Worldwide sales of semiconductors declined 1.2 per cent in April to $18.2bn from the $18.4bn reported in March, according to the US-based Semiconductor Industry Association (SIA). This was due to slipping DRAM prices and cheaper mobile phone ICs. “Despite the slight decline in April sales, the overall outlook for the semiconductor industry remains strong,” said George Scalise, president of the ...

They are very flexible, have the ability to slash component count which ultimately results in saving costs, but are...

FPGA firm to more than double Scottish team as it exploits growth in wireless chips

Devon-based microwave products specialist The Waveguide Solution (TWS) has spawned a company to offer design, development and validation services to the RF and microwave industry. The new firm will be called RF Microwave Design. Ben Cartridge, business development director at TWS, said that existing design companies don’t have access to the machining, manufacturing, and supply chain experience that the new ...

Hardware designers should benefit more from advances in software development, says George Saul

Trials which will influence the commercial rollout of unlicensed mobile access (UMA) technology are being undertaken by seven European operators using Motorola’s technology, although rollout will also depend on handset availability. “Commercial availability will depend… on the success of these trials, which are technology and user behaviour trials. So we’ll see what the outcome of them is,” said Tom Mockridge, ...

Supporting the evolving bandwidth needs of the next-generation wireless and networking infrastructure, IDT has added devices to its multi-port and first-in/first-out (FIFO) families. The 36Mbit synchronous dual-port device offers the industry’s largest density and delivers 133MHz performance to address demanding applications such as wireless base stations, routers, and Ethernet, ATM and storage switches. Likewise, the TeraSync FIFO is the first ...

IDT has expanded its portfolio of packet-exchange flow-control management (FCM) products to include a new multi-function suite of system packet interface (SPI) devices. The packet-exchange family includes three products that solve interconnect problems in Core/Metro/Edge-based networking markets. It comprises integrated solutions supporting 10Gbit/s packet processing and offers a wide range of options for logical port density and buffering capabilities, ranging ...

IDT has proved its commitment to standards-based serial switching with the introduction of its PRECISE family of PCI Express devices, consisting of four bridging and switching products. Aimed at high-performance server and storage applications, the PRECISE family will provide cost-effective PCI Express I/O expansion and bridging solutions.  IDT will also offer customers a complete hardware/software development kit that includes evaluation ...

Several new products for DDR2-667 registered dual in-line memory modules (R-DIMMs) have been launched by IDT.  The products include a set of phase-locked loop (PLL) clock drivers and register products, as well as the industry’s only DDR2 667MHz register validation board (RVB). Expanding its industry-leading DDR2 product portfolio to support the new, higher performance speed-grade standard, IDT offers customers an ...