Electronic News June 08

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A U S T R A L I A & N Z ’ S E L E C T R O N I C S I N D U S T RY N E W S P A P E R

FEATURE:

LIGHTWEIGHT

SOLAR—PAGE

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J U N E

Worldwide market for 100/120Hz TVs to grow 39.3 million in 2012

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INSIDE Last one standing PAGE 14 Is there a future in Australia for wafer fabrication?

Added investment in consumer education has led to the growth of the 100/120Hz TV in the Asian and European markets.

The worldwide market for 100/120Hz TVs is projected to grow from 3.6 million units in 2007 to an estimated 39.3 million units in 2012.

This projection is among the findings in 120 Hz TV Value Chain Analysis and Forecast, a new report available from DisplaySearch, the leading provider of market intelligence on displays and related technology. This growth will be concentrated in screen sizes of 37inch and above with 1080p resolution in all regions, with an additional demand for 32inch HD 100Hz sets in Western Europe.

Growth will be concentrated in screen sizes of 37inch and above.

Japan will have the highest penetration with a forecasted 81 per cent in 2012, compared to Western Europe's 48 per cent and North America's 35 per cent.

Western Europe is the dominant region overall in unit sales and is expected to lead demand throughout the forecast period, growing from 1.5M units in 2007 to 11.9M in 2012, while North America has a slower rate of introduction, but

will overtake Japan in 2009.

North American demand will be skewed to larger sizes (46inch+).

"100/120 Hz is a feature strongly reliant on good consumer education and product demonstration. This education of consumers is a critical factor for success," said Paul Gray, Director of TV Analysis at DisplaySearch.

He added, "The effect of investment in consumer education and

good demonstrations has led the growth of the category in Japan and Europe. Demand in North America has been more limited, but we expect that it will expand as more setmakers launch products this year and broaden the message. European growth has been helped by 100Hz processing being a recognised concept for good picture performance from CRT TV days."

Other key findings from the report show that the North American market remains slow to adopt 120Hz in part due to a lack of consumer education and point-of sale demonstration. Most of the market will be Full HD 120Hz, but a significant niche exists for European 32inch HD units.

100/120Hz accounts for over 65 per cent of new models in Japan and almost half in the over 30inch size category in Europe.

The report also examines the system costs, product positioning and plans of panel makers and TV video processor IC vendors.

The new face of wireless access PAGE 18 Network operators have invested in technology upgrades to remain competitive.

Lightweight solar power PAGE 21 Flexible photovoltaic solar cells for consumer electronics, security and defence.

EDN ASIA

ICT gets a share of budget pie The Australian Computer Society has welcomed the high level investment in Australia’s communications infrastructure, education and innovation initiatives outlined in the 2008-09 budget.

However, the organisation is calling to increase efforts to develop an overarching national ICT strategy with a greater focus on the sector.

ACS national president, Kumar Parakala said although there are some significant wins for the technology sector within the budget, "the government also needs to recog-

nise the ICT sector as a major area of future growth, and an industry that is a powerful economic sector in its own right."

Parakala said the ACS is strengthening its call for an agreed national ICT strategy. “Beyond funding, there needs to be a way of centralising the focus on the sector, and creating accountability for spending and outcomes. The export focus goes some way to meeting previous calls by the ACS to promote the Technology Australia brand, however without a national ICT strategy, this opportunity

may be lost."

The ACS said the general export focus provides opportunities for the ICT sector to "grow offshore services, aligning the inward and outward investment functions in the same organisation, by folding Invest Australia and the Global Opportunities program into Austrade".

Meanwhile, the Labor government will provide $75 million for the Retooling for Climate Change competitive grants program as part of the Clean Business Australia initiative.

The program will com-

ACS national president, Kumar Parakala plement other measures by supporting Australian manufacturers to improve their production processes, reduce their energy use and

cut carbon emissions.

Small and medium-sized manufacturers will be able to apply for grants from $10,000 to $500,000 to support initiatives such as improving the energy-efficiency of their operations; investing in energy-efficient manufacturing tools; improving insulation and recovering waste heat; investing in small-scale cogeneration plants that capture waste energy and use it to produce electricity on site; and cutting water wastage, including through stormwater capture and improving water recycling.

Nextgeneration talent PAGE 24 Companies may find themselves going headto-head over a new generation of employees.

Motion sensors for new consumer applications PAGE 32 MEMS breaks the barrier between users and applications.

www.electronicsnews.com.au

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News

Intel, Wind River turn ignition on Linux The vendors expect that the contribution of Atom-optimised software components to the open-source community will spark innovation and reduce time-to-market for 'infotainment' applications.

Wind River Systems and Intel announced their intention to create an open-source Linux platform for automotive applications.

Optimised for Intel's Atom processor, the platform will enable the creation of "infotainment" applications based on interoperable, standardsbased hardware and software components, according to Wind River Systems.

Invoking the "ecosystem" buzzword, Wind River said it will deliver open-source specifications and code to the opensource community through a new in-vehicle infotainment segment of Moblin.org, which is billed as a community Web site for software vendors and Linux-using application developers.

Advantages of the opensource approach for automakers include brand differentiation, broad options for integration of consumer-electronics devices, and the avoid-

ance of "lock-in" with a single electronics vendor and its particular roadmap and development cycles, according to the companies. In addition, the vendors said they expect that the approach will yield more innovation and reduce time-tomarket.

Automotive apps get a boost.

Wind River also announced the Wind River Linux Platform for Infotainment, which will be available in the third quarter of the company's fiscal 2009 (August 1- October 31).

Based on what the company bills as an automotive-optimised commercial version of Linux and also featuring Atom support, the platform will offer

"pre-integration" with key building blocks of in-vehicle electronic systems, including speech-recognition and speechto-text from Nuance Communications, Bluetooth with echocancellation and noise reduction from Parrot, musicmanagement tools from Gracenote, multimedia-networking technology from SMSC, and DVD playback from Corel.

Key thrusts of the platform, according to the company, will include connectivity with popular consumer devices such as the iPod, support for threedimensional graphics, broad multimedia-standard support, power-state management, fast boot and initialisation times, and connectivity with the automotive industry's CAN (controller area network) and MOST (media-oriented systems transport) network standards.

MATTHEW MILLER, EDITOR-IN-CHIEF, EDN.COM

NASA supercomputer to get boost Intel, SGI, and NASA have announced a project that aims to produce a dramatic increase in the space agency's supercomputing capacity.

The "Pleiades" project, using SGI systems based on multicore Intel processors, will deliver a computational system with a capacity of 1 petaflops (1015 floating point operations per second) by 2009 and then increase that to 10 petaflops by 2012, according to NASA. That initial milestone would represent a 16x improvement over the agency's current topdog supercomputer, Columbia.

That 10,240-processor system, based on SGI Altix systems with Intel Itanium 2 processors, offers 88 teraflops of peak performance.

Like Columbia, the systems will reside at the NASA Advanced Supercomputing (NAS) facility at NASA's Ames Research Centre in Moffett Field, CA. Applications for the supercomputer will include modelling and simulations for space-vehicle design and climate modelling.

"Achieving such a monumental increase in performance will help fulfill NASA's increas-

NASA in Columbia, USA. ing need for additional computing capacity and will enable us to provide the computational performance and capacity needed for future missions," said S. Pete Worden, director of the NASA Ames Research Centre.

MATTHEW MILLER, EDITOR-IN-CHIEF, EDN.COM

Nanometrics targets solar industry To broaden its integrated metrology product line, Milpitas, California-based semiconductor metrology company, Nanometrics Inc (NANO) has acquired Tevet Process Control Technologies Ltd based in Yoknea’m, Israel, through an

all-cash asset purchase transaction.

Tevet is an integrated metrology (IM) company with products aimed at the semiconductor and solar manufacturing industry.

Nanometrics said the acqui-

sition of Tevet furthers its strategy to offer a breadth of process control metrology solutions that address both advanced technology as well as cost of ownership.

ANN STEFFORA MUTSCHLER, SENIOR EDITOR, ELECTRONIC NEWS

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Carbon nanotubes behave like asbestos In a wakeup call for nanotechnology in general and carbon nanotubes in particular, a major study published in Nature Nanotechnology suggests some forms of carbon nanotubes - a poster child for the “nanotechnology revolution” - could be as harmful as asbestos if inhaled in sufficient quantities, according to the Project on Emerging Nanotechnologies, an initiative launched by the Woodrow Wilson International Centre for Scholars and The Pew Charitable Trusts in 2005.

The Project on Emerging Nanotechnologies is tasked with helping business, government and the public anticipate and manage possible health and environmental implications of nanotechnology.

The study utilised established methods to see if specific types of nanotubes have the potential to cause mesothelioma - a cancer of the lung lining that can take 30 to 40 years to appear following expo-

sure. The study results show that long, thin multiwalled carbon nanotubes that look like asbestos fibres, behave like asbestos fibres. Led by Professor Kenneth Donaldson at the University of Edinburgh in the UK, a team of researchers examined the potential for long and short carbon nanotubes, long and short asbestos fibres, and carbon black to cause pathological responses known to be precursors of mesothelioma. Material was injected into the abdominal cavity of mice -- a sensitive predictor of long fibre response in the lung lining.

“The results were clear.

Long, thin carbon nanotubes showed the same effects as long, thin asbestos fibres,” Donaldson said in a statement.

Asbestos fibres are harmful because they are thin enough to penetrate deep into the lungs, but sufficiently long to confound the lungs' built-in clearance mechanisms for

A diagram showing the types of carbon nanotubes.

DC-PECVD system in action. DC plasma (violet) improves the growth conditions for carbon nanotubes in this chemical vapor deposition chamber. A heating element (red) provides the necessary substrate temperature. getting rid of particles.

Carbon nanotubes, discovered nearly 20 years ago, have been described as the wonder material of

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the 21st century, and that they are as light as plastic and stronger that steel, they are being developed for use in new drugs, energy-efficient batteries and futuristic electronics.

Carbon nanotubes are atom-thick sheets of graphite formed into cylinders that can be formed from a single layer of graphite or consist of multiple concentric layers of graphite, resulting in multi-walled carbon nanotubes. The diameter of a nanotube can vary from a few nanometers up to tens of nanometers, and can be hundreds or even thousands of nanometers long.

Carbon nanotubes come in many forms, with different shapes, different atomic arrangements, and varying amounts and types of added chemicals - all of which affect their properties and might influence their impact on human health and the environment.

Since their discovery, questions have been raised about whether some of these nanoscale materials may cause harm and undermine a nascent market for all types of carbon nanotubes, including multi- and single-walled carbon nanotubes.

Market researchers have forecast that sales of nanotubes could reach $2 bil-

lion annually within the next four to seven years, according to Chemical & Engineering News.

Andrew Maynard, chief science advisor to the project on emerging nanotechnologies and a co-author on the paper commented, “This study is exactly the kind of strategic, highly focused research needed to ensure the safe and responsible development of nanotechnology. It looks at a specific nanoscale material expected to have widespread commercial applications and asks specific questions about a specific health hazard.

Even though scientists have been raising concerns about the safety of long, thin carbon nanotubes for over a decade, none of the research needs in the current US federal nanotechnology environment, health and safety risk research strategy address this question.”

Indeed, widespread exposure to asbestos has been described as the worst occupational health disaster in US history and the cost of asbestos-related disease is expected to exceed $200 billion, according to US think tank RAND Corp.

Dr. Anthony Seaton, coauthor on the paper and professor emeritus at the University of Aberdeen in the UK asserted, “The toll of asbestos-related cancer, first noticed in the 1950s and 1960s, is likely to continue for several more decades even though usage reduced rapidly some 25 years ago. While there are reasons to suppose that nanotubes can be used

safely, this will depend on appropriate steps being taken to prevent them from being inhaled in the places they are manufactured, used and ultimately disposed of. Such steps should be based on research into exposure and risk prevention, leading to regulation of their use.

Following this study, the results of which were foreseen by the Royal Society in the UK in 2004, we can no longer delay investing in such research.”

“We still don't know whether carbon nanotubes will become airborne and be inhaled, or whether, if they do reach the lungs, they can work their way to the sensitive outer lining.

But if they do get there in sufficient quantity, there is a chance that some people will develop cancer -- perhaps decades after breathing the stuff,” he said.

Donaldson said there is a silver lining to the research. “Short or curly carbon nanotubes did not behave like asbestos, and by knowing the possible dangers of long, thin carbon nanotubes, we can work to control them. It's a good news story, not a bad one. It shows that carbon nanotubes and their products could be made to be safe.”

However, the present study only tested for fibrelike behaviour and did not exonerate carbon nanotubes from damaging the lungs in other ways. More research is needed to understand how to use these materials safely.

ANN STEFFORA MUTSCHLER, SENIOR EDITOR, ELECTRONIC NEWS

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Outsourced chip design starts up 20%, Gartner A Gartner survey finds that outsourcing of key design support services such as IP integration, RTL synthesis, verification, analog and mixed-signal design and consultation, physical library, and IP qualification and hardening, are on the rise.

Outsourced chip design starts grew by 20 per cent in 2007, according to a recent Gartner Inc survey.

Gartner surveyed 62 vendors offering integrated circuit design services and found strong growth in designs of 90nm or below. In 2006, the first year of the survey, 29 design service companies responded. That more than doubled to 62 last year, representing nearly 35 per cent of all vendors worldwide, Gartner reported in its Semiconductor DQ Monday Report.

“The highlight of this second survey is the continued growth in the number of outsourced chip design starts,” Ganesh Ramamoorthy, a Gartner analyst, wrote in the weekly report.

“The total number of design starts captured by survey respondents grew by about 20 per cent in 2007, with respondents

reporting strong early growth at process node levels of 90nm and below.”

According to the survey, partial design starts grew 52 per cent, while full-chip design starts grew 28 per cent. Physical implementation starts at 90nm or below accounted for nearly 32 per cent of all physical implementation starts during 2007, the survey also found.

Further, the survey found that outsourcing of key design support services such as intellectual property (IP) integration, resistor transistor logic (RTL) synthesis, verification, analog and mixed-signal design and consultation, physical library, and IP qualification and hardening, are on the rise.

Not surprisingly, the Gartner reported that Asia/Pacific-based survey respondents accounted for 70 per cent of total design

starts captured.

“The survey findings confirm Gartner's belief that the chip design outsourcing market will continue to grow at a steady pace in the coming years,” Ramamoorthy said. “Design service vendors that position themselves as providers of specialist integrated circuit (IC) design skills need to expand their capabilities to include verification, integration, and IP supply, and should position themselves as a one-stop shop for all services relating to semiconductor design.

“Full-chip design contracts are certainly more lucrative, but not all chip vendors will outsource the full-chip design — especially with fewer chips being designed every year,” he continued.

“Therefore, it is imperative that design service vendors broaden their skills and

service portfolios to provide partial design services for specific designs (or across multiple stages of a design),”

Ramamoorthy said.

SUZANNE DEFFREE, MANAGING EDITOR, ELECTRONIC NEWS

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EDITOR’SCHOICE

The four best releases from across the electronics sector this month

Flir pocket i5 camera Flir’s pocket-sized full function thermography camera is aimed at the electrical contractor, mechanical and building trades. The i5 model

JUNE 2008

In the limelight The directive on the restriction of the use of certain hazardous substances in electrical and electronic equipment has taken hold of a great number of manufacturers around the world.

RoHS is now a favourite topic among companies, racing to see which one becomes the most environmentally friendly.

In this issue, we tackle solar energy systems with a story from the ANU on lightweight solar power. The Labor government has also recently announced a $75 million competitive grants program to encourage Australian manufacturers to reduce their energy use and cut carbon emissions. In the coming issues, we hope to give more room to companies exerting more effort on this regard.

As first time editor for Electronics News, I am also tasked to push everyone to participate in this year’s EDN Australia Innovation Awards. Every year, this award aims to recognise companies which have demonstrated technological innovation and design creativity.

After meeting with several

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companies on my first month on the job, I’ve realised one integral weakness in this industry. Everyone has something to show for but no one has the time to tell us about it. Getting nominations and information from productive companies is akin to squeezing blood off a stone. Australian and New Zealand companies have so much to offer, it’s about time they are given the chance to be in the limelight.

For details of the nomination process, check out page 26.

was developed to service the demand for low cost, high performance thermal imaging cameras for commercial applications.

Weighing 340g, the i5 is the lightest and most compact handheld infrared camera available in its class capable of delivering commercial functionality. It produces instant, point-and-shoot JPEG infrared imagery that carries all the required temperature data that can be stored internally or externally, sent and analysed.

It measures temperatures up to +250°C and detects temperature differences as small as 0.10°C, displayed on the camera’s 2.8inch LCD display. Its temperature measurement range suits most applications in electrical, mechanical, and building environments. The battery ensures up to five hours of continuous operation.

The i5 comes with the Flir QuickReport software for image analysis and creation of reports in PDF format, a 512MB mini SD Card, a Li-Ion rechargeable battery with charger, USB cable, hand strap, and manuals and user CDs available in 21 languages.

Flir Australia http://www.flir.com/AU/

Rigol Oscilloscopes

Kristyn Maslog-Levis Editor

Electronics News | June 2008 | www.electronicsnews.com.au

The new Rigol DS1000B series of four channel oscilloscopes provide three models, from 60MHz to 200MHz bandwidth, four channels, up to 2GS/s sample rate and 16K memory. It also incorporates Rigol’s proprietary ASIC front end which replaces all traditional mechanical relays to provide superior performance with longer product life.

The series is the first scope in its class to be certified by the LXI consortium, providing users the flexibility or programming over the web and the confidence that Rigol scopes conform to this industry specification.

In addition to digital filtering, pass/fail testing, record and playback, it also provides logic triggering across the four channels and alternate triggering providing a truce dual time-base scope. They provide a complete set of interface options, including LAN, USB and 2 x USB host.

Emona Instruments Pty Ltd (02) 9519 3933 http://www.emona.com.au

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EDITOR’S CHOICE

The four best releases from across the electronics sector this month

InduKey-board InduKey has

High Returns with

Low Cost Prototyping

expanded the trackballs and touchpad standard version with a foil-covered keyboard with integrated joystick. The used joystick has a stick length of 63mm and requires an actuating force of 2.25 N. The pivoting range is 18 degree in all directions. The joystick sheathing is easy to clean due to a convex sleeve and additionally prevents the deposition of chips, dusts and other materials.

The TKS-105a-JSTb-Modul keyboard is used in all operational environments that require a high robustness of the devices and a comfortable operation. It is well-suited for the precise control of the cursor, despite the fact that protective clothing is worn.

The keyboard may be integrated head-on into systems by means of retral threaded bolts.

The “b-version” of the keyboard is equipped with a circumferential protective edge in order to additionally protect the front foil from peeling off. A MFII layout provides complete functionality of the keys. It is provided in German or US layout by default as well as with a PS/2 or USB connection.

Backplane Systems Technology (02) 9457 6400 http://www.backplane.com.au

GE flat panel monitor GE’s fanuc intelligent platforms company, Computer Dynamics, has released the SeaBrite family of flat panel

The World’s only fully integrated manufacturing system producing plastic parts and enclosures without the need for tooling. Our state of the art computerised CNC machining produces precise prototypes or production runs.

Maximum design freedom. Change your product with your changing needs and requirements.

• low production costs • fast turnaround • high quality • complex shapes

Rutty Tool-Less Plastics RTP Trading Pty Limited 4 Beaumont Road Mount Kuring-Gai, NSW 2080 Tel: 02 9457 2211 Fax: 02 9457 2299 Email: sales@rtptrading.com.au www.rtptrading.com.au

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Electronics News | June 2008 | www.electronicsnews.com.au

monitors. Its resistance to shock and vibration is designed to fulfill the requirements of the marine industry for reliability with their wide operating temperature range.

The rugged anti-corrosion mechanical design provides optimum operability.

The monitors are available in nine screen sizes from 8.4 inch through 23.1 inch. Typical applications include radar/ARPA systems, navigation/ECDIS systems, automatic identification systems (AIS), monitoring/surveillance systems, and yacht/ship automation.

It also offers a voltage range for power input and can accept RGB, composite video, s-video and DVI signals, as well as deliver PIP. Custom designs can be created and optimum viewability of the transflective display in a wide range of ambient lighting conditions is enhanced through the anti-reflective protective glass and backlight dimming control.

Metromatics (02) 9460 4355 http://www.metromatics.com.au/

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Keeping it SIMPLE Contract electronic manufacturer Tresmine reveals their industry secrets.

For this issue, Tresmine’s managing director, Greg Ross, reveals some industry insight with Electronics News.

Q. Tresmine has been in the contract manufacturing business for more than 20 years. How did you survive this long?

A. We don’t have a secret recipe but I believe that one of the main reasons for our longevity is that we always did what we felt was the right thing for the business in the long term. In addition, as this is truly family business, self-preservation was always a very high priority.

For example, when the wave of mergers and acquisitions swept the industry in the 1990’s, we stayed out of it, partly because we were not really interested in empire building and partly because we were determined to stay in control of our destiny.

At the time it appeared that we could be left behind but in the end it proved to work out very well, when a lot of the other companies in the industry had to cope with massive losses to unravel all the problems from other people, which they spent a lot of money buying. Tresmine never had to go through the pain and

expenses of massive expansion soon followed by the pain and expenses of massive downsizing. We just got on with building products for customers the best way we could, focused on improving our processes and keep the customers happy and that’s still what we do.

We have probably encountered every possible problem that can be imagined in this business, we have found the best way to resolve these problems and had the time to put systems in place to ensure these problems are avoided.

Q. In such a competitive industry how had Tresmine been able to differentiate itself?

A. The same attitude of taking a longterm view of what is best for the business and try to give the customers what they want. In many areas we have also taken a rather unorthodox approach and appear to make the wrong decisions but in the end these are what gave us a point of difference.

For instance, contract manufacturers in general and those like Tresmine in particular, operating at the low volume/high mix end of the market, spend most of

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Tresmine managing director, Greg Ross. their time changing over from one product to another. We may have to change over one production line four times in one day. Years ago we started researching the equipment market for tools or equipment that could automate or in any way improve the reliability and speed of the change over process for the SMT lines and found that there was nothing available. Against all commonly accepted views we decided to start developing something ourselves. After almost 10 years, that something turned into a new company with a new product that is now sold in 20 countries around the world to all types of companies. This company is Cluso Vision Systems, which is recognised as the pioneer in the new capital equipment sector of Automatic Production Engineering systems.

Another example is the information systems. The standard procedure is for companies to buy expensive MRP or ERP systems, spend a lot of time and resources changing the way they do business to suit the IS package and never really get the information they need. Once more against conventional wisdom, Tresmine bought a basic MRP package with the source code and committed full time internal resources to continuously develop this system to our own requirements.

In this business, a large number of options can be found in terms of stock ownership and traceability requirements. With our system we have a unique capability that gives customers and ourselves total visibility of the inventory position at any point in time by any imaginable criteria.

Industry surveys will tell you that the number one cause of product reliability is component replacement by non-approved parts. With our information systems we have been able to virtually eliminate this problem by preserving each customer’s unique stock identity and at the same time continue to have transparency to consoli-

date purchasing when possible.

Q. What is your view on the China juggernaut and the threat it poses to the local industry?

A. It’s widely accepted that in the last seven or eight years the local electronics industry contracted by at least 80 per cent and obviously most of that went to China or other low cost centres. It may sound strange, but during this period our business continued to grow. The main reason is that Tresmine was never really on the market for large contracts with the multinational OEM’s. A lot of the other local CEM’s, which were dependent upon that type of work, were seriously affected when all these companies moved out of Australia. We always focused our efforts on the companies that for a variety of reasons like low volumes, high product mix or complexity, control and IP protection, were not able or willing to move their production to China. As far as we can see there will always be some of these companies around. We can’t anticipate that innovation and entrepreneurship will be shut down in Australia completely in the future and technology companies need Tresmine and other CEM’s that can support them locally.

Some competitors are changing their strategy to focus on this customer base but we have a very long history, good attitude, experienced people and dedicated business systems that are most suitable for this market. We’ll just keep trying to do our best as usual.

Q. What is next for the company?

A. We have an outstanding and loyal customer-base, and promising companies that we hope will continue to grow with our help as we continue trying to improve our services to them. Our workforce have a share in our success and are essential for our long-term survival. We have every reason to be confident but never complacent.

We are ready for the next 20 years.

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Electronics Manufacturing

Electronics Manufacturing in Australia for over twenty years!

WHEN THE PIECES OF THE PUZZLE ARE NOT PUT TOGETHER THE RIGHT WAY, YOU CAN HAVE STRANGE OUTCOMES! Manufacturing is like a puzzle. Every piece has to be in its place.

Design for manufacturing, supply chain management, assembly technology, test, quality assurance and above all experienced and dedicated people are just some of the pieces in the puzzle that must ďŹ t together to deliver the big picture.

Tresmine has been putting these puzzles together for more than twenty years, thousands of different puzzles for hundreds of customers.

If you don’t want your puzzles to end up looking strange you should talk to us.

Tel: (02) 9836 4900 Email: sales@tresmine.com.au Address: 4/18 Lexington Drive, Bella Vista, NSW 2153

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Sapphire wafer.

LAST ONE STANDING Is there a future in Australia for wafer fabrication?

UltraCMOS is a manufacturing process that uses a thin layer of silicon on an insulating clear sapphire to enhance the performance of the CMOS process by as much as two generations of process geometry reduction.

Standard CMOS equipment and processing is used on the UltraCMOS wafer to achieve superior performance in frequency of operation, power consumption, and analogue RF parameters.

The silicon-on-sapphire (SOS) has been a known technology for at least 30 years prior to Peregrine perfecting the process. The primary reason that it was not used as a substrate for manufacturing semiconductors was the high number of defects in the

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deposited silicon epitaxial layer caused by the mismatch in crystal lattice at the interface of the sapphire and silicon. This high defect density would damage the transistors, and as a result, there would be few working devices on the wafer.

True RF integration combines near ideal passive devices with low power active devices significantly reducing a product’s bill of materials and assembly cost.

Portable wireless products currently combine a variety of semiconductor technologies from Si and SiGe based CMOS and BiCMOS, to GaAs based MOSFETs. Of all these, only UltraCMOS is suitable for the low power, high performance integration required for complex systems-

on-chip (SOC) solutions.

The process is a silicon-oninsulator technology (SOI) that has been recognised as a technically superior semiconductor vehicle reserved for highly specialised military and space projects. SOI was thought to be impossible to manufacture in commercial volumes at a reasonable cost. Overcoming these challenges without sacrificing the inherent benefits of the technology took several years of research and development, all now protected by more than 18 patents.

Peregrine’s current product mix is based largely on production of UltraCMOS wafers as both a commercial foundry, where the products are designed and marketed by other companies, and as developer of its own products, where the value added is in both design and manufacturing.

This version of CMOS SOI allows UltraCMOS circuits to compete in the rapidly expanding wireless and fibre optic markets at higher frequencies and data rates and lower power than standard bulk CMOS circuits.

Product Development A product manufactured on this process is highly innovative. For example, a single chip radio frequency (RF) Power Amplifier module that has never been produced before. It has not been technically possible to integrate all the passive (inductors and

capacitors) components and active devices (transistors) onto one chip. Customers see integration as the core product advantage. Specifically, integrating antenna switches with accurate, high-Q passive devices, analogue and digital circuitry and EEPROM is universally seen as a unique capability.

A key advantage of this facility to Australian industry is the creation of a complete and local capability to design and manufacture high-speed communications systems. As data rates increase, issues arise which can be solved only by intimate coupling between end users, system designers, software engineers and chip developers. At frequencies above 1 GHz, engineering difficulties require both advanced technology and tight coordination between all layers of the system development and deployment.

Australia’s relative isolation from such advanced technology will be dramatically changed by development of this capability.

UltraCMOS is capable of meeting the enhanced performance requirements of next generation wireless systems such as EDGE, GPRS, 3G, IEEE802.11a and Bluetooth while still maintaining the extremely low power requirements needed for handheld systems. Similarly, data rates above 1 Gigabit per second (Gbps) require fibre optic connections and electronic chips which are capable of transmit-

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ting and receiving the optical data at ever higher data rates.

Many of the current systems operate at 2.5 Gbps and are fast moving to 10 Gbps (the equivalent of 2500 simultaneous movies being transmitted) and above.

UltraCMOS offers unique advantages in opto-electronic transceiver functions operating at these very high data rates. Additionally, the optically transparent nature of the wafers enables unique packaging and assembly solutions that will be necessary for these next generation opto-electronic transceivers.

With the next generation process, these highly integrated RFIC products are being designed to substantially reduce costs, and power, and to minimise board area for the next generation of mobile phones and wireless Internet appliances.

Current Situation Australia does not have an electronics manufacturing industry of any significance. PSA is the only commercial semiconductor manufacturing organisation in Australia.

There is some design capability here particularly in bulk silicon CMOS and very little in high-speed analogue. As the world is continuing to push the silicon technology, still following Moore’s law, it is becoming more complicated and expensive to design and prototype high performance chips. Soon it will be out of the reach of small Australian companies unless they subcontract their services to large multinationals. Then there is no benefit to the country, as Australia is not leveraging its design talent. An example of this scenario is a group called Agere Systems in Sydney designing GSM phone products for Agere Semiconductor in the USA. We have the opportunity to change this by creating a fully vertically integrated infrastructure.

Why are the leading edge technologies getting so expensive?

With any semiconductor process as the minimum features size continues to get smaller, the costs of processing equipment and the mask sets are increasing exponentially. The cost of building a new wafer fab is not just the building alone; it is the fitout of the equipment that is the most expensive parts.

To build a modern wafer fab today would mean running 300mm wafers on a <0.09 micron (90nm) process. Typical

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wafer fabs that offer their processes to the open market today, would process 0.13micron designs on 200mm wafers. The mask set cost for this process (shown in the following graph) would be close to US$0.6million per design for 0.13 micron and approaching US$1m for 90nm designs.

However, designers usually want the minimum feature processes for high speed transistors especially when it comes to RF communications.

When we now compare the minimum cost to produce a prototype chip on both of these processes, a chip of 9mm2 in area on the 0.18um (IBM) SiGe high performance process is US$508,500 and the 0.25um UltraCMOS process is US$40,000. This is a factor of 12 times more expensive which can be a deciding factor for a small company to follow through with the design. If we compare a lower performance 0.18um IBM process at US$328,500 with the UltraCMOS 0.5um process at US$20,000 this is a factor of 16 times more expensive.

Although UltraCMOS can support a large amount of digital logic it is not intended to compete against the high volume bulk silicon CMOS wafer fab.

When it comes to high-speed RF analogue together with digital control logic then there is no other technology on the market today that can compete with UltraCMOS on performance and cost.

This now makes developing new chips and applications affordable for the small companies in Australia and any company in the world.

Market Potential The potential for this technology is based on the high performance integrated circuit content of the wireless and internet markets.

These markets are already huge, and rapidly growing. Only the most advanced technologies can compete. Once established, these advanced technical solutions provide substantial business leverage.

New products and technologies require “early adopters” to create disruptive changes which enable dramatically improved performance. Hence the market potential of any innovative project is dependent on identifying an early adopter, which is the UltraCMOS technology.

The largest opportunity is for wireless products. These can be considered in two major categories: cellular and non-cellular.

Electronics News | June 2008 | www.electronicsnews.com.au

Inside the company walls.

PSA is the only commercial semiconductor manufacturing organisation in Australia.

Cellular phones and infrastructure are currently the largest single wireless market, but not growing as fast as others, such as wireless local area network (WLAN). The project is aimed primarily at the cellular telephone market, but considerable customer interest has been seen for the PSA technology from the WLAN market.

Opportunities Integrated device makers (IDMs) are increasingly adopting a “fablite” or even fabless approach due to the tremendous investment associated with developing and manufacturing today’s most advanced ICs. This trend certainly offers many opportunities for the foundry sector. However, putting a fab-lite strategy into practice is no simple matter. At the same time, leading fabless design companies face the pressures caused by limited design resources and the need to enhance competitiveness by establishing multiple sources for product manufacturing.

As process technologies shrink, the introduction of new materials and equipment continues unabated. This has led to

uncertainties in process technology development that could slow the cycles observed by Moore’s Law. As a result, these challenges have made design for manufacturability (DFM) even more critical. Although the smaller geometries allow the possibility of an entire system to be implemented on a single chip, the design community may have underutilised the shrinking process geometry in the rush to embrace the next node associated with Moore’s law. These factors will require the design, EDA and manufacturing communities to re-examine their approach going forward.

Australia is one of the most connected nations on earth. Australians continue to propel this development by being demanding users of communications, particularly advanced mobility solutions. This has led to a sophisticated nation of users demanding ever more performance and variety in wireless data communication and their services. Unfortunately, this has led to a major trade deficit (ICT deficit for 2005 is $19.7m) in wireless products and a waste of the opportunity to leverage global

growth and a local demand through Australian-developed wireless-based products and services.

The area within mobile wireless of greatest global growth and of greatest need for skilled engineers is in the integration of wireless systems onto chips. This is a demanding process involving considerable application knowhow and deep sub-micron microelectronics implementation ability. Therefore, competitive system-on-chip (SoC) development requires ready access to both the design environment and the silicon implementation process. The availability of “silicon foundries” worldwide and, in particular, the presence of the Peregrine silicon-on-sapphire foundry means that fabrication can be outsourced and concentration can be focused on the high value-add and knowledgeintensive phase of design and test.

Bringing industry-backed SoC design centres to selected Australian clusters of capability will create new opportunities for wealth and jobs in a growing wireless systems industry.

Within all the areas of wireless communications, the technology of choice is becoming very rapidly RF-CMOS. Strategy Analytics in October 2005 published that the RF-CMOS business alone in 2004 was worth USD2 billion and at this stage was 24 per cent of the total RF process technologies market and increasing fast.

The three main application sectors in RF-CMOS were Wi-Fi 34 per cent, Bluetooth 26 per cent, and Handsets 19 per cent.

The highly complex analogue world of RF-CMOS requires highly developed design and manufacturing skills that are currently in great demand and in short supply, and as the trend indicates, the problem will get worse as demand outstrips capability. There is an opportunity for Australia to be in the foreground of this trend.

The semiconductor industry has made a phenomenal contribution to the economies of countries, and Australia is now presented with the same opportunity today with RFCMOS as Taiwan was 30 years ago with the digital bulk-silicon CMOS. Australia can learn from the Taiwan experience, which shows that small firms can be fostered and nurtured to grow into large and powerful firms.

ANDREW BRAWLEY, DIRECTOR PEREGINE SEMICONDUCTOR AUSTRALIA

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THE NEW FACE OF

WIRELESS ACCESS

Network operators have continuously invested in technology upgrades to remain competitive in the wireless market.

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While many owners use their mobile phones only for voice calls and short message services or texting, a large and growing number are using bandwidthhungry applications such as web browsing, music downloads and streamed video.

To match the way these kinds of applications are seen to work on a home PC with a broadband connection (either ADSL or cable modem), mobile network operators have been continuously investing in technology upgrades to remain competitive.

Third-generation wireless communication systems based on Wideband Code-Division Multiple Access (W-CDMA) have been deployed all over the world. To achieve higher downlink and uplink speeds, Universal Mobile Telecommunication System (UMTS) operators today are

upgrading their 3G networks with High Speed Downlink Packet Access (HSDPA) and High Speed Uplink Packet Access (HSUPA), which are known collectively as HSPA and continue to evolve under the name HSPA+.

To meet the future demand for even-higher data rates, Long Term Evolution (LTE) is the project name of a new air interface for wireless access being developed by the Third Generation Partnership Project (3GPP).

Itâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s in the standards-setting and early development now, and is currently expected to be commercially introduced in around 2010.

LTE is the evolution of 3GPPâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s UMTS towards an all-IP network, and the specifications provide a framework for increasing capacity, improving spectrum

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Figure 1. LTE new air interface. efficiency, cell-edge performance, and reducing latency. It offers a 100 Mbps download rate and 50 Mbps upload rate for every 20 MHz of spectrum.

Support is intended for even higher rates, to 326.4 Mbps in the downlink, using multiple antenna configurations.

3GPP LTE is one of five major wireless standards sometimes referred to as â&#x20AC;&#x153;3.9G.â&#x20AC;? The others are HSPA+; 3GPP EDGE Evolution; 3GPP2 UltraMobile Broadband (UMB), which is an evolution of CDMA2000 and 1xEVDO; and Mobile WiMAX, which is based on IEEE 802.16e. All have similar goals in terms of spectral efficiency, achieved primarily through the use of less robust, higher order modulation schemes and multiantenna technology that ranges from basic transmitand-receive diversity to Multiple Input/Multiple Output (MIMO). WiMAX is considered by many observers to be the major competitor. While LTE is gaining momentum and is a natural evolution of the established GSM-UMTS cellular legacy, WiMAX technology has the advantage of a head start in development, testing, and deployment. Regardless of

which format ultimately dominates the market, LTE is expected to be a major force.

In parallel with its air interface development, LTE is linked closely with the concurrent System Architecture Evolution (SAE) project to define the LTE system architecture and Evolved Packet Core (EPC) network. Aimed at simplifying and speeding up network interaction with individual user equipment, SAE is critical to meeting many of the major speed and latency goals of LTE. In LTE, rather than further developing modulation schemes based on Wideband Code Domain Multiple Access (WCDMA), downlink and uplink transmissions are based on a new air interfaces: specifically, Orthogonal Frequency Division Multiple Access

Regardless of which format ultimately dominates the market, LTE is expected to be a major force.

(OFDMA), a variant of Orthogonal Frequency Division Multiplexing (OFDM) in the downlink and Single-Carrier Frequency Division Multiple Access (SC-FDMA) in the uplink.

Already used in non-cellular technologies as far back as 1998, OFDM was at that time under consideration by 3GPP as a transmission scheme for 3G UMTS. However, the technology was deemed inappropriate in part because of the large amounts of baseband processing it required. Today the cost of digital signal processing has been greatly reduced such that it is now considered a commercially viable method of wireless transmission for the handset.

Rather than transmit a high-rate stream of data with a single carrier, OFDM makes use of a large number of closely spaced orthogonal sub-carriers that are transmitted in parallel. Each sub-carrier is modulated with a conventional modulation scheme (such as QPSK, 16QAM, or 64QAM) at a low symbol rate. The combination of hundreds or thousands

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of sub-carriers enables data rates similar to conventional single-carrier modulation schemes in the same bandwidth.

When compared to WCDMA, OFDM offers a number of distinct advantages. Wide OFDM channels are more resistant to fading, and OFDM equalisers are much simpler to implement than CDMA equalisers. The long symbols, transmitted at low data rates separated by guard intervals that transmit the cyclic prefix, make OFDM almost completely resistant to multipath. This feature is particularly helpful for transmission in complex radio environments. Because OFDM can easily match transmission signals (sub-carriers) to the uncorrelated RF channels, the technology is well-suited to Multiple Input, Multiple Output (MIMO) implementations.

However, pure OFDM creates high peak-to-average ratio (PAR) signals, which would cause design issues that compromise the battery life of user equipment and thatâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s why a modification of the technology called SC-FDMA is used in the uplink.

SC-FDMA was chosen because it combines the low

PAR techniques of single-carrier transmission systems such as GSM and CDMA with the multipath resistance and flexible frequency allocation of OFDM/OFDMA. Another name for SC-FDMA is Discrete Fourier Transform Spread OFDM (DFT-SOFDM).

Figure 1 shows in frequency and time how OFDMA and SCFDMA would each transmit a sequence of 8 QPSK symbols. In the OFDMA example, four symbols are taken in parallel, each of them modulating its own sub-carrier at the appropriate QPSK phase. Each data symbol occupies 15 kHz for one OFDMA symbol period. At the end of the symbol period, the guard interval containing the cyclic prefix (CP â&#x20AC;&#x201C; a repeat of the first part of the symbol) is inserted before the next symbol period carrying the next four symbols arrives.

In the SC-FDMA case, data symbols are transmitted sequentially. Since this example involves four sub-carriers, four data symbols are transmitted sequentially in one SC-FDMA symbol period. The higher data rate symbols require four times the bandwidth, so each data symbol occupies 60 kHz of

People who previously dealt only in RF must learn new ways to characterise their devices.

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spectrum rather than 15 kHz. After the four data symbols have been transmitted, the CP is inserted. Note that the OFDMA symbol period and the SCFDMA symbol period are the same.

As with the original WCDMA and now HSPA, UE chipsets for LTE are being designed to have as long a life as possible so that manufacturers can recover their massive investment costs over a longer period.

While the data rate supported by a chipset will be much greater than the rate actually available to the UE in a network, equipment suppliers must confirm correct operation up to its maximum specified rate.

Measurement products and solutions specifically designed to address the emerging needs of LTE must include support for new measurement methods to address mixed analog/digital radios, based on CPRI and OBSAI for base stations and DigRF and MIPI D-PHY for UEs that remove or hide traditional test interfaces. Now people who previously dealt only in RF must learn new ways to characterise their devices. The tools required for these new measurements include system simulation, pattern generators, logic analysers, signal generators, signal analysers, and network emulation for protocol development.

JAN WHITACRE, LTE PROGRAM MANAGER, AGILENT TECHNOLOGIES

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Feature

Keep it Simple.

Flexible Sliver Raft Module.

LIGHTWEIGHT

SOLAR POWER NI CompactDAQ

Flexible photovoltaic solar cells: Power for consumer electronics, security and defence.

The last decade witnessed unprecedented growth in wireless devices with an even faster growing range of applications.

This includes consumer applications like mobile phones, PDAs, radios; industrial applications like electronic price tags in supermarkets, new smart packaging solutions; defence and security like light-weight power for a soldier, autonomous wireless sensors, and remote communication relays.

This growth is underpinned by advances in semiconductor technology, allowing for smaller, cheaper and more versatile devices supported by novel software and data processing techniques.

Widespread reliance on batteries and other energy storage devices substantially limits the capabilities and features that modern semiconductor technology can offer to consumers. The frustration from a mobile phone dying during an important conversation or a laptop powering off just before a crucial email is sent is not uncommon in today’s digital dependency.

Far worse is the possibility of a soldier’s surveillance kit ceasing to work because of a discharged battery or a remote autonomous sensor failing to

transmit data from a military theatre.

The Challenges Sadly, today’s technology cannot provide for wireless energy transmission in the same way as information is commonly transferred. Batteries must be constantly monitored, recharged and even replaced from time to time.

These issues become acute when recharging batteries from mains-power or replacing batteries is impossible. Various techniques for harvesting power from the environment are being developed including vibration transducers, thermoelectrical converters, RF collectors and photovoltaic cells. To date, photovoltaic conversion of light into electricity remains the most reliable and effective way of harvesting ambient energy.

Another problem is that batteries contain toxic materials, and disposal is a globally recognised problem. Replacing batteries with non-hazardous power sources, or at least prolonging their life by complementing them with renewable energy, will have significant environmental benefits. Indeed, a battery’s life-time depends on how many times it is charged and discharged. A

renewable power source integrated with a battery would maintain its charge by trickle feeding the battery. This can substantially prolong battery life time.

Photovoltaic (PV) cells need to meet special requirements to be used as a power-source integrated with a wireless device. Often only a small area is available for capturing light energy; which dictates the need for high photovoltaic efficiency both under bright and low light conditions.

The cells must be lightweight, flexible and capable of conforming to the shape of an electronic device.

Another important requirement is for the photovoltaic power source to reach the battery voltage of four to 12 volts.

All solar cells have an output of about 0.5 volts, while the current is proportional to the cell area. Sixteen cells are required to charge an eight volt battery. Cutting up large cells into 16 small cells to meet this requirement causes substantial crystal damage which degrades efficiency.

Cells that are created small will perform better.

Sliver and other elongate cells, initially developed at the ANU for large scale solar energy generation, have very high efficiency

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National Instruments New Zealand Tel: 09 914 0488 • Fax: 09 914 0487 info.newzealand@ni.com • ni.com/oceania © 2007 National Instruments Corporation. All rights reserved. LabVIEW, National Instruments, NI, ni.com, NI CompactDAQ, and SignalExpress are trademarks of National Instruments. Other product and company names listed are trademarks or trade names of their respective companies. 2007-8682-301-175-I

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(>20%) together with the durability of crystalline Si and the flexibility and lightweight of thin films. They are small (0.1 to 1 cm2), and so reaching battery voltage is readily accomplished. They are well positioned to play a major role in the market of wireless electronics.

Elongate solar cells Two separate elongate solar cell technologies have been developed at the Australian National University (ANU): Plank solar cells and sliver solar cells These two types of solar cells have similar attributes and capabilities.

Substrates for Plank solar cells are prepared by creating long and narrow slots spaced 0.5-5mm apart through a thin (0.01-0.2mm) wafer to create hundreds of individual “planks” of silicon. Substrates for sliver cells are prepared by vertically slicing a 0.5-2mm thick wafer into hundreds or thousands of long and thin “slivers” of silicon, and rotating each of the slivers to gain area multiplication.

In each case, wafer processing ensues to convert the long, narrow and thin strips of silicon into solar cells. Sliver technology is being commercialised for mass power production by the Australian company Origin Energy in Adelaide.

Crystalline Si is still a winner Silicon is the second most abundant element in the Earth’s crust and is non-toxic.

Ninety per cent of world solar cell production is silicon solar cells. Monocrystalline silicon is the “gold standard” material for photovoltaics, with proven high efficiency and durability in harsh environmental conditions. Lengthy experience with silicon solar cells allows manufacturers of

Highly flexible monocrystalline sliver cell. commercial modules to offer 25 year guarantees. Conventional silicon solar cells are fabricated on squares or rounds of silicon, about 0.2mm thick and diameter 15cm.

These cells are electrically connected and encapsulated behind glass to form a PV module.

Most conventional PV modules have nearly zero output when even one cell is shaded. Partial shading is to be expected in small power sources, especially in defence and security applications. In contrast, elongate and sliver modules retain almost full power when partially shaded. Tolerance of partial shading arises from the cell fabrication technique. Each individual elongate silicon solar cell has an output voltage of 0.6-0.7 volts. Grouping 15 1mm wide, 25mm long cells to form a 4cm2 minimodule will result in a module with enough voltage output to charge an eight volt battery for a remote sensor or similar application. Conventional silicon solar cells are too large to create such mini-mod-

Sliver process. Individual sliver solar cells are created from the narrow strips of silicon formed during the grooving process, with most processing steps completed while the strips are still supported by the wafer frame. All cell processing steps are based on standard silicon PV processing technologies. Following extraction from the wafer, each Sliver cell is rotated about its long axis. The large face of the sliver cell, corresponding to the sidewall formed by grooving, becomes the sun-facing surface of the cell. The combined surface area of the cells created within the wafer can therefore be many times greater than the original wafer surface area. Since the processing treatment of both sidewalls of each cell is identical, the sliver cell is perfectly bifacial. Practically, each wafer contains up to 7000 single crystalline silicon slivers with an effective combined surface area of 20-50 times the wafer surface area (up to one square metre).

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NI LabVIEW SignalExpress

Plug.

Large single raft sliver.

Module sliver.

Sliver make up. ules, and cutting up conventional cells into smaller cells sharply reduces cell efficiency.

Optional transparency is easily arranged for elongate modules by spacing the elongate cells slightly apart. This can help reduce visibility in some defence applications.

Conventional silicon cells are too thick to be flexible. Elongate cells are naturally thin and flexible, and can be made ultra thin for ultra flexibility. In contrast to conventional solar cells, elongate cells accept light equally well from both sides (perfectly “bifacial”). Thin elongate cells are lightweight but retain high efficiency, and have extreme power/weight ratios. Encapsulation for protection from the environment is not required for

elongate cells in specialist applications for which long life (years) is not important. This allows super lightweight power panels to be fabricated, taking advantage of the fact that elongate cells can be up to 10 times thinner than conventional cells.

Such panels are non-reflective for low visibility.

Elongate cells retain high performance even when illuminated by dim light. Thus they retain superior performance in the shade (although overall power output of any PV module is reduced 10-fold or more in the shade because the available solar power is reduced by this amount).

Examples of applications Micro solar power source for

wireless sensors: Thin elongate cells are ultra flexible (they will bend around a person’s finger), and can easily conform to the 3D shape of sensors. They will also be very efficient (20 per cent), which is two to four times better than alternative thin film cells; so two to four times more power is available per cm2.

Low visibility highly reliable solar power source for autonomous maritime sensors: Modules can be mounted vertically because elongate cells accept light falling on either surface equally well. This reduces visibility, and allows the collection of light reflected off the sea.

High cell efficiency allows for a reduction in module area/visibility.

Roll-up-transportable low visibility solar power modules for power in remote regions: Taking advantage of 20 per cent cell efficiency, flexibility, bifacial acceptance of light and reliability. A 1,000W, 7m2 roll-up elongate module would weigh as little as three kilos, and would be smaller than a wine cask when furled.

Wearable solar power: Taking advantage of high cell efficiency, shadow tolerance and flexibility.

Cells placed on the helmet of a soldier or the rucksack of a bushwalker could generate about 2W in sunshine.

Power for security sensors in low-light: For example, window break sensor mini- power panels mounted as a small patch in a corner of the window can take advantage of high cell efficiency in dim light, acceptance of light from either side (room or external light) and ease of reaching battery voltage.

Consumer electronics: Power to charge mobile phones, laptops, PDAs, iPods, GPS, cameras, watches, toys.

IGOR SKRYABIN

AND

ANDREW BLAKERS, ANU

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National Instruments New Zealand Tel: 09 914 0488 • Fax: 09 914 0487 info.newzealand@ni.com • ni.com/oceania © 2007 National Instruments Corporation. All rights reserved. LabVIEW, National Instruments, NI, ni.com, NI CompactDAQ, and SignalExpress are trademarks of National Instruments. Other product and company names listed are trademarks or trade names of their respective companies. 2007-8682-301-175-I

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Analysis

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DESKTOP SYSTEM

DESK SYSTEM

WHAT SETS SCANCAD APART

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Electronics News | June 2008 | www.electronicsnews.com.au

Finding, hiring, and ke e next-generation talent With the coming shortage of critical talent, such companies may find themselves going head-to-head over a new generation employees—one that presents unique challenges.

While the high-tech industry continues to expand by leaps and bounds, bringing more advanced devices to the mainstream every year, it faces a coming challenge in the all too near future: a shrinking talent pool to fuel next-generation innovation.

Indeed, the technology industry is already exhibiting this in the United States. According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, the United States needs 135,000 new computer professionals a year, but as of 2006, its universities were only producing 49,000 computer science graduates a year. The Bureau also forecasts the need for science and engineering graduates will grow 26 per cent to 1.25 million by 2012, while the number of graduates in those fields has remained relatively flat for two decades.

Beyond a new flow of talent,

the tech industry is beginning to see a hastening stream of qualified talent exiting the workforce.

Recent research from Deloitte Consulting LLP notes that as Baby Boomers begin retiring, the prime-aged portion of the workforce faces a steady decline of seven per cent up to 2020.

"There's a problem coming and we feel it today," William E. Mitchell, CEO of Arrow Electronics Inc, said. "Added to the fact that the workforce is aging is the reality that the American educational system, for whatever reason, is not turning out an adequate number of scientists, engineers, and mathematicians and technically trained people to fill the needs in the workforce.

There simply is no pipeline behind those people retiring.

And that's a real concern."

Mitchell’s concerns are shared

by people throughout the tech industry. Indeed, those concerns were much of the reason DEKA Research president and Segway human transport system creator Dean Kamen started FIRST (For Inspiration and Recognition of Science and Technology), a multinational competition that teams professionals and young people to solve an engineering design problem with the goal of encouraging a next generation of inventors. Kamen has taken his message of needed education reform as high as the Oval Office to encourage greater supply of and demand for STEM (science, technology, engineering, and math) learning in the US. Industry pundit Bill Gates has also spoken before members of Congress urging education reform to inspire tomorrow's leaders to look at tech careers.

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tion (M&A) activity, consolidating staff and forcing labour shifts to lower-cost locations like China, and the qualified US talent pool gets even more shallow.

According to Deloitte's research, Talent Management for the Technology Sector, "highquality employees are the most significant contributing factor to growing technology companies, and CEOs continue to find that recruiting and keeping them are the biggest challenge to managing growth." The company found that "finding, hiring, and retaining qualified employees" is identified as the top operational challenge in managing growth and that high-quality employees are the number one cited growth factor to tech companies.

How to attract talent: Don't just show them the money

e eping "We as a technology world have not done a particularity good job of going out and selling the benefits of a technical education and how it opens up an intriguing and exciting world and provides a very satisfying career path," Mitchell said. "We have to do that. We are in competition with lots of other disciplines. People have many more [career] choices than they have before and we need to do our part in making sure we paint a positive picture of the world we live in and why it's a good place to be and why it provides an exciting career path."

Crucial to this Baby-Boomer exit isn't only the need to fill positions. Deloitte reminds that along with the decrease of the more experienced prime-working-age employees, tech companies will face a significant loss of skills and key institutional knowledge as Baby Boomers leave the workforce.

Compounding this is the loss of talent fuelled by the tech industry's merger and acquisi-

In a separate Deloitte survey of 150 tech and telecom companies in North America, the firm found that only six per cent of respondents expect the size of their workforce to decline while two-thirds expect their workforce to grow over the next 12 months.

"There are lots of candidates to interview. The issue is 'qualified,'" remarked Jeff Alderton, principal and national industry leader with Deloitte Consulting's human capital service area.

Alderton said that as the talent pool continues to recede, tech and telecom companies will compete heavily for "critical talent," which Deloitte defines as "groups and individuals that drive a disproportionate share of their company's business performance and generate greaterthan-average value for customers and shareholders.

Critical workforce segments possess highly developed skills and deep knowledge, not just about the work itself, but also about how to make things happen within the company."

Alderton points to development, intellectual property, and sales delivery areas as critical workforce segments in the tech and telecom industries."They [companies] are seeing that there are certain job titles that are more important, if you will, that are a necessity to have versus a nice to have. The technology and telecom companies are beginning to drill down into those critical workforce segments and are beginning to populate their recruitment efforts in the areas that will drive their business in the next five to six years."

Deloitte's study based on the survey, Competing For Talent,

Analysis

NI LabVIEW SignalExpress

Play. found that the 71 per cent of respondents are relying on financial incentives to attract and retain employees. In contrast, the study found that today's workforce values greater freedom in schedules and control of where and how they work over financial compensation.

"The conflicting perspectives between technology and telecommunications employers and employees suggest that the respondents are significantly challenged in how they capture their fair share of talent in the near term," said Alderton.

"Despite our experience in seeing organisations wanting to shift focus on long-term retention strategies, the urgency of 'getting talent in the door' versus showcasing career scenarios to new recruits is causing some disconnection whereby companies still view financial incentives as a quick fix."

The Deloitte survey reports that workers "aren't as interested as they used to be in hefty compensation packages and fancy retirement plans. Today's workers don't mind working hard. They just want to do it on their terms." In some cases, that means working from home or off hours built around their own schedules, entry-level employees working closely with higher-ups in a company, or setting personalised career development plans for workers.

"To attract their fair share of talent, companies should consider adopting programs that meet the needs of the company – and each employee – instead of offering people big financial incentives, but then forcing them to adapt to the requirements of the job. These days, that traditional approach just doesn't fly," the study reports.

Part two will continue in the July issue.

SUZANNE DEFFREE, MANAGING EDITOR, ELECTRONIC NEWS

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www.electronicsnews.com.au | Electronics News | June 2008

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Supporting next-generation designers Altium – Best Student Project Altium is in the business of helping electronics designers deliver innovation.

Chief people officer Anand Shankaran, said the company helps designers “focus on creating the functionality for products in new ways, so that they can create the next generation of electronic devices and products.

“Altium believes that designers increasingly want the flexibility to create products in ways that break with the traditions of electronics design. This will increasingly be in the ‘soft design’ domain: creating the functionality of a product in programmable electronic devices, where the value and differentiation are also created.

He added that there is a real potential for all devices to be “intelligent and connected”.

“Industrial appliances will also benefit from the connectivity to enable them to communicate with those who maintain, operate, and manage them.”

Chief people officer, Anand Shankaran.

Altium innovation station.

Altium aims to removes barriers and enable electronics designers across all industries to focus on creating value, through their unified electronics design solutions. Altium Designer unifies hardware, software and programmable hardware into a single electronics design environment, working off a single database of

design data, that lets designers create new products from conception to test and deployment.

By combining Altium Designer with the Altium NanoBoard range of reconfigurable hardware development platforms to create the Altium Innovation Station, designers can interactively test their designs, based on program-

mable devices, ahead of manufacture or prototype.

The latest Altium Designer extends the concept with a range of new features that embrace the mechanical design worlds and provide new features for embedded designers.

The ECAD-MCAD integration feature is an example of delivering new tools to do electronics design in new ways. It solves the historical problems of matching electronics design (ECAD) with mechanical design (MCAD) so that electronics designers can link directly to the mechanical CAD world in a non-proprietary way with dynamic links via STEP models. This breaks down the

barriers between the design of the electronics and the box they will go into.

Board designers can work directly with the case design as it is being done to ensure that the PCB will fit. Electronics designers can interactively adjust board layout, component placement and even the choice of components to suit the proposed enclosure design. They can ensure that the PCB doesn’t collide with its box before the board is sent for prototyping or manufacture.

“This vision for innovation in electronics design will only happen by nurturing talent. Altium supports universities, competitions and research projects around the world – over 900 combined at the last count - to foster the talent and passion of tomorrow’s electronics designers.

It’s for these reasons that Altium is, once again, sponsoring the Best Student Category of this year’s EDN Innovation Awards,” said Shankaran.

EDN INNOVATION AWARDS 2008 Hurry! Entries close 31st July 2008!

For a nomination kit visit www.electronicsnews.com.au/Awards.aspx The 2008 EDN Innovation Awards will, for the fourth time, recognise and reward excellence in the design, manufacture and testing of electronics in Australia and New Zealand.

The categories are: • Best student project • Best application of a microcontroller • Best application of test or data acquisition equipment • Best application of RF wireless design • Best application of programmable logic • Best application of analogue design • Best application of computers/boards and buses • Best application of design software

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Electronics News | June 2008 | www.electronicsnews.com.au

For more information or to request your nomination kit please contact: Ashley Buncher, Event Co-ordinator Ph: 02 9422 2944, Fax: 02 9422 8777 Email: ashley.buncher@reedbusiness.com.au

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Fostering local talents Avnet Electronics – Best Application Microcontroller Avnet Electronics Marketing Asia is part of Phoenix-based Avnet, Inc, a Fortune 500 company with fiscal 2007 sales exceeding USD$15.68 billion.

Serving customers in more than 70 countries, Avnet is one of the world's largest technology marketing, distribution and services companies.

The company has a significant presence in the AsiaPacific region, one of the fastest growing electronics market in the world. With its regional headquarters in Singapore, the company has over 40 locations in 10 countries in Asia.

Avnet Electronics Marketing Asia distributes semiconductors, interconnect, passive and electromechanical components to serve a wide range of customers including original equipment manufacturers (OEMs), electronic manufacturing services (EMS) providers, and small- to medium-sized businesses, and provides associated design-chain and supply-chain services.

Avnet integration centre, Arizona USA. The Avnet Design Chain Services provides support throughout the product life cycle from design conceptualisation to new product launch and modification. ADS engineers provide technical advice on component, hardware and software solutions, design and

prototype services, and test and production assistance which helps to expedite timeto-market.

Its Supply Chain Services offers end-to-end supply chain services to OEMs, EMS providers, design houses and electronic component manu-

Avnet electronics marketing warehouse in Arizona. facturers, enabling the ability to optimise supply chains. By combining internal competencies of global warehousing and logistics, finance, information technology, and asset management, the Avnet Supply Chain services helps customers make more informed

decisions.

“Avnet is an integral part of the Australian and New Zealand electronics industry.

We believe an event like EDN awards can foster the local talent and make our industry competitive on a world scale.”

Improving ANZ innovation Braemac – Best Programmable Logic Today, Braemac competes in a truly global market. The growth in manufacturing in the Asian region has overshadowed the outstanding work that is taking place in both Australia and New Zealand.

“It is very important for the EDN awards to acknowledge our local industry, as it gives our design engineers the recognition for creating the innovative products and solutions that meet various global challenges,” said Braemac marketing manager, Vlad Tohadze.

Braemac is one of Australia’s largest indigenous component distributor. Founded in 1986, the company has maintained substantial growth since inception and today employs over 200 staff throughout offices in Australia, New Zealand, USA,

Singapore, Hong Kong, China and the UK. Whilst Braemac’s logistics capabilities are key to its support of industry, it has also developed a strong engineering capability with over 30 engineers on staff. The company’s line card includes some of the world’s most prestigious suppliers including Altera, Atmel, Hitachi, Renesas, Samsung, ST Microelectronics, OSRAM, Nordic and Wavecom.

“Our industry is small but we still can proudly claim that great engineering work happens Down Under. It was important for us to sponsor the Best Application of Programmable Logic as it high-

Braemac competes in a global market. Its head office is located in Sydney.

lights that Braemac is closely aligned with the innovative applications of leading edge Programmable Logic. We have numerous FPGA designs in Australia and New Zealand which lead to high performance applications produced with the most cost effective componentry.”

Tohadze believes that the industry in Australia and New Zealand is not growing. “Our customers are being driven by the cheaper manufacturing costs that are found in Asian regions. They need to have the latest and greatest product, and be competitive as well. We work very closely with our customers at the engineering level, to ensure that we provide leading edge solutions to their challenging applications,” he said.

www.electronicsnews.com.au | Electronics News | June 2008

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Koloona specialise in High Quality Switching and Protection Components with many supportive products to complete the range. We pride ourselves on our ability to offer quick service and full technical and application support.

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Feature

SILENCING the noise How to overcome noise figure measurement challenges in fixtured, on-wafer and ATE environments.

The Challenges There are several examples where it is impractical or impossible to connect the noise source directly to the amplifier’s input. First of all, many devices used in aerospace/defense applications and commercial microwave communications are not connectorised. For example, many transmit/receiver modules used in phasedarray radar systems have microstrip input and output lines, requiring test fixtures to

interface to commercial coaxial-based test equipment.

Another example is that of microwave monolithic integrated circuits (MMICs), which are often tested while still on the wafer on which they were fabricated, before being sealed into hermetic packages. In this case, a coaxial-to-coplanar test probe must be used to connect test equipment to the AUT. In both of these examples, the noise source cannot be connected directly to the amplifier’s input.

Even when the devices being tested have coaxial connectors, many times they are measured with automated test equipment (ATE), allowing the connection of multiple test instruments for full characterisation of the AUT. For example, a network analyser might be used to measure S-parameters and gain compression, while a spectrum analyser is used in conjunction with signal generators and a noise source to measure intermodulation distortion and noise figure. In this scenario, a switch matrix is used between the test equipment and the AUT. Again, when measuring noise figure, the noise source cannot be connected directly to the input of the amplifier.

In these cases, when the noise source cannot be connected directly to AUT’s input, the addition of cables, switches, test fixtures, and/or probes adds loss, and causes the effective source match of the test system to degrade. While the impact of loss can be mitigated by applying a scalar correction to the excess-noise-ratio (ENR) values of the noise source, the effects of source-match degradation are not easily removed, causing a corresponding decrease in measurement accuracy.

Noise figure measurements are assumed to be done with perfect 50-ohm test systems, but in real-world scenarios, this is never the case. While a noise source by

itself provides a reasonable 50-ohm termination, it is not perfect. Adding extra components to connect to the AUT also adds extra reflections, which degrades the

effective source match seen by the amplifier.

The impairment in source match causes two types of noise figure measurement

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Conceptually, measuring noise figures of RF and microwave low-noise amplifiers (LNAs) is easy. The most common technique involves connecting a noise source, with a known amount of excess noise, to the input of an amplifier under test (AUT). This technique is commonly referred to as the Y-factor method, and it requires the measurement of two noise powers at the output of the AUT. The first measurement is done with the noise source turned off, which provides the amplifier’s input with a room-temperature 50-ohm termination. The second measurement is done with the noise source turned on, a condition where a known amount of excess noise power is injected into the amplifier, causing the output noise power to increase compared to the first measurement.

From the two noise-power readings, noise figure can be calculated, giving a quantitative indication of how much noise the AUT will add to a system.

In practice, making accurate noise figure measurements of LNAs at high frequencies can be challenging for two reasons: connecting to the AUT can be difficult, and when the noise source is not connected directly to the input of the amplifier, the resulting accuracy degradation is both significant and often not well understood.

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errors. One of them is the classic error due to mismatch, arising from non-ideal system source match and amplifier input match. The input match of most high frequency LNAs is nominally 50 ohms, but the actual input match versus frequency varies around this value. This means some of the noise power from the noise source is reflected off the amplifier’s input. If the noise source supplied a perfect 50-ohm match, this reflected power would be fully absorbed, and the true 50-ohm noise figure of the LNA would be measured.

However, if the noise source does not provide a perfect source match, then some of the noise power is re-reflected towards the AUT, causing more or less noise power (depending on the relative phases of the matches) to reach the input of the amplifier. The effect of this mismatch shows up as the classic ripple pattern in the test results seen if the frequency

Figure 1. (Left) Breakdown of the major contributors to noise figure measurement uncertainty for the Y-factor and cold source (with sourcematch correction) techniques. The PNA-X provides considerable lower measurement uncertainty than the Y-factor method, especially when a switch matrix is used.

Figure 2. (Right) Example noise figure measurements of an amplifier in a simulated ATE environment. The PNA-X’s source-match-corrected technique removes the ripple inherent to the Y-factor method. span is wide enough to show one or more cycles. Often the ripple is not seen because the frequency span of the measurement is too narrow, but the error is still in

the measurement.

The other type of error introduced by imperfect system source match is not well known by many test engineers. It is due

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Electronics News | June 2008 | www.electronicsnews.com.au

to the fact that some of the noise generated by the AUT comes out of the amplifier’s input port, where it reflects off the system source match, and re-enters the amplifier. The reflected noise causes the noise figure of the AUT to change, depending on the phase of the reflected noise power and the correlation among the various noise generators within the amplifier. Thus, the measured noise figure varies as a function of the system source impedance. This effect is well understood by LNA designers, who measure the noise parameters of the individual devices used to construct the amplifier. The noise parameters tell the designer what the mini-

mum noise figure will be for a given device, and at what impedance (gamma optimum) this minimum will occur. The noise parameters also tell the designer how the noise figure of the amplifier will be changed as the source impedance moves away from the optimum value. For a given impedance change, the magnitude of the resulting change in noise figure varies between amplifiers. Some amplifiers are very sensitive to changes in source impedance, and others less so. Armed with the knowledge of the device’s noise- and S-parameters, the LNA designer can go about designing matching circuitry to optimise gain and noise figure for a par-

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Feature

Where Thermal Solutions Come Together Bond-Ply

ticular application.

The concept of noise parameters has a direct implication on our ability to accurately measure 50-ohm noise figure. As the source impedance of the test system varies around 50 ohms, the measured noise figure of the AUT will also vary. The impact of this effect again shows up as ripple in the measured results, indistinguishable from the ripple caused by mismatch. The more the source match changes, the larger the error introduced into the noise figure measurement.

Adding components between the noise source and the AUT exacerbates this effect, even if loss compensation is used.

The Solution One way to overcome these challenges is to take advantage of the advanced architecture and calibration techniques of the modern vector network analyser (VNA). VNAs have been used for years to accurately measure S-parameters of both connectorized and non-connectorized devices. Methods to extend vector-error correction to fixtured, on-wafer, and ATE environments have been developed so that it is not difficult to obtain accurate Sparameters in these situations, as long as proper calibration standards and techniques are used.

Modern VNAs like Agilent’s PNA-X series can expand the suite of possible measurements to include intermodulation distortion by taking advantage of a built-in second RF signal source, and an internal signal combiner.

Recently, the ability to measure noise figure was added, with accuracy surpassing the commonly used Y-factor method.

For noise figure measurements, the PNA-X eliminates the need for a noise source by using the cold-source method. This method requires only one measurement of room-temperature noise power, along with an independent measurement of the

gain of the AUT. Using vectorerror correction, the VNA compensates for the mismatch effects caused by imperfect system source and load match, as well as for system frequency-response and crosstalk errors. The result is highly accurate gain and match measurements of the AUT. To measure noise figure, an additional set of receivers was added to the PNA-X. These noise receivers are optimised for high gain and low noise figure.

To overcome noise figure measurement errors caused by the non-ideal 50-ohm source match interacting with the noise generated by the AUT (the noiseparameter effect), a modified version of the cold-source method is employed that uses a standard Agilent ECal module as a variable impedance tuner, instead of as a set of electronic impedance standards. This ECal module is used to vary the source match of the test system between four and seven complex values, for each of the desired measurement frequency points. At each source impedance, a corresponding noise power measurement is made with the AUT in place. None of the source impedances presented to the AUT are exactly 50 ohms, but from the set of impedance and noise power measurements, the 50-ohm noise figure can be accurately calculated.

The impedance tuner allows us to mathematically create a noise measurement system with excellent effective source match, just as mechanical or electronic calibration standards are used to provide excellent effective source match for S-parameter measurements. With the source-matchcorrected cold-source technique, the effect of switches, cables, fixtures or probes are fully removed from the test results, giving the highest noise figure measurement accuracy of any commercial test system available today.

Using this technique with the PNA-X, S-parameters, gain and phase compression, harmonics, intermodulation distortion, and noise figure can be accurately measured, all with a single connection to the AUT. Figure 1 compares noise figure measurement uncertainty between the Yfactor method and the coldsource method as implemented on the PNA-X. For the Y-factor method, the uncertainty is calculated in two different ways: one with the noise source connected directly to the DUT, and one with an electrical network simulating the switches and cables from an automated-test-equipment (ATE) setup placed between the noise source and the DUT (with loss correction). The PNA-X example includes the ATE network. Figure 2 shows an actual comparison between a PNA-X and an NFA measuring an amplifier in a simulated ATE environment. In this case, a 12inch cable was used in place of a switch matrix. The ripple caused by imperfect system source match is clearly seen using the Y-factor method, but is not present in the PNA-X’s version of the cold-source method.

The Conclusion Modern network analysers like the PNA-X, with sophisticated hardware architectures and advanced calibration techniques, can overcome the difficulties and inaccuracies of using the Y-factor method for measuring noise figure in fixtured, on-wafer, or ATE environments. Using the cold-source method with a combination of vector-error correction when measuring S-parameters and source-match-correction when measuring noise power, accurate noise figure measurements can be made in any type of test environment.

DAVID BALLO, COMPONENT TEST DIVISION, AGILENT TECHNOLOGIES

The Bond-Ply Family of materials are thermally conductive and electrically isolating. Bond-Ply is available in a PSA or laminating format, is reinforced with fibreglass or film and comes in a variety of different thicknesses. Bond-Ply provides for the mechanical decoupling of bonded materials with mismatched thermal coefficients of expansion, typical applications include: ■ Bonding bus bars in a variety of electronic modules and sub assemblies ■ Attaching a metal-based component to a heat sink ■ Bonding a heat sink to variety of ASIC, graphic chip, and CPU packages ■ Bonding flexible circuits to a rigid heat spreader or thermal plane.

■ Assembly tapes for BGA heat spreader

Gap Pad The Gap Pad product family offers a line of thermally conductive materials which are highly conformable.

Varying degrees of thermal conductivities and compression deflection characteristics are available. Typical applications include: ■ On top of semiconductor package such as QFP and BGA. Often times, several packages with varying heights can use a common heat sink when utilising Gap Pad ■ Between a PCB or substrate and a chassis, frame or other heat spreader ■ Areas where heat needs to be transferred to any type of heat spreader Gap Pads are available in thickness of 0.010” to 0.200”, and in custom shapes, with or without adhesive.

Sil-Pad Sil-Pad is the benchmark in thermal interface materials. The Sil-Pad family of materials are thermally conductive and electrically insulating. Available in custom shapes, sheets, and rolls, Sil-Pad materials come in a variety of different thicknesses and are frequently used in SMT applications such as: ■ Interface between thermal vias in a PCB, and a heat sink or casting ■ Heat sink interface to many surface mount packages

59 C Adderton Road, Telopea NSW 2117 Tel: (61 2) 9872 9992 Fax: (61 2) 9872 9907 E-mail: sales@tjk.com.au Website: www.tjk.com.au

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MOTION SENSORS FOR NEW

CONSUMER APPLICATIONS Micro Electro Mechanical System (MEMS) for the masses.

Previously limited to automotive and industrial application, MEMS (Micro Electro Mechanical System) are spreading more into the consumer market thanks to the availability of inexpensive, ultra-compact and power-efficient sensing devices.

An extraordinary example of motion tracking and gesture recognition is represented by the latest generation of game consoles, such as the Nintendo Wii, where tiny motion sensors capture the movements of the player that are transformed into game action.

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MEMS technology gives players realistic gaming experience and they can engage with the game through movements that simulate a real tennis match, an intriguing golf competition, an exciting boxing fight or a relaxing fishing contest.

Modern sensors, able to detect motion, orientation and hand gestures are pushing the boundaries of motion sensing technology to game controllers, mobile phones, portable-media-players and to any portable device.

The availability of advanced function in MEMS is fostering

the implementation of more anthropomorphic devices that are able to recognise the gesture of the user, rather than requiring them to learn how to use the interface by reading long and complex user manual.

MEMS breaks the barrier between the user and the application. The sensors act like the â&#x20AC;&#x153;eyesâ&#x20AC;? of the system which measures physical quantities such as accelerations and angular speeds. The electronics processes the information derived from the sensors and, through specific algorithm,

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MEMS pedometer.

MEMS breaks the barrier between the user and the application. recognise the input and activate a corresponding function.

The usage of MEMS is spreading also to mobile phones and PDAs with an increasing number of handset commercially available in the market that exploit this technology. It allows rotating images, videos and web pages from portrait to landscape accordingly to the orientation of the terminal. Navigation through the menu of the phone can also be accomplished by tilting the phone and the different icons displayed on the screen can be selected by simply tapping the phone itself, taking advantage of the advanced digital function embedded

Technology

in the new generation of devices.

MEMS accelerometers allow users to browse through maps and display big images on small screens by simply tilting the device in the desired direction. It can also be employed to detect the shacking of mobile phones and MP3 players using this simple gesture to jump either to the next or to the previous song.

Fitness and wellness monitoring represent a different class of applications. The pedometer is an example of this function that is implemented though the usage of a three-axis MEMS accelerometer. The sensor measures accurately the acceleration acting on the system during the walk/run activity and through the processing of the acceleration data it returns the number of steps taken by the user, an estimation of the speed at which he is moving and the amount of calories that are consumed during the physical activity.

In more advanced implementation, it is possible to share the information over the internet, among people belonging to the same virtual gymnasium. The pedometer represents an important building block for personal navigation devices able to determine the position of the user and to provide route guidance, to find point of interests and to get zone-based advertising. The processing of the signal produced by the sensors allows to substitute the signal from the GPS module in urban areas where it is not reliable or blocked due to underground tunnels, bridges and skyscrapers and for indoor navigation.

MEMS sensor can also be employed for devices that detect the fall of elderly people and to generate an alarm signal for emergency rescue. The location of the injured person needing assistance can also be estimated through the combined usage of MEMS sensors and GPS modules sent over the network: the commercial availability of these instruments will provide safer living environment for the increasingly growing aging population in the near future.

The recent availability of affordable MEMS sensors has revolutionised the way in which people interact with mobile terminals, game console and remote controller allowing the implementation of advanced functions and compelling user interfaces activated through the motion.

In the future, the joint usage of MEMS based accelerometers and gyroscope will allow the implementation of advanced pointing and selection functions by the intuitive gestures of the user. It is reasonable to expect a further deployment of the technology with network of sensors distributed in the surrounding environment and embedded inside our clothes. This will expand the space of possible designs and applications that will allow an even higher interactivity and control of the world in which we live in.

FABIO PASOLINI, STMICROELECTRONICS

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New Products LED backlights Global Lighting Technologies’s (GLT) new LED-based high-brightness backlight is as thin as 0.4mm or less.

The slim molded light guide BLUs are available for backlighting LCDs in consumer electronics products, as well as the keypads/keyboards used in mobile phones and computers.

GLT’s MicroLens light extraction technology and manufacturing

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form light in a thinner form factor with no hot spots or dark areas. The reduction in the number of LEDs needed means less materials required, resulting in lower manufacturing costs.

dBc typical. It's ideal for use in applications such as digital radio equipment, fixed wireless access, satellite communications systems, and base stations.

ports and a DB-9 for the TTL control interface. Applications include automated switching systems, switch matrices and manufacturing test systems.

Global Lighting Technologies http://www.glthome.com/

Crystek Corporation http://www.crystek.com/

ASD Technology (02) 9884 7486 http://www.asdtech.com.au/

Voltagecontrolled oscillator

MicroTCA cube enclosure

Crystek's CVCO55CC-0827-0840 VCO (voltage-controlled oscillator) operates from 827 MHz to 840 MHz with a control voltage range of 0.2V~4.7V. This features a typical phase noise of -124 dBc/Hz at 10KHz offset.

The model is packaged in the industry-standard 0.5in x 0.5in SMD with input voltage of 5.0 V, and a max current consumption of 35 mA. Pulling and pushing are minimised to 0.05 MHz and 0.05 MHz/V, respectively and second harmonic suppression is -18

processes enables the production of light guide packages that are thinner than ever available to original equipment manufacturers (OEM).

MicroLens reduces the number of LEDs required, providing bright, uni-

Rittal’s MicroTCA cube enclosure is the company’s first direct solution for an industrial environment-based MicroTCA.OR1.0 specification.

Made from stainless steel, the cube is stable for use in industrial environments and has compact enclosure dimensions of 307 x 118 x 285/319 mm. This provides for the space-saving installation required by machine controllers and for businesses which operate automation technology applications.

It can be assembled in a variety of ways including mounted on a support rail fitted directly on the enclosure’s mounting plate or straight onto the machine itself.

The cube has seven slots, including six AMC and one MCH, and the Advanced Mezzanine Cards (AMC) are inserted directly in the backplane.

Systems with a high operating capacity and availability can be created in a

EMC EMR SAR SAFETY Accredited testing and global approval services

EMC Technologies Pty Ltd Melbourne Ph: (61 3) 9365 1000 Sydney Ph (61 2) 9624 2777 Brisbane Ph (61 7) 3875 2455 Auckland (NZ) Ph (64 9) 360 0862 www.emctech.com.au

High Quality Electrolytic

Capacitors supplied from Japan

Ginsei Sangyo Co., Ltd. 5-4-1 Shinjuku, Shinjuku-ku, Tokyo, Japan Tel: (81 3) 3356 5715 Fax: (81 3) 3357 4723 E-mail: ginsei@m09.alpha-net.ne.jp 34

Electronics News | June 2008 | www.electronicsnews.com.au

very small space. The MCH (MicroTCA Carrier Hub) performs self-diagnosis and switch functions as well.

Rittal Australia http://www.rittal.com.au 1800 350 665

RF switch ASD technology’s new solid-state non-reflective RF switch features a frequency range of 1MHz to 4.2GHz. Model PS-4.2/2S-5V-TTL-R has a switching speed of <100 nS and the isolation is >50dB at 4.2GHz. Insertion loss is 4.0dB maximum and the operating temperature range is 0 deg C to +70 deg C. The 1P2T configuration features SMA female connectors on all

Force and torque sensors ATI Industrial Automation is one of the largest suppliers of 6-axis F/T sensors. The ATI system incorporates a monolithic instrumented transducer which uses silicon strain gauges for excellent noise immunity, high stiffness and increased overload protection.

These F/T sensors give robot and research applications the ability to sense forces and moments applied in six degrees of freedom (Fx, Fy, Fz, Tx, Ty and Tz). The transducer mounts behind the application tooling and is connected to its support electronics via a small-diameter, high-flex, long-

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life cable. All models are available with either DAQ-F/T or Controller-F/T interfaces.

The type Nano-17, at 17mm diameter, is the smallest F/T sensor in the ATI range and has application in dental research, robotic hand research, robotic surgery and finger force research. At the other end of the scale, with 254mm diameter, is the Omega250 which is commonly used for product testing, force feedback and telerobotics.

ATI Industrial Automation http://www.ati-ia.com

High resolution thermal imagers The HotShot-HD (high definition) thermal imaging cameras from Electrophysics Corp, represented in Australia

by Emona Instruments, offer high performance 640 x 480 resolution, a dual laser hotspot highlighter and advanced image fusion to provide a professional solution.

The series is the next generation release from Electrophysics range of HotShot range of thermal imagers. It combines image quality with a powerful, yet simple to use in-built PDA type touch screen and QWERTY keyboard for data entry and data logging functions.

The thermal imagers also introduce the concept of Route Based Inspections to thermal imaging inspections.

HotShot-HD series feature a temperature range up to 500 degrees celcius, a resolution 640 x 480 VOx microbolometer, 500:1 measurement spot ratio, high-quality megapixel visible light camera, a choice of IR/PIP and fusion image modes and a dual laser target marking system.

Its Automatic Report Generation software automatically generates reports. All the data comes from the image file, which the user generated on-site, eliminating double entry back in the office.

Emona Instruments http://www.emona.com.au/

Electrical connector system ERNI Electronics has developed a new high-speed, differential, board-to-backplane electrical connector system.

The new ERmet ZD+ high-speed differential Hard Metric connector system enables data rates of more than 20Gbit/s.

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New Products

Agilent oscilloscopes

It is based on the principal mechanical design of the ERmet ZD with the same dimensions, with optimised signal routing and the pressfit termination of the female connector.

The new product female connector is mating compatible to the existing ERmet ZD male connector. This means, that existing backplane designs do not need layout changes on the backplane side, if customers want to upgrade their systems.

Agilent Technologies’ Infiniium 90000A Series 13-GHz oscilloscopes were approved by the PCI-SIG (PCI Special Interest Group) for PCI Express (PCIe(r)) 2.0 electrical signal quality testing.

The series offers the world’s deepest acquisition memory depth (up to 1 G points). This gives designers the ability to capture 25 milliseconds of time, at 40 GSa/s, on all four channels simultaneously.

ERNTEC Pty Ltd (03) 9874-8566 http://www.erntec.net

iPod single-chip transceivers Nordic Semiconductor announced that consumer electronics Harman International has specified nRF24L01 single-chip 2.4GHz transceivers to provide the wireless connectivity between its RF remotes and iPod sound stations in both its Harman Kardon Go + Play and JBL Radial models.

The Harman Kardon Go + Play is a portable sound station that uses a pair of two-way 30-watt-RMS speakers each comprising a high-frequency transducer and high-excursion (25mm peak-to-peak travel) woofer. High-end Digital Signal Processors (DSPs) and a computer-optimised 360-degree soundstage deliver class-leading levels of audio detail and dynamics across a full 40Hz to 20kHz frequency-response range.

For PCI Express, the 90000A’s deep memory exceeds the requirement to capture a minimum of one million unit intervals of waveform data for jitter and voltage margin analysis.

The new platform also provides measurement performance and superior signal integrity. The DSO and DSA models are capable of more than 150,000 measurements per second and offer modes supporting more than 300,000 triggers per second.

Agilent Technologies http://www.agilent.com

Battery charger The PB-1000 series, distributed in Australia by Computronics Corporation Ltd, has a 1000W charger for leadacid batteries and available in 12, 24 and 48 volt versions. It features user selectable 2 or 8-stage charging program controlled by an internal microprocessor to quickly and efficiently charge flat batteries or using a more complex 8 stage charging curve to store more energy into the battery banks.

In operation, the nRF24L01 employs Gaussian Frequency Shift Keying (GFSK) modulation optimised for ULP wireless applications. When transmitting the nRF24L01’s supply current is 11 mA peak (at -0 dBm output power, sufficient for 30-ft/10m range).It is supplied with a customised Frequency Agility Protocol (FAP) and can be optimised for either low latency (with an average response time of 2.5ms including RF power on and link up time) or low power with a latency of between 30 and 50ms.

It also features a built-in temperature compensation circuit. An NTC sensor supplied with the charger can be attached to the battery and the output voltage will be adjusted according to the temperature.

Built-in active PFC (Power Factor Compensation) gives PF > 0.95 which complies with the requirement of EN61000-3-2 prescribed in many countries around the world.

Nordic Semiconductor (0)2 8901 0230 http://www.nordicsemi.com

Computronics Corporation Ltd (08) 9470 1177 http://www.computronics.com.au

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OUT&ABOUT

Advantech turns 25 Advantech celebrated its 25 year anniversary during this year’s CeBIT tradeshow at the Sydney Exhibition Centre.

Aside from the anniversary, Advantech also celebrated the newly formed global partnership with Ryarc. The new Digital Signage partnership between the two companies worldwide provides a one-stop solutions for all applications, with the combination of Advantech’s DSA3400 and Ryarc’s CampaignManager.

Aussie calibration lab

Changes to email privacy legislation The Australian Computer Society (ACS) has called on the Federal Government to consider adopting an auditing system for random employee email checks.

The organisation is also asking for alert and logbook systems in the government’s revision of the country’s email privacy laws, to reflect contemporary modes of communication.

The ACS recommends the development of authorisation process and policy to identify who can authorise the accessing of employee emails. Organisations must also maintain a clear logging system of when email records are accessed by a person other than a

participant in the email communication and for what purpose.

An alert system for employees should be imposed if their emails are accessed by a non-participant as part of routine corporate business. ICT practitioners must be bound by a code of conduct which makes it a disciplinary offence for them to use or divulge any information obtained through exercise of any statutory or corporate interception power.

The ACS also recommends that organisations be subject to random audits in order to determine they are not in breach of privacy laws and that they should adopt and publish a clear email and web use policy to their staff.

Published monthly by Reed Business Information Pty Ltd Tower 2, 475 Victoria Avenue Chatswood NSW 2067.

Tel: (02) 9422 2999. Fax: (02) 9422 2977

EDITORIAL Editor: Kristyn Maslog-Levis Tel: (02) 9422 2862. Fax: (02) 9422 2966 kristyn.maslog-levis@reedbusiness.com.au

The Federal Government previously announced a move to give employers the power to vet emails at work based on terrorism powers and concerns. ACS president Kumar Parakala explains that it is timely to consider a more holistic review of laws addressing email access to reflect sophisticated new digital communication channels.

"The Federal Government’s decision to review Privacy Laws to protect national security raises the issue of professional conduct around new technologies and the absence of a robust system of checks and balances to ensure that privacy is protected," Parakala said.

ADVERTISING National Sales Manager: Agnes Beugnon Tel: (02) 9987 2914 Fax: (02) 9422 2722 agnes.beugnon@reedbusiness.com.au

SA & WA Advertising: David Murray Smith AGS Media, Unit 2 497 Marion Road South Plympton, SA 5038 Tel: (08) 8371 5800. Fax: (08) 8371 5900 david@agsmedia.com.au

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Graphic Designer: Ronnie Lawrence ronald.lawrence@reedbusiness.com.au Publisher: Chris Williams Marketing Coordinator: Nicole Conti

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REED ELECTRONICS GROUP Vice President - Stephen Moylan smoylan@reedbusiness.com US East - Mary Mitchell mmitchell@reedbusiness.com US West - Carole Sacino csacino@reedbusiness.com

UK/Europe - Dean Slade dean.slade@rbi.co.uk Christophe Labedan clabedan@reedbusiness.fr

DIARY

Rohde & Schwarz Australia has opened the “first laboratory” in the country to be accredited to perform measurements of radio disturbance and immunity testing receivers to the AS NZS CISPR 16.1.1. “Radio Disturbance Measurement Apparatus” Standard.

The calibration laboratory already complies with the requirements of ISO/IEC 17025, AS 3912.1 and ISO 10012.1 in performing tests, including testing of DC voltmeters, frequency counters, waveform measuring instruments, signal sources, radio transmission measuring equipment, spectrum analysers, RF and Microwave components, power metres and communication systems.

NATA have extended the scope of accreditation to include tests to Class 1.47.04, Bands A, B, C and D, as specified in CISPR 16.1.1. Australian owners of Electrical Noise and Interference measuring receivers now have the option to send their units locally for calibration.

OECC/ ACOFT 2008 Conference, 7-10 July 2008 Sydney, Sydney Convention & Exhibition Centre More info: www.iceaustralia.com/OECC_ACOFT2008/ Increase export sales from your website II 17 July 2008, 4pm EIA, 7 Glen Osmond Road, Eastwood, SA More info: www.eiaa.asn.au/ EIA Career Night 20 August 2008, 7pm Education Centre, Milner Street, Hindmarsh, SA More info: www.eiaa.asn.au/ AI Annual Forum and National Dinner 31 August – 1 September 2008 Hyatt Hotel and Parliament House, Canberra More info: www.aeema.asn.au/

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Defence Force Reservists thrive when put to the test.

There are many benefits you can gain if your employees are Reservists. Navy, Army and Air Force Reservists learn that there is often a better way to do something and have a committed desire to lead others with confidence, maturity and responsibility. They develop a range of new skills and impart their knowledge to others and are always m keen to find a better way to get the job done, thereby contributing to your bottom line. What’s more, by showing your support to your Reservist employees, the Employer Support Payment Scheme can provide financial assistance of more than $1,000* per week, which may be used for offsetting the costs of releasing Reservists for duty and paying for replacement staff. Discover how your business can be enhanced if your employees are Reservists, and learn about the benefits and obligations you have as an employer. With a range of other support services also available to you, you’ll soon see how a Reservist can make all the difference.

Find out more – call 1800 803 485 or visit www.defence.gov.au/reserves *Conditions apply. Visit www.defence.gov.au/reserves for further details.

Australia’s Reserve Forces