News

It is a good few years ago since processor board designers in military and aerospace applications started using “commercial” FPGA and PC technologies in the interest of being more cost conscious. The adoption of commercial technology, such as high performance FPGAs and Compact PCI (cPCI) bus architectures, can make system development faster and more cost effective. “FPGA-based processor boards and ...

The first major trials for the Future Integrated Soldier Technology (FIST) programme are due to take place in September this year. The trials are designed to iron out what the prime contractor Thales will focus on developing. “The purpose is to improve the capability of the dismounted soldier,” says Paul Wathen, who is the international collaboration manager for the Thales ...

The intellectual property assets of display firm Printable Field Emitters (PFE) has been bought by a consortium of its founders, former directors and other stakeholders using personal funds. When the firm went into administration, “we were quite advanced with an Asian company and starting the technology transfer process”, Richard Tuck told Electronics Weekly. “The intention is to continue this [the ...

US government involvement in encryption and its desire to control and weaken existing encryption technologies has created a huge...

Farnell bought US catalogue specialist Premier and its share price promptly fell ten per cent, but Farnell knows what this...

Headlines in wireless are dominated by standards. GSM, DECT, Bluetooth, 802.11, ZigBee, and WiMAX have evolved – or are still evolving – through meetings and international committees, as companies and engineers try to influence the final form of the technology. Invariably, it seems, these standards take a long time to finalise, and, once the committee process has run its course, ...

Interconnect manufacturer Harwin has signed a distribution agreement with Charcroft Electronics as part of a plan to increase its presence in the defence, aerospace and similar sectors. Charcroft launched a connector division late last year, and Harwin is third manufacturer to appoint the Wales-based firm as a franchised distributor. The first two appointments were Wearnes Cambion and Vitelec. “Harwin has ...

SuperH, the microprocessor IP firm, has strongly denied a claim it is closing its doors and transferring its assets back to parent firms Renesas Technology and STMicroelectronics. Initial reports on the closure of SuperH came from analyst Jim Turley, who said: “SuperH has halted all licensing activity, folded its tent, and will merge back into the parent company whence it ...

An unusual electrode array, known as a tongue display unit, will result in a seeing aid for the blind. The device will follow a significant neuroscience discovery made by Professor Maurice Ptito of Université de Montréal in Canada when using a 12×12 contact array. Using the 12×12 array to produce images on the tongue and a non-invasive medical scanner, he ...

Microsoft has launched version five of Windows CE, with wider access to the operating system’s source code. Licensees will now gain access to around 2.5 million lines of code, and will be able to create their own version of the OS. “The derivatives programme allows OEMs and manufacturers to modify code and ship derivatives based on that code,” said Hardy ...