Altera Rolls Out $3 FPGAs

Ships Cyclone IV GX Transceiver Starter Kit
Altera Corporation has stared production shipments of its Cyclone IV FPGAs, providing roughly 20,000 gates (6K logic blocks) for as little as $3 in volume, or 50,000 gates (15K logic blocks) with built in transceivers for $6.
The Cyclone IV FPGAs are designed for cost-sensitive, small  form-factor applications in the wireless, wireline, broadcast,

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Landis+Gyr start UK's first major smart meter deployment

Million meter contract for smart meters with British Gas 

Smart meters are starting to roll out commercially in the UK with a million meter deal between Landis+Gyr, the world's largest electricity metering and smart meter supplier, and Centrica subsidiary British Gas.

The deal will see British Gas deploy up to one million of Landis+Gyr's "dual fuel" electricity and gas smart meters, along

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New generation of piezoelectric nanogenerators powers nanosensor

New generation of piezoelectric nanogenerators powers nanosensor

By combining a new generation of piezoelectric nanogenerators with two types of nanowire sensors, researchers at teh Georgia Institute of Technology have created what are believed to be the first self-powered nanometer-scale sensing devices that draw power from the conversion of mechanical energy.
The new devices can measure

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On the road to a wireless display in a contact lens

It has been developed to monitor the eyes of patients with glaucoma, but the latest technology from STMicroelectronics for a Swiss medical startup points the way to integrating a display in a contact lens.
ST is to develop and supply a wireless MEMS sensor that acts as a transducer, antenna and mechanical support for additional read-out electronics in a system developed by Sensimed in Geneva.

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World's smallest microcavity laser for optical computing

From Nanowerk, physicists at ETH-Zurich have developed the smallest electricallyumped laser in the world that could revolutionize chip technology ("Microcavity Laser Oscillating in a Circuit-Based Resonator").

The laser is 30 micrometers long, eight micrometers high and has a wavelength of 200 micrometers. This makes the laser considerably smaller than the wavelength of the light it emits

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Skinput - using the skin for data entry

Researchers at Carnegie Mellon University are working on a way to use the skin as an input device, similar to the approach taken by Light Blue Optics.

Skinput is a method that allows the body to be appropriated for finger input using a novel, non-invasive, wearable bio-acoustic sensor, to be presented in April.
Devices with significant computational power and capabilities can now be easily

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Top 15 most admired semiconductor companies in 2010

Fortune magazine has listed its most admired companies in the world, with a separate break-out for semiconductor companies.
Among semiconductor companies evaluated, STMicroelectronics is ranked the 6th most admired, in its first year as a participant in the survey. Additionally, it is the highest-ranking Europe-based chipmaker on the list.

The “World’s Most Admired Companies” survey debuted

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GM looks to new augmented reality head up displays - video

Video of AR display for cars

General Motors R&D and several universities are working on a system that would use data gathered from an array of vehicle sensors and cameras and project images generated by compact ultra violet lasers directly onto the entire surface of the windshield. Head up displays are already used in cars for data suuch as speed, but this aims to use the whole windscreen for

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HP and Samsung lead rise in semiconductor spend

Apple rises as OEM spend grows 13% in 2010   
OEM semiconductor spend 2010 ($m)

Semiconductor spending in 2010 among Original Equipment Manufacturers (OEM) and Electronic Manufacturing Service (EMS) providers will post double-digit increases, reversing the cut in tspending over the last year and pointing to a more considered upturn. Among electronic equipment OEMs, spending in 2010 will rise

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STMicro turns to Mentor for 32nm design

Mentor Graphics is teaming up with STMicroelectronics on a broad collaboration to develop advanced design solutions at 32nm and down to 20nm.

The three-year joint-development project, named DeCADE, seeks to build on advanced design solutions for SoC (System On Chip) development for Digital and Analog design, including system-level approaches, design methodologies, place and route

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Samsung launches US apps store for consumer kit

Store For TVs, Blu-ray Players, and Home Theatre Systems linking to WiFi phones


Following the success of applications stores on mobile phones - particularly with Apple and Android - the next move is to apps running on Android on consumer equipment, and Samsung Electronics in the US is the first to officially launch its own site.
Samsung Apps is the first

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Strong bounce for consumer electronics in 2010 says IMS Research

2010 Consumer Electronics Outlook up on 2009, 2008


Despite a 5% decline from 2008 to 2009,  IMS Research sees relatively strong growth in smartphones, portable media players, set-top boxes, LCD televisions and refrigeration appliances for 2010, which are expected to significantly contribute to global CE revenues of $406 billion during the year. Global revenues for consumer electronics

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SiBEAM raises $36.5m for next round of high data rate wirelessHD

Cisco Joins Panasonic & Samsung to Accelerate Consumer Adoption

The most advanced millimetre wave startup, SiBEAM, has raised $36.5m in its D round of funding to accelerate the consumer adoption of its 60GHz short range wireless technology.
All of SiBEAM’s original investors contributed to this round including U.S. Ventures Partners (USVP) and New Enterprise Associates (NEA), joined by new

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OpenGL4.0 launched

Open standard 3D API specification available immediately
Provides performance, quality and flexibility enhancements including tessellation and double precision shaders
Tight integration with OpenCL for seamless visual computing

The next generation of 3D API (application programming interface) that is deployed on all major desktop operating systems has been launched, along with a retrofit to

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GE puts CUDA on single board computer

Single board computer combines Intel Core2 Duo, NVIDIA CUDA and OpenVPX for 390GFLOPS in a slot

GE Intelligent Platforms has launched a rugged 6U OpenVPX Single Board Computer (SBC) that is the first with an integrated GPGPU (general purpose computing on a graphics processing unit) capability. The IPN250 delivers high levels of computing performance for size, weight and power (SWaP) constrained

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Call for new technology drive to spur growth

FT.com / Technology - Call for new technology drive to spur growth

Britain should invoke some of the spirit of Inmos – a government-owned semiconductor company set up more than 30 years ago – to establish a £300m series of new technology centres to lay the basis for economic growth, according to a top government adviser.

FT.com

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IBM looks to optical computing with nanophotonic avalanche detector

IBM scientists have unveiled a significant step towards replacing electrical signals that communicate via copper wires between computer chips with tiny silicon circuits that communicate using pulses of light. As reported in the recent issue of the scientific journal Nature, this is an important advancement in changing the way computer chips talk to each other.

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NanoKTN and Institute of Nanotechnology Launch International NanoMicroClub to Encourage Global Investment in UK SMEs

INMC to Offer UK SMEs Opportunities to Network at Key International Events
The Nanotechnology Knowledge Transfer Network (NanoKTN), one of the UK’s primary knowledge-based networks for Micro and Nanotechnologies, and the Institute of Nanotechnology (IoN), a professional membership organisation for the nanotechnology industry, has announced a collaboration to encourage and support global

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World’s smallest MEMS microphones with a digital interface

MEMS for MP3 and mobile phones
TDK-EPC has developed the smallest commercially available MEMS microphone worldwide with an integrated digital interface. The dimensions of the EPCOS T4030 of 3.25 × 2.25 × 1.1 mm make the microphone about 60 percent smaller than alternative products. This allows significantly more compact designs of mobile phones and consumer electronics applications such as MP3

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Kontron brings 10 Gigabit Ethernet Switching to CompactPCI and VME

CP6930 supports PICMG 2.x and VITA 31.1 compliant high-performance switching
The new Kontron CP6930 6U switch brings 10 Gigabit Ethernet switching to CompactPCI and VME embedded systems and communication networks. With six SFP+ interfaces for 10Gb, two SFP interfaces for 1Gb Ethernet switching on the front and 24 GbE ports on the back, the new switch boosts the performance of VME and

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STMicroelectronics Launches 32bit Cortex-M3 line under $1

Optimized features for price-sensitive consumer, appliance and industrial designs from 85c

Taking the different approach from packing features into a device, STMicroelectronics has launched a 'value line' low cost version of its STM32 microcontroller.
Until now, engineers upgrading legacy 16-bit designs for higher performance and flexibility have had to choose from high-end alternatives that

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VIA launches ruggedized Em-ITX embedded PC

New format fanless and ruggedized embedded box PC for industrial, kiosk, POI and signage applications
VIA Technologies has developed a complete, fanless and ruggedized embedded box system based on the unique I/O-rich Em-ITX form factor, offering the ideal solution for a variety of industrial applications. Available as a complete system including drives and memory, the fanless VIA ART-3000

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Silicon Labs drives SmartGrid with Low Power Wireless Microcontrollers

Single-Chip for Smart Meter Solutions with RF Connectivity

Silicon Laboratories has launched the industry’s lowest power single-chip wireless microcontrollers (MCUs) for battery-operated home automation systems, smart meters, in-home utility monitors and security systems.
The demand for smart energy technology continues to grow each year as government initiatives mandate

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Renesas launches industry’s fastest embedded flash microcontroller

SH7216 series with 200MHz superscalar core and CAN, USB and Ethernet connectivity for motor control and networked applications
Renesas Technology Europe has launched the SH7216 series of 32-bit on-chip flash memory microcontrollers for industrial applications such as AC servos, factory automation equipment, building automation, air conditioning, and general purpose networking. The SH7216

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New Freescale Processor Helps Lower Costs and Foster Innovation for Next-Generation eReaders | Business Wire

New Freescale Processor Helps Lower Costs and Foster Innovation for Next-Generation eReaders | Business WirePosted using ShareThis

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Silicon Basis heads for FPGA test chip (UK Technology Startups)

Bristol startup Silicon Basis is developing a test chip for its innovative FPGA architecture that has potential to reduce the size, cost and power of a reconfigurable array to a quarter of today's devices.

The Soft Gate Array (SGA) uses a time factor to reuse each look up table in the array and the interconnect up to eight times a cycle, dramatically reducing the size of the array and so

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Tabula Introduces Spacetime Programmable Logic Architecture

3D Architecture Enables New Category of Programmable Logic Devices 

Santa Clara startup Tabula has introduced a groundbreaking programmable logic architecture that uses time as a third dimension to deliver unmatched capability and affordability. Tabula achieves this breakthrough by combining the Spacetime hardware that dynamically reconfigures logic, memory, and interconnect at multi-GHz rates

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T-Ray teams with the University of Leeds on terahertz research

T-Ray Science in  an emerging leader in TeraHertz research in Canada, is teaming up with the University of Leeds to develop low cost, pulsed and continuous wave ("CW"), fibre coupled terahertz (THz) spectrometers that operate at telecoms wavelengths. Professor Edmund Linfield (Chair in Terahertz Electronics, Director of the Institute of Microwaves and Photonics) will lead the project in the

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Tsmc 40nm yield issues explained

TSMC HAS FINALLY come to terms with its 40nm ordeal. In a transcript published by EETimes, Shang-Yi Chiang, TSMC’s R&D boss, laid out six bullet points to explain the situation the company is coming from, what steps it’s taking to make amends and where it's going.

Tsmc 40nm yield issues explained - The Inquirer

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Electronics for a third-generation artificial retina

Scientists and engineers at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory are now developing the electronics for a third-generation artificial retina as part of the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) project to produce an “epiretinal prosthesis” that could restore vision to millions of people around the world suffering from eye diseases.

Story here
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Global 3-D TV Shipments Set to Soar to 78 Million Units in 2015

Boom with 80% CAGR, but concerns remain over 3D glasses
Global 3-D television shipments will soar to 78 million units by 2015, rising at a Compound Annual Growth Rate (CAGR) of 80 percent from 4.2 million in 2010, iSuppli predicts. Revenue from shipments of these sets will boom to $64.3bn in 2015, up by nearly a factor of nine from $7.4bn in 2010. Figure 1 attached presents iSuppli’s worldwide

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Pace becomes world's second largest set top box supplier...

Deighted to see Pace moving into second place in the league table of leading set-top box suppliers, according to Screen Digest. The Yorkshire comnpany has overtaken Technicolor, formerly the Thomson set-top division, to be behind Motorola. The figures were published ahead of Pace’s annual results on Tuesday.
“Growth across the overall set-top box market for pay TV has been driven by two factors:

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