Electronica 2008 - The news and views roundup

Electronica is the major European electronics show, running 11 - 14 November at the New Munich Trade Fair Centre.

See below for full, extensive editorial coverage, and simply bookmark www.electronicsweekly.com/electronica2008 for the latest updates.

Latest Electronica News

Friday 14 November 2008

Video Electronica 2008 - Intro

Video Electronica 2008 - Murata Cycling Robot

Video Electronica 2008 - Agilent DDR3 Testing

Electronica 2008 - In Pictures (part II)
A further random selection of pictures harvested from the halls of mighty Electronica...

Thursday 13 November 2008

Electronica: Vicor shows smallest 120W power converter
Vicor has introduced its first 120W DC-DC bus converter on a 1/32nd brick footprint.

Electronica: TTI flexes its muscles with closer Mouser links
TTI, the specialist passive component and connector distributor, is strengthening its position in the European components market.

Electronica: Freescale, McLaren working on kinetic energy recovery system
Freescale and McLaren Electronic Systems announced at Electronica that they are working together to develop a next generation kinetic energy recovery system (KERS).

Electronica: Jennic announces next-gen protocol stack JenNet 1v4
Jennic, the Sheffield-based fabless chip company specializing in wireless microcontrollers, for 802.15.4 low-power wireless networks, announced at Electronica the next generation of its protocol stack JenNet 1v4.

Electronica: Xilinx explains its platform strategy
Xilinx was explaining its platform strategy and showing off some of its platforms at Electronica.

Video - Elektra 08 Award Winners
Here, in video form, is a quick digest of the winners of the Elektra 08 Awards, presented at the Hilton Munich Park on the eve of Electronica.

Wednesday 12 November 2008

Electronica: Actel sees flash-based FPGA tipping point
Actel has run its flash-based FPGA business up to a $60m a year run-rate and believes it has reached a tipping point where it can start to significantly erode SRAM-based FPGA volumes.

Electronica: ADI cuts noise of wideband sigma-delta ADC
Analog Devices has introduced a wideband analogue-to-digital converter (ADC) which it claims does not have the noise-level penalties usually attributed to multi-MHz bandwidth ADCs.

Electronica 2008 - In Pictures (part I)
A sample of pictures from the floor of the show that is Electronica (more to follow).

Electronica: Renesas hints at development of a reconfigurable microprocessor
Renesas Technology is looking to combine one of its SH processor cores with programmable logic to create what could be its first reconfigurable microprocessor.

Electronica: German car maker puts first Ethernet in vehicles
Micrel says a major German car maker, believed to be BMW, is putting an Ethernet comms bus in a range of vehicles to carry out diagnostics functions.

Electronica: Microchip freely licenses inductive touch sensing
Microchip was telling visitors to its Electronica stand that it had added an inductive touch sensing capability to its technology portfolio and making the functionality available to customers via a free licence.

Electronica: Intersil benefits from CEO's Linear Technology experience
Intersil is getting the benefit of the experience which new CEO Dave Bell learned during more than decade spent at Linear Technology Corporation (LTC) where he was also the CEO.

Electronica: Numonyx boasts of good good cost structure
Numonyx was telling visitors to its Electronica stand that it has a good cost structure, a reasonable debt structure, a capital-optimized manufacturing strategy and a scalable technology.

Electronica: IQD Frequency Products shows first MEMS oscillators
IQD Frequency Products has shown its first oscillator families based on MEMS (microelectromechanical systems) technology at Electronica 2008.

Tuesday 11 November 2008

Electronica: Emerson intros micro-miniature RF connector
Emerson Network Power has added to its range of RF connectors with a family of Johnson SMP Blind-Mate Connectors which can handle frequencies up to 40GHz and is compatible with all SMP and GPO Connectors.

Electronica: Tundra plans bridge chip to link Rapid I/O and PCIe
Next year, Tundra Semiconductor intends to come out with a bridge chip which links Rapid I/O and PCI Express.

Electronica: Nu Horizons eyes major LED product lines for Europe
Nu Horizons may soon be bringing major LED and flat panel display product lines to Europe.

Electronica: New paradigm should succeed Moore's Law - Freescale CEO
There should be a new paradigm to succeed Moore's Law for semiconductor industry progress, Rich Beyer, CEO of Freescale Semiconductor, told the CEO Forum on the opening day of Electronic.

Electronica: Xilinx drives in-car image recognition with FPGA platform
At Electronica today Xilinx is showing for the first time its FPGA-based design platform for vision-based driver assistance systems.

Electronica: National targets solar energy with low power devices
National Semiconductor targets solar power and LED lighting with the addition of six new PowerWise reference designs, announced on the first day of Electronica.

Electronica: RS has MCU independent development kit
RS Components gives its first live demo of an embedded development platform (EDP) for prototyping microcontroller designs, which is claimed to be manufacturer-independent.

Electronica: JTAG tool gets chain debug for prototyping
XJTAG introduces a JTAG chain debugger which is designed to enable engineers using its boundary scan system to improve PCB set-up times and to troubleshoot faults on early prototype circuits.

Electronica: Farnell sees European market growing
Constant innovation is driven by an ever growing number of designers right across the world and contrary to many commentator's views, Europe, says Farnell Europe's president.

Electronica: EnOcean launches first energy harvester
Constant innovation is driven by an ever growing number of designers right across the world and contrary to many commentator’s views, Europe.

Electronica: Mobiles and convergence - CEO, Fairchild Semiconductor
Globally, cell phones have become the portable device of choice, particularly in emerging countries with modest infrastructure.

Monday 10 November 2008

Elektra 08 Awards - The Winners
The Elektra 08 Awards have just been presented by Jeff Stelling at the Hilton Munich Park, so congratulations to all the companies short listed and here is the final set of results.

Electronica: Quality of life will drive next Semi upswing - Halla
The proposed new position of Chief Technology Officer of the USA should be a semiconductor guy, according to Brian Halla, CEO of National Semiconductor.

Electronica: Fabless model works, says Cyan CEO
Talk to European venture capitalists and you will find very few show interest let alone enthusiasm for fabless semiconductor start-ups.

Electronica: Avago optocoupler is insulated for current sensing
Avago Technologies has introduced a miniature optocoupler isolation amplifier with low temperature drift and reinforced insulation for current and voltage sensing applications such as industrial inverters.

Electronica: A window on the market, says Arrow
In addition to showcasing the latest technologies, as the electronic industry’s largest European show, Electronica also provides the perfect environment for OEMs, distributors, suppliers and a host of other businesses to ‘take the pulse’ of the industry and to assess the true state of the market.

Preshow:

Preshow: Adapting to change is key - CEO, Microchip Technology
Europe provides many unique challenges for global suppliers, such as a very diverse population with varying languages and cultures in a relatively compact area.

Preshow: Mark Twain in a digital world
There is a trend of worldwide bandwidth growth, including in Europe where there is continued build out to meet this demand.

Preshow: RF test system trends on show
Recent releases of the 3GPP standard are beginning to include two major technology shifts.

Preshow: Product briefs
A brief look at some of the products being showcased at Electronica...

Preshow: ST-NXP Wireless champions software radio
LTE holds significant promise as one of the major mobile communication standards in the near future.  However, the introduction of LTE in handsets and data cards is not without technical challenges.

Preshow: Sharp presents LED lighting technology
Sharp sees LED lighting technology as one of the big items at the electronica 2008 trade show.

Preshow: Fairchild Semiconductor products cut energy consumption
Fairchild Semiconductor will have its new products for consumer, industrial, automotive and ultra-portable applications on display at electronica 2008.

Show Coverage

There will be full coverage from the Electronics Weekly editorial team based in Munich, reporting on the latest developments and updating the website throughout the course of the show. The show is expected to host around 80,000 visitors and more than 3,000 exhibitors.

The 'full-guns blazing' editorial coverage of Electronica:

• News index updated throughout the day
• Product index carrying the latest releases
• Providing all relevant details of the show, exhibitors, floor plans, seminars, timetables, etc
• A special section of the site, summarising all the editorial interest for the electronics industry professionals unable to attend the show themselves
• Newsletters, including Daily bulletins, giving the lowdown from the show, and a weekly roundup

Elektra 08

Elektra 08 Awards - The Winners

Now in their seventh year, the Electronics Weekly Awards give the industry the opportunity to recognise the achievements of individuals and companies across Europe.

The date: Monday November 10
The location: Hilton Munich Park, Am Tucherpark 7, Munich, Germany

Online Electronica Resources

All information about the electronic trade show for components, systems and applications. See www.electronica.de/en

Exhibitor Center

Online-Ticket Registration

Exhibitor Database