The latest
Q5 interview is now online, with the president of online and catalogue distributor Digi-Key.
Mark Larson talks about about the growth in online distribution, levels of design activity in Europe and the opportunities to add new product lines...
The five questions this week are:
How would you characterise your European business?
Continue reading "Q5 interview - Mark Larson, Digi-Key" »
Just to let you know that the latest column in Warren Savage's coverage of the Semiconductor IP industry is already live on the site -
Warren Savage On: Doom and Boom
In the wake of a
presentation from Sequoia Capital called "Good Times: Rest in Peace", Warren Savage considers how companies can best weather the economic storm, and he highlights the danger of simply cutting back R&D to reduce costs.
He begins:
The economic meltdown that started in the United States has spread around the world with pundits advising us to brace for a rough ride in 2009. Consumer confidence in the US is at a 30-year low (see below) and merchants who have come to rely on heavy Christmas season shopping are quaking in the boots. And right behind them are those of us in the supply chain that feeds it all waiting for the next shoe to drop. Oh, and by the way, did I mention the historic US election?
Continue reading "Warren Savage On: Doom and Boom" »
Here we are in Munich, freshly arrived, with glorious sunshine welcoming the start of Electronica 08, Europe's most important electronics show.
Don't forget to bookmark www.electronicsweekly.com/electronica2008 for your one stop shop of all the latest news and views rounded up in one convenient place.
But before Electronica officially opens, tomorrow, we have the not inconsiderable matter of the Elektra Awards 08, an annual highpoint of the electronics industry calendar.
The best of luck to all the parties that have been shortlisted for the awards which include:
Continue reading "Elektra Awards and Electronica, here we come!" »
Video - Elektra 08 Award Winners
It was a plush but pleasurable do at the Hilton Munich Park for the Elektra 08 Awards last night.
Host for the evening this year was Jeff Stelling, he of Sky Sports fame, and very good he was, too. He desribed his Gillette Soccer Saturday show as 'watching football without seeing the shots, or the goals... much like watching Newcastle United'. A bit rich for a Harlepool fan...
But more importantly, who are this year's winners? Well, we updated the site immediately after the event, so simply check out Elektra 08 Awards - The Winners.
Continue reading "Elektra 08 Awards - The Winners" »
The latest Q5 interview is now online, with the president and CEO of
BitWave Semiconductor, the software radio company.
Mike Farese talks about the impact of software radio on mobile phone design, the biggest challenge for wireless device manufacturers, and whether software radio can ultimately replace hardware radio transceiver designs... ...
The five questions this week are:
1.
Can you describe your technology in two sentences?2.
What impact will software radio have on the design of mobile phones in the future?
Continue reading "Q5 interview - Mike Farese, BitWave Semiconductor " »
Recently we highlighted a series of stories that indicate
points of light for the semiconductor industry, amid the wider gloom of a global downturn. Now there's a companion article that confronts the bad news emerging as economic conditions tighten:
Credit Crunch: Semiconductor light amid economic gloomFirst we detail how people have been directly hit by the job losses suffered, and then list analysis pieces on the wider state of the semiconductor market and the wider health of the electronics industry.
Job losses within global electronics industry total:
Continue reading "Credit Crunch: Semiconductor gloom amid economic gloom" »
An Engineer in Wonderland has a new home. You can find this particular entry here. If you wish to leave a comment, please do that on the new blog.
See all 'Engineer In Wonderland' postsI was rigging up some Christmas lights and in a fit of enthusiasm thought that flashing would be good.
So I drew out a multivibrator, then wondered what other two transistor circuits would also flash some lights.
Mr Google delivered this
rather good site which gives chapter a verse on the subject of two transistor oscillators.
The disappointing part was, it looks like the good old standard circuit best suits my needs, so no exotic new oscillator to play with.
I have 20 parallel red leds, and 20 parallel blue leds, and a source of constant current.
Continue reading "An Engineer in Wonderland - Led Christmas lights" »
The
latest Q5 interview is now online, with the CEO at component distributor
Advanced Power Components.
Mark Robinson talks to Electronics Weekly about consolidation in the market, the opportunities facing UK-based electronics companies, and the importance of skills in a downturn...
The five questions this week are:
1.
How would you describe APC's business in 2 sentences?2.
You serve a number of specialist markets. Which are particularly strong at the moment and are there any areas that are struggling?
Continue reading "Q5 interview - Mark Robinson, Advanced Power Components" »
Addressing the Military sector for electronics, there have been a number of news stories and case stories on the site recently, for example, involving
UAV aircraft and
Astute submarines.
I must admit, I wasn't aware of Astute-class submarines (the latest nuclear-powered submarines) - the
Royal navy's most sophisticated and expensive - but here is a chance to read about optronics and the vessel's state-of-the-art non-hull-penetrating mast design (used instead of a conventional optronic periscope design).
Check out:
Continue reading "Military sector electronics" »
Linux is embedding itself in lots of places, and I was surprised to hear that includes a Pure digital radio, the
Pure EVOKE Flow to be precise.
On reflection I shouldn't have been that surprised, as it is actually a fully-fledged Internet radio...
Apparently, it has won the 'Radio Product of the Year 2008' award in the Annual Awards from What Hi-Fi? Sound and Vision, and 11 other awards since it was launched 3 months ago.
A press release from Imagination Technologies highlights that the licensable Connected Audio Platform underpins Pure's 'connected' radio.
According to Imagination, the Connected Audio Platform is based on the GStreamer multimedia framework running on the
Linux operating system, which has been adapted by the company to facilitate the delivery of audio from various sources.
Continue reading "Linux embeds itself in radio" »
An Engineer in Wonderland has a new home. You can find this particular entry here. If you wish to leave a comment, please do that on the new blog.
See all 'Engineer In Wonderland' postsHave you ever had the feeling that you are the first person ever to want a certain building block?
There are a lot of different half-bridge mosfet drivers in the world, but almost all are designed to drive two n-mosfets.
This means that the top mosfet's gate drive comes from a bootstrap circuit, which in turn means the half-bridge can never operate at 100% duty cycle.
I want 0-100% to build a bit of test gear, and so have been hunting for a half-bridge driver that will drive a p-channel mosfet at the top, and an n-channel below - at voltages from 4 to 20V, from a logic input.
Continue reading "An Engineer in Wonderland - Mosfet driver" »
An alternative look at Open Source engineering.
