Author Archives: richard wilson

Touch display feels like the real thing

NLT NLT Technologies has developed a tactile touch screen technology, which it says uses electric vibrations to reproduce skin sensations as if they are tracing actual objects on the display.

“The display provides texture via skin sensation when the user traces the surface of the display where the image is shown. If multiple fingers touch the display at the same time, the digits on the area where the image is shown can feel the appropriate texture, but the digits on the area without the image will not feel the texture.”

The NLT tactile touch technology provides regional stimulation, which is provided by electrostatic force. The electrostatic force is generated by the beat phenomenon in a region where excited X electrodes cross excited Y electrodes, which presents tactile sensation to the users. The tactile touch technology applied to the panel provides multi-finger interaction.

The display arranges multiple electrodes horizontally (X) and vertically (Y) on the glass panel and applies voltage with different frequencies to each X and Y electrode located on the image area. Electrostatic force corresponding to the difference in the frequencies occurs at the electrodes’ cross point.

When user traces on the surface, friction variation, modulated by the electrostatic force, occurs. The display uses this friction variation to provide the tactile sensation. The friction variation does not occur at the areas without images, so it is possible to localize the region to be stimulated and achieve the multi-finger function. This tactile technology with the matrix electrodes arrangement consists of a relatively small number of electrodes, enabling the display to be higher in density and larger in size.

NLT Technologies will sell the tactile LCDs through its sales and marketing channel in Europe, Renesas Electronics.

Recruitment start-up sees strength in manufacturing

Cubed i

Rob Fleming has worked with recruitment specialist Kate Hill

A co-founder of one of the UK’s most successful electronic manufacturing companies of the past 20 years is putting his weight behind a recruitment agency focused on  electronic manufacturing and related supply chain markets.

Rob Fleming has worked with recruitment specialist Kate Hill to create Cubed Resourcing in Wetherby, North Yorkshire.

The agency has set itself the the target of discovering emerging talent in middle management.

According to Kate Hill: ”With rising consumer demand, competition is intensifying for the key people and skills necessary to capitalise on the upturn. The clamour is for a finite resource and being able to attract and retain it is critical for employers to meet the capacity and capability challenge.”

The aim, said Hill, is to encourage companies to be more proactive in their recruitment plans. “Firms must establish themselves as destinations of choice before competitors do,” said Hill.

Fleming, who was a co- founder of set-top box firm Pace, said he is still active in tech start ups and his involvement in Cubed will be “more than financial enabling and mentoring”.

Fleming said: “Shaped by industry for industry, the Cubed approach is one of joint enterprise and consultancy. We have strategic, nuanced relationships with employers that see us working with them on long term programmes. As such, we’re definitely not going to be on the periphery of things, only to be called upon to fill short term gaps. We’re about adding value to a client’s five year business plan, as well as its day-to-day needs.”

 

Micron intros 8Gbit DDR3 SDRAM for social media

Micron - Robert FeurleMicron Technology has introduced a monolithic 8Gbit DDR3 SDRAM component based on its 25nm DRAM manufacturing process.

DDR3 DRAMs are targeted at the enterprise market.

“The ability to scale with our customers’ accelerating memory demand was a key driver in developing this 8Gb DDR3 design,” said Robert Feurle, vice president of compute and networking marketing at Micron.

“We are committed to working together with our partners to minimize risk, maximize flexibility and optimize total cost of ownership.”

 Micron’s DDR3 portfolio includes 8Gbit single-die and dual-die components, 32GB RDIMMs (dual rank), 64GB LRDIMMs, 32GB ECC SODIMMs and 16GB VLP ECC UDIMMs.

 

Synopsys upgrades auto grade NVM IP

NVM IP block diagram

NVM IP block diagram

Synopsys has introduced non-volatile memory (NVM) IP for high-voltage processes used typically for automotive ICs.

Called DesignWare AEON Trim, NVM IP is designed to be compact and is available in standard 180nm 5V CMOS and Bipolar CMOS DMOS (BCD) processes without a need for additional masks or process steps.

The IP supports the wide temperature range required for automotive Grade 0 applications and exceeds AEC-Q100 quality standards.

The NVM IP incorporates special test modes to increase programming speed. This includes bulk operations that enable designers to program the entire array in a single operation.

“Designers developing automotive ICs increasingly expect NVM IP providers to support the Grade 0 temperature range and AEC-Q100 standards while reducing IP area and cutting test times,” said John Koeter, vice president of marketing for IP and prototyping at Synopsys.

Mentor buys automotive embedded hardware firm

xse-axsb

AXSB automotive-ready reference board

Mentor Graphics has acquired a German company specialising in hardware reference platforms for the automotive sector.

XS Embedded (XSe) is an established company which has developed an approach to accelerate system design and verification by providing automotive-grade hardware and software to reduce the time to SOP.

Mentor said thi swill allow it to address the cross-functional collaboration needs required to address the trends towards integration of advanced driver assistance systems (ADAS), driver information and infotainment domains.

According to Mentor, automotive systems now require the development of advanced embedded systems and the design challenges “are tremendous with millions of lines of code per vehicle, cross-domain function consolidation, mixed safety criticality, security, and the use of heterogeneous multi-core SoCs,” said the EDA firm.

“XS Embedded is recognised for its deep automotive domain expertise and unique IP including the AXSB automotive-ready reference board and software modules,” stated Glenn Perry, Mentor Graphics Embedded System Division general manager.

According to Perry, XSe’s hardware design and architecture expertise fits well with Mentor’s own automotive technology suite, including Android, Linux, AUTOSAR, Security and Hypervisor.

“By combining Mentor’s Android, hypervisor, security, AUTOSAR & Nucleus solutions with XSe automotive-ready solutions, we are able to address the entire vehicle software infrastructure requirements of the most sophisticated vehicles in design today,” said Rainer Oder, managing director of XS Embedded.

The firm’s automotive-ready reference platforms include automotive-grade hardware, such as XS AXSB based on the Texas Instruments Jacinto 6 platform. IP includes the XS OPTstack software stack.

 

Digi-Key sees UK sales grow 32%

Mark Larson, president, Digi-Key

Mark Larson, president, Digi-Key

Digi-Key says its business in the UK has grown by 32% this year.

This is a year after the online distributor launched a small order production sales business and created its first local sales office in the UK.

“All is going according to plan, but 32% growth figure in the UK market exceeded my expectations,” Mark Larson, president of Digi-Key told Electronics Weekly.

It is a similar story across the rest of Europe.

Sales in the last 12 months increased by 30% in Germany and even higher growth was seen in emerging markets of eastern Europe, where Hungary was 46% ahead and Poland 42%.

For Europe as a whole Digi-Key saw sales increase by 27% year-on-year. This compares with 8% growth over the same period in North America.

“Europe is our shining star right now,” said Larson.

Larson said there is still great potential to grow the UK business further.

“Our market share in the UK is currently 3.3% and there is lots of room to grow,” said Larson.

Digi-Key’s business outside its home market in North America has been growing strongly in the last two years.

In 2012 total orders outside the US were just under 900,000. In 2014 non-US orders totalled 1.2 million.

Larson said Digi-Key’s small-order production business is still developing, and will see the online distributor competing more directly with bigger players such as Avnet and Arrow,

“It will take a time to play out,” said Larson. “We are seeing a beginning in Europe, but the business is coming on strong in the UK.”

A factor in this growth, said Larson, was the company’s decision two years ago to become less ‘virtual’ and to open selected local sales offices.

“It is a light-touch, but a physical presence is necessary,” said Larson.

Other plans for the future include increasing application engineering support and broadening further the product offering.

“Our business is driven by international sales activity, and more customer activity means we can justify broader product lines with more specialist products,” said Larson.

“We are 96% in stock with every product we carry on our websites,” said Larson.

Intel and Samsung lead open source charge to IoT

Intel-iotA group of semiconductor, computing and software companies want to establish a common wireless communications framework for internet of things applications.

The Open Interconnect Consortium (OIC) includes Atmel, Broadcom, Dell, Intel, Samsung and Wind River want to create a standard wireless protocol based on open source code. But will use existing wireless interface standards.

The aim is to standardise communicating and managing IoT devices, regardless of form factor, operating system or service provider.

“Interoperability will be a critical enabler as the IoT ecosystem continues to evolve,” said Rahul Patel, Broadcom senior vice president and general manager, Wireless Connectivity.

“The rise and ultimate success of the internet of things depends on the ability for devices and systems to securely and reliably interconnect and share information,” said Doug Fisher, Intel’s general manager of the Software and Services Group.

“This requires common frameworks, based on truly open, industry standards,” said Fisher.

The first OIC open source code will target the specific requirements of smart home such as remotely controlling household systems.

“Open source is about collaboration and about choice. The Open Interconnect Consortium is yet another proof point how open source helps to fuel innovation,” said Jim Zemlin, executive director of The Linux Foundation.

“We look forward to the OIC’s contribution in fostering an open environment to support the billions of connected devices coming online.”

 

 

Comment: Chip firms should think outside the box on source code

Raspberry Pi

Raspberry Pi

Processor suppliers could make a big difference in the way their chips are used and adopted by the industry if they took the plunge and made more of their source code available to designers.

Creating evaluation boards and reference designs with compliers, debuggers and other firmware is a mainstay of the embedded designer’s tool box. But what if they could get access to elements of the processor’s source code?

This is what designer Pete Warden at Jetpac did when he had access to the assembler level code of the Raspberry Pi graphics processor from Broadcom.

He wrote custom assembler programs for the Raspberry Pi, he then created a set of helper macros for programming the DMA controller and released it all as open source.

It seems that Broadcom is not afraid to make elements of its chip software IP more widely available, even as open source software.

For example, Broadcom is one of only a few chip makers to make its Bluetooth stack available to the open source community.

The Bluetooth stack became part of the Android open source project and as a result of this it became the basis of the Bluetooth subsystem in the latest Android 4.2 operating system.

Was this because the Broadcom stack was available as open source? I guess so.

So it would make sense for more chip suppliers to make elements of their source code available. It would have the advantage of proliferating the IP which would surely help with option of the silicon.

Of course no chip firm will give away all its proprietary IP. But it should be possible to give designers greater access to elements, such as wireless stack and even assembler code.

 

IT sector growth creates demand for skills

There has been a growth of demand for IT and computing staff during June.

Both permanent and temporary workers saw marked rates of expansion in available job vacancies, according to latest Report on Jobs, published by KPMG and the REC.

Although down from May, the latest reading was still indicative of a strong rate of growth that was slightly above the UK average.

The IT category posted in fourth place out of nine in the demand for staff ‘league table’.

Temporary IT staff saw growth of demand for their services accelerate in June.   

“With both permanent and temporary workers seeing an expansion in available job vacancies, it seems that employers are ready to ‘splash the cash’ in what appears to be an attempt to lure skilled staff from competitors,” said Heath Jackson, partner in the CIO Advisory practice at KPMG.

“Yet despite offering starting salaries at a rate that has not been seen during the survey’s 17 year lifetime, it is clear that candidates are not easily swayed,” said Jackson.

“Employers need to bear in mind that cash is just one element of a rewards package and today’s savvy employees are looking at a broader range of benefits when they choose their employer. Businesses will have to come up with increasingly inventive rewards packages to attract and retain the best talent,” added Jackson.

UK distributors are cautious on growth

UK-mapUK component distributors are predicting only  ”modest growth” in the market later in the year, according to the Electronic Components Supply Network (ecsn), the organisation for the electronic component supply chain.

The market figures for May from the ecsn show a slight decline in the book-to-bill ratio and in overall bookings compared to April 2014 and also to May 2013.

“Anticipated growth in the second quarter does not appear to have materialised, which has led to a slight increase in inventory,” said Adam Fletcher, Chairman of the ecsn.

“Our distributor members are expecting a modest increase in growth in the second half of the year, which appears to be realistic since no significant events or increased demand drivers are currently visible,” said Fletcher.

Semiconductors increased slightly over the period, passives declined slightly, emech was flat and component assemblies declined.