A roundup of all the news generated from the Globalpress Summit Conference being held in San Francisco, which promises to reveal the "future of electronics, design tools, and new applications". The industry event runs 31 March to 3 April 2008.

Our man in place on the West Coast, David Manners - Senior Components Editor on Electronics Weekly, and author of the Mannerisms blog - reports on stories including EDA tools, mobile phone projectors, Synplicity and Synopsys synchronicity, the return of the ASIC, and Xilinx's Virtex-5 FXT platform for embedded processing with serial connectivity...

Friday 4 April

Sensor Platforms targets motion and location for CE products
Using cheap sensors to add cost-effective location and motion capabilities to consumer products is the business of the Silicon Valley company Sensor Platforms.

Polyfuel bids to speed time to market for laptop fuel cells
By the end of this year, fuel-cell membrane specialist Polyfuel expects to complete a reference design for fuel cells which should accelerate the time to market for fuel cells for laptops.

Grids to the rescue of 45nm IC designs - Tela Innovations
Tela Innovations says it can help IC designs at 45nm by adjusting the structure of a design to fit a pre-determined shape, the Globalpress Summit Conference in San Francisco was told yesterday.

CMOS IC generates its own frequencies on-chip - Mobius
Mobius Microsystems of Sunnyvale, California, a spin-out from the University of Michigan in 2004, announced a CMOS IC which generates its own frequencies on-chip at the Globalpress Summit Conference in San Francisco yesterday.

Thursday 3 April

AMCC boasts of OTN leadership
"AMCC will be the absolute, unequivocal leader in OTN" (optical transport networks), declares AMCC CEO Kambiz Hooshmand at the Globalpress Summit Conference in San Francisco yesterday.

MTI Micro aims for fuel cell first
US firm MTI Micro Fuel Cells intends to be first to bring a fuel cell product to the market with a direct methanol-based device next year which will allow you to recharge a mobile phone seven times before it needs a top-up of methanol.... more

EDA industry broken - CEO of eSilicon
The EDA industry's business model is broken, which accounts for the financial difficulties being experienced in the sector, according to Jack Harding, CEO of eSilicon and a former CEO of EDA market leader Cadence, speaking at the Globalpress Summit Conference in San Francisco, yesterday.

Hamster power or FPGAs to solve US energy crisis
Hamsters could be the answer to the excessive use of energy by the US, it was stated at the Globalpress Summit Conference in San Francisco, on April Fool's day.

Wednesday 2 April

EDA tools heading for generational break down - Mentor
EDA tools are about to break down, according to Wally Rhines, CEO of leading EDA tools supplier Mentor Graphics. "We're always talking about new technologies, but adoption takes a long time because engineers become comfortable with their design tools and design flow."

Synplicity and Synopsys aim for synchronicity
Synplicity will bring to Synopsys a capability in the FPGA market which Synopsys has long sought but not yet developed, and a capability in rapid prototyping which Synplicity has made its speciality.

Tuesday 1 April

The Return of the ASIC
The Return of the ASIC was predicted by the CEO of eASIC, Ronnie Vashista at the Globalpress Summit Conference in San Francisco yesterday.

How will Intel address the multi-core problem?
Intel's business strategy may be under threat from a technological problem which was described as 'perhaps unsolvable' at a technical conference in San Francisco this week.

Xilinx launches Virtex-5 FXT 65nm platform
Xilinx launched the last of its four 65nm platform FPGA products in the Virtex-5 family at the Globalpress Summit Conference in San Francisco yesterday.

Mobile phone projector shows 2.5m display
A tiny colour display projector suitable for use in a mobile phone has been demonstrated by US firm Microvision at the Globalpress Summit Conference in San Francisco this week.

ON Semi reveals plans for AMI business
Following the takeover of AMI Semiconductor by ON Semiconductor, ON is developing the AMI product line and finding product synergies.

UWB fabless semiconductor start-up ships first products
Pulse-Link, the UWB (ultra-wide band) fabless semiconductor start-up, is shipping its first products.

Monday 31 March

Xilinx CEO: FPGA industry at a turning point
The programmable logic industry needs to change to a model where customers, rather than technology, drive product development, according to Moshe Gavrielov, the new CEO and president of Xilinx opening the 6th Globalpress Electronics Summit in San Francisco today.

(Picture - http2007, under Creative Commons Attribution Licence)