German company launches first commercially available automated software for process ports

By Nick Flaherty www.flaherty.co.uk

Automated Schematic Porting Tool Cuts Effort by 10-100X Compared to Manual Porting MunEDA in Munich has launched the first commercially-available electronic design automation (EDA) software tool to automate the time-consuming task of porting circuit schematics and intellectual property (IP) between different process technologies and process design kits (PDKs).

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MIPS to develop multi-threaded 64bit multiprocessor core

“Prodigy” core for Advanced Networking, Storage and Mobile

By Nick Flaherty www.flaherty.co.uk

MIPS Technologies plans to offer the industry’s first IP core that combines a 64bit processor architecture with simultaneous multi-threading (SMT) technology. The core, the first in a family of cores code named “Prodigy,” will be officially launched later in 2011. By offering the combination of a

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ST launches Next-Generation iNEMO engine;

Enables New Level of Motion-Sensing Applications on Smart Consumer Devices

By Nick Flaherty www.flaherty.co.uk


STMicroelectronics has unveiled the first details of its new iNEMO sensor engine.

The advanced filtering and predictive software engine integrates the outputs from a 3-axis accelerometer, 3-axis gyroscope and 3-axis magnetometer. Fusing these sensors’ data, the iNEMO delivers

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ST launches Next-Generation iNEMO engine

Enables New Level of Motion-Sensing Applications on Smart Consumer Devices

By Nick Flaherty www.flaherty.co.uk


STMicroelectronics has unveiled the first details of its new iNEMO sensor engine.

The advanced filtering and predictive software engine integrates the outputs from a 3-axis accelerometer, 3-axis gyroscope and 3-axis magnetometer. Fusing these sensors’ data, the iNEMO delivers

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Corning sees displays embedded everywhere in the home

By Nick Flaherty www.flaherty.co.uk

A video from Corning has an interesting view of the future for touchscreen displays embedded into a range of household items such as bathroom mirrors and kitchen work surfaces, with an optimistic 'near future' view!

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ZTE shows record-breaking 10Tbit/s data link

Push to 400Gbit/s systems drives need for 10Gbit/s trunking
By Nick Flaherty www.flaherty.co.uk

Chinese telecoms equipment maker ZTE has broken the previous world record for single-channel data transmission with a recorded single-channel rate of 10Tbit/s over 640km of single-mode fibre optic cable. This is the equivalent of sending 160 HD movies per second.
The results of the test transmission

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Solid State Drives Boom in 2011

Twin engines of consumer and enterprise usage will fuel growth to over $4bn

By Nick Flaherty www.flaherty.co.uk

Have we finally turned the corner to see solid state drives start to really take off? IHS iSuppli thinks so, predicting a near doubling of revenues this year to hit more than $4 billion and extending a robust performance in the storage market for the second year in a row.SSD revenue

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Planning not panic is the key to IPv6 migration

By Nick Flaherty www.flaherty.co.uk

Duncan Hughes, systems engineering manager at Brocade recommends a 6 Step Systematic approach to  issue of migrating from IPv4 to the new generation IPv6 addresses. With IPv4 addresses down to the last few blocks, many are asking whether fears that IPv6 is the ‘end of the Internet’ is nothing more than vendor induced hype, or if it is something network

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Graphics-Enabled Microprocessor Use Surges in 2011

By Nick Flaherty www.flaherty.co.uk

This year will be the biggest period yet for graphics-enabled microprocessors (GEM), as the penetration of GEMs reaches 50 percent in notebook PCs and 45 percent in desktops, says the latest research from IHS iSuppli.
This will also drive the use of GEMs in embedded systems bringing more sophisticated graphics and user interfaces without the power consumption,

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Chipworks reverse engineers the Apple A5 processor

By Nick Flaherty www.flaherty.co.uk

Chipworks has reversed engineered the Apple A5 processor used in the iPad2. They decapsulated the A5 a couple of days ago, but as you could see in those early pictures, you can’t tell much of a chip’s layout from the top metal – it’s all power and ground buses.  So they had to de-layer the chip down to a level to see the block layout of the chip; not an easy

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Microcameras become disposable

By Nick Flaherty www.flaherty.co.uk

Researchers at the Fraunhofer Institute in Germany have developed a microcamera that is as small as a grain of salt and cheap enough to be disposable, opening up opportunities in medical and automotive applications.Endoscopy has gone through amazing advancements in recent years. Microcameras on the tip of endoscopes supply images from the inside of the human

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Xilinx looks to 400Gbit/s network development

Virtex-6 HXT FPGA Platform Eases 100G Development and looks beyond

By Nick Flaherty www.flaherty.co.uk

In a stunning move, programmable chip maker Xilinx is looking at the development for 400Gbit/s systems with its latest generation of FPGAs, citing the rapid growth of video sharing and internet mobile platforms over both wireless and wired networks is driving insatiable demand for bandwidth. 

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Hard drive market consolidation continues as Western Digital acquires Hitachi GST in $4.3bn deal

Deal creates drive giant
By Nick Flaherty www.flaherty.co.uk

Western Digital is to acquire Hitachi Global Storage Technologies (Hitachi GST), a wholly-owned subsidiary of Hitachi, for approximately $4.3 billion. The deal creates a global giant that will outship the current #1 supplier, Seagate.
Apparently WD tried to buy Seagate late last year for a rumoured bid above $8bn while Seagate was in

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Processing demand skyrocket as Wind River releases 64bit VxWorks

Improves multicore support for ARM and gives exclusive Intel primitives
By Nick Flaherty www.flaherty.co.uk

In a sign that 64bit processing is more clearly needed in embedded designs, Wind River has launched a 64bit version of its VxWorks real time operating system (RTOS).

Version 6.9 (although suprisingly this isn't VxWork7.0) is one of the first commercial RTOSes delivering 64bit computing

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Freescale Power Architecture microcontrollers for industrial market mark the end of ColdFire

By Nick Flaherty www.flaherty.co.uk

Freescale Semiconductor is moving its Power Architecture into microcontrollers that effectively marks the end of the ColdFire range for new designs.
The PX series of MCUs is based on Freescale’s e200 Power Architecture cores and is designed to meet the needs of the most complex industrial control applications, including motion control, power generation,

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