The IEEE ISSCC (International Solid State Circuits Conference), which runs from February 3-7 in San Francisco, is an important gathering for the electronic engineering industry. It is the world's show case for the best in circuit design for integrated circuits.

Latest ISSCC news on ElectronicsWeekly.com

TI cuts 3.5G mobile power with 45nm processor
At the International Solid-State Circuits Conference (ISSCC) Texas Instruments has drawn its first roadmap for a 45nm mobile baseband processor which will address what it called the power challenges of 3.5G wireless designs.

Holst Centre presents system for low-cost high-volume RFID tags
At this year's ISSCC, Holst Centre has presented a plastic 64-bit inductively-coupled passive RFID tag operating at 13.56MHz. According to the organisation, it claims a record 780bit/s data readout of 64 bits over 10cm and that the tag generates a 5-fold higher bit rate compared to state-of-the-art plastic RFID systems.

Harvard claims NMR system is smallest built
Harvard University and its medical school build the smallest complete nuclear magnetic resonance  (NMR) system. Described at the ISSCC in San Francisco, the NMR weighs 2kg and occupies 2.5 litres.

DC-DC converter wastes only 1.4µA - ISSCC
Belgian research organisation IMEC has described a thermo-electric power conditioner consuming only 1.4µA at ISSCC, aimed at tiny radio sensor nodes requiring between 50 and 100µW.

ISSC - News in brief
Quad band GSM phone on 24mm2 digital CMOS chip; 10-bit 1msample/s ADC operates at 1.9µw; Sandisk and Toshiba show 3bit/cell NAND Flash

MIT, TI develop proof-of-concept, energy-efficient microchip - ISSCC
Researchers from Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) and Texas Instruments (TI) will unveil a portable electronics-focused chip design, that they believe is up to ten times more energy-efficient than present technology.

Near-field phased array antenna is encrypted
Researchers at Cal Tech Pasadena have built an active 1.5x1.5mm near-field phased array antenna, with secure communication by spatial encryption in mind.

Programmable chip for mobile WiMAX on show
Dr Anders Nilsson and Professor Dake Liu of the Linköping University in Sweden outlined a programmable baseband processor for mobile WiMAX and DVB-T/H at the International Solid-State Circuits Conference (ISSCC) in San Francisco this week.

Infra-red video camera for consumer use has thermal detector with low cost 64 pixel sensor
Seiko is working on an infra-red video camera for consumer applications.

Previous ISSCC news on ElectronicsWeekly.com

Last year's events can provide a taster of what attendees can expect from the 2008 conference. At the 2007 conference, AMD
presented its first quad-core x86 processor. The 'Barcelona' Opteron was subsequently released in September. Coinciding with AMD's 2007 announcement, Intel showed an 80-core parallel processor array.

Previous conferences offered differing points of view regarding the future of SoC. Leading presentations at ISSCC 2006 proved that SoC integration is a long way away from the simple march to chip singledom that has often been predicted.

A highlight from the 2006 conference, Cornell University announced it had made a 20nW power source using micromachining and a radio-isotope with a half-life of 100 years.

Intel to reveal two billion transistor chip at ISSCC
Intel will take the wraps off its quad-core Itanium, the first processor to exceed two billion transistors.

AMD describes first quad-core processor
A launch at ISSCC 2007 where AMD has described its quad-core x86 processor.

Intel shows 80-core parallel processor array
Intel has revealed a 1.28Tflop single-chip number cruncher at ISSCC 2007.

ISSCC offers divergent views of SoC future
Keynote addresses and papers at the 2006 ISSCC showed that SoC (system-on-chip) integration is far from the simple march to a single chip that has often been portrayed.

Highlight of ISSCC is 20mW power source
Cornell University have made a 20nW power source using micromachining and a radio-isotope with a half-life of 100 years.

Background to this year's ISSCC

One discussion taking place during the conference will be Green Electronics: Environmental Impacts, Power and E-Waste, which will see some of the world's leading electrical engineers bring "green" manufacturing issues to the fore.

AMI Semiconductor's Jan Sevenhans and Rudolf Koch, from Infineon, will lead the talk, focusing on the many issues surrounding environmentally aware practices in the electronics field. Speakers from Greenpeace and MIT will also take part in the conversation.

Also at the ISSC, Intel will unveil a new processor, an Itanium processor that is tailored for mobile devices. It is the first processor to exceed two billion transistors and the Itanium processor uses soft-error-immune storage elements in 99 per cent of its system-interface latches to counter high energy particle strikes.

Further information on ISSCC

International Solid State Circuits Conference
Contains further details about the ISSCC, including hotel and registration information for those planning to attend.

Green Electronics" push for ISSCC's event (Fabtech)
A special evening discussion hosted by the International Solid-State Circuits Conference (ISSCC) will see "green" electronics manufacturing issues at the fore.

WEEE Directive in full force from Sunday
A major topic of conversation at the ISSCC will be environmentally conscious practice from electronics engineers and companies.