billion in 1997, according to the EDA Consortium's quarterly Market Statistics Service (MSS), released this week. Separately, EDAC said it has been selected to monitor core business revenue for Rapid (Dallas), a business association that promotes the use of semiconductor intellectual property.
Wednesday, April 8, 1998Startup SkyStream bets on data broadcasting market(3:00 p.m. EST, 4/8/98)Betting big on the emerging market for data broadcasting, startup SkyStream Corp. (Mountain View, Calif.) formally introduced itself at the National Association of Broadcasters conference this week and rolled out a clutch of products that let broadcasters inject data into the MPEG-based digital-video broadcast infrastructure.
SRI develops a battery that won't burn(3:00 p.m. EST, 4/8/98)Anyone who's worked on a laptop computer from his lap understands their problem: lithium-ion batteries heat up. A lot. And rare cases, they've caught fire and have even exploded.
LSI exec joins verification startup(3:00 p.m. EST, 4/8/98)Verisity Ltd., a verification automation tool supplier that appears to be pushing toward an initial public offering, has hired Moshe Gavrielov as its chief executive officer . Gavrielov had been executive vice president of LSI Logic Corp.
Microsoft cuts video deal with Sony(9:00 p.m. EST, 4/7/98)A cross licensing deal between Microsoft Corp. and Sony Corp. marks a small but significant concession by the software giant in the ongoing battle over digital video formats.
An open letter to Craig Barrett(9:00 p.m. EST, 4/7/98)Dear Craig: Congratulations on your promotion to chief executive officer at Intel. It is richly deserved.
NAB asks: Is the PC ready for digital TV?(9:00 p.m. EST, 4/7/98)Microsoft and Compaq continue to preach the PC industry's dislike of the 1,080-line interlaced (1,080i) HDTV format at the National Association of Broadcasters convention this week, but Intel Corp. is laying low. Rather than banging the drum for the competing, compu ter-friendly progressive-scan format, Intel is spending its time updating broadcasters on "what's possible," "what's real" and "what's next" in content, platforms and digital broadcast technologies. High on its list: a soft decoding scheme devised by Hitachi that sidesteps the need for additional hardware.
High-level design systems, C6X boards to hightlight DSP World(9:00 p.m. EST, 4/7/98)Texas Instruments Inc. (Dallas) will formally introduce the floating-point version of its flagship C6X architecture at the DSP World Spring Conference, to be held from April 21-23 in Santa Clara, Calif., and TI customers will show new boards and development systems built around the 1,600-Mips machine. At the same conference, Xilinx Inc. (San Jose, Calif.) and HP EEsof (Westlake Village, Calif.) will make significant additions to their design tools for custom digital signal processors.
Tuesday, April 7, 1998Newton paints a picture of tomorrow's EDA tools(3:00 p.m. EST, 4/7/98)A bold vision of how the World Wide Web can enable EDA integration was set forth at this week's International Symposium on Physical Design (ISPD '98) by Richard Newton, professor of electrical engineering and computer science at the University of California at Berkeley. Newton described a future in which collaborative design is enabled by "smart data" flowing over widely dispersed networks.
McCain urges rival digital-TV camps to make peace(3:00 p.m. EST, 4/7/98)The chairman of the Senate Commerce Committee exhorted broadcasters an d computer companies convened at the National Association of Broadcasters conference in Las Vegas this week to drop their differences and begin building a national digital-TV system.
Chromatic optimistic after investment from Compaq(3:00 p.m. EST, 4/7/98)After several years of false starts, Chromatic Research Inc. (Sunnyvale, Calif.) claims it has turned the corner in its quest to make the media processor part of mainstream PCs.
IBM's 1-GHz processor taxes current EDA tools(3:00 p.m. EST, 4/7/98)The design of a 1-GHz PowerPC prototype at IBM's Austin Research Lab (ARL) pointed up some key challenges for tomorrow's EDA tools, as many of today's tools aren't up to the task, according to David LaPotin, manager for CAD and analysis at IBM ARL. In a keynote address at this week's International Symposium on Physical Design (ISPD '98), LaPotin described the architecture, tools and methodologies IBM used to build the 1-GHz chip.
Lucent and Chip Express team up on ASICs(3:00 p.m. EST, 4/7/98)Lucent Technologies and Chip Express Corp. (Santa Clara, Calif.) have announced a joint effort to slash design times for complex, system-level ASICs. The two companies will work together in a number of parallel paths, all of which should lead to expanded opportunities for both companies' customers.
IBM may be eyeing an AMD investment, report suggests(12:00 noon EST, 4/7/98)A day before Advanced Micro Devices Inc. was due to release its financial results for the first quarter of 1998, an analysts' report had Wall Street buzzing about the possibility of an IBM Corp. investment, and about whether manufacturing yields have indeed improved on the K6 processor.
Mot orola will place test and assembly operations in Poland(9:00 p.m. EST, 4/6/98)Motorola Inc. plans to locate a software development center as well as a joint-venture semiconductor test and assembly plant in Krakow, Poland.
MPEG codec allows non-linear editing(9:00 p.m. EST, 4/6/98)C-Cube Microsystems has introduced to the nation's broadcasters a single-chip MPEG-2 encoder/decoder IC that performs non-linear editing.
Halla sketches National's PC-on-a-chip plans(9:00 p.m. EST, 4/6/98)Brian Halla, president and chief executive officer of National Semiconductor Corp., sketched an ambitious plan for National to roll out a "PC-on-a-chip" by mid-1999. In an address at the Semico Summit, which is being presented in Phoenix this week by Semicon Research Corp., Halla said he hoped the device would redefine the notion of a PC from a system that computes data to one that can convey information in a more intuititive fashion.
Fujitsu readies double-data-rate DRAMs(9:00 p.m. EST, 4/6/98)While DRAM vendors scramble to produce chips that comply with Intel Corp.'s stringent PC-100 memory module specification , the race is already on for the next generation of PC main-memory devices. Fujitsu Microelectronics Inc. is preparing to sample its first double-data-rate (DDR) DRAMs in the third quarter of this year, with production following by the end of the year.
Monday, April 6, 1998Jay Leno will appear in 1080i HDTV this fall(3:00 p.m. EST, 4/6/98)An unusually competitive atmosphere marked the opening of the National Association of Broadcasters convention this year, with the four major television networks defending their competing cho ices of digital-TV video formats, business plans and long-term visions for an uncertain market.
Demand puts PC-100 DRAMs under scrutiny(3:00 p.m. EST, 4/6/98)A sudden jump in demand for very fast synchronous DRAMs has helped pull Intel Corp.'s PC-100 specification into the mainstream of the personal computer market, according to George Robillard, vice president of Fujitsu Microelectronics Inc.
Applications flourish in TI's DSP competition(3:00 p.m. EST, 4/6/98)Teams from the Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University, the University of San Diego and the Centro Federal de Educacao Tecnologica do Parana (Brazil) are among nine semifinalists competing for a $100,000 prize from Texas Instruments Inc.
Microprocessor vet becomes startup's CEO(3:00 p.m. EST, 4/6/98)Vinod Dham, a key figure in the microprocessor wars of the past few years, has resurfaced as chief executive officer of Silicon Spice Inc., a telecommunications-minded semiconductor startup.
SGS-Thomson to clone Intel's Slot 1 interface(11:45 p.m. EST, 4/3/98)SGS-Thomson Microelectronics has tipped plans to develop a Pentium II-class processor that uses Intel Corp.'s jealously guarded P6-processor bus, the key interface behind Intel's proprietary Slot 1 processor connector. While timing for the launch remains unclear, SGS-Thomson could become the first competitor of Intel's to clone the Slot 1 interface and thereby break open the market for drop-in replacements of Pentium II-compatible processors. Suppliers lie low with P6 chip sets(11:45 p.m. EST, 4/3/98)When Acer Laboratories Inc. announced availability of Pentium II core logic early last month, Intel Corp. said it would take legal action against any unlicensed use of its P6 processor bus. That sent some Taiwanese chip-set makers running for cover. Broadcasters mull datacast scheme for DTV(11:45 p.m. EST, 4/3/98)The debate over how to implement data broadcasting over digital TV will shift into high gear at the National Association of Broadcasters (NAB) conference, which will take place in Las Vegas from April 4-9. Intel Corp. will pitch its vision for data broadcasting while the Advanced Television Systems Committee will continue work on specifications, even as other companies roll out data services over analog TV. Engineers protest as work-visa bill clears first hurdle(11:45 p.m. EST, 4/3/98)Reaction was divided to a Senate committee's passage of a bill last week that raises the caps on immigration visas for temporary H-1B workers — including engineers — to 95,000 from the present 65,000. Silicon Valley employers applauded the vote, which would open the door to visas for more overseas workers at a time when the job market is wide open. Microsoft gives CE a hard real-time rev(11:45 p.m. EST, 4/3/98)In a frontal assault on the embedded-systems market, Microsoft Corp. will revamp its Windows CE operating system to include "hard" real-time features that can support time-critical applications in process control, data acquisition and telecommunications. Microsoft will disclose its plans on April 6 at its Windows CE Developer's Conference in San Jose, Calif., sources close to the company said. Taiwanese suppliers show Pentium II notebooks(11:45 p.m. EST, 4/3/98)Intel Corp. and 11 Taiwanese notebook computer makers formally introduced notebooks this week that u se Intel's new Pentium II mobile CPU. Intel introduced the processor in both an Intel Mobile Module (IMM) format and in a "mini-cartridge" format. Both formats are available at either 233- or 266-MHz frequencies. P-Com acquires wireless group from Cylink(11:45 p.m. EST, 4/3/98)P-Com Inc., a specialist in spread-spectrum basestations for wireless local loop, point-to-point radio, and point-to-multipoint systems, has acquired all assets of the wireless communication group of Cylink Corp. (Sunnyvale, Calif.). P-Com offered $46 million in cash and $14.5 million in a short-term unsecured promissory note in the $60.5 million deal. Carpenter joins IC-CAD startup(11:45 p.m. EST, 4/3/98)Callen Carpenter, a former vice president of marketing for Mentor Graphics Corp., has become president and chief executive officer of Taveren Technologies, a self-described "large scale" IC-CAD startup here. |
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