News & Analysis

Avago Technologies today announced that it has closed its acquisition of Infineon Technologies AG's Polymer Optical Fiber (POF) business unit based in Regensburg, Germany. This acquisition agreement between Avago and Infineon was jointly announced on April 2, 2007.

Maxwell Technologies Inc. (Nasdaq: MXWL) announced today that it has obtained a non-exclusive worldwide license from Enercon GmbH of Aurich, Germany, for a patent covering the use of ultracapacitors in wind energy systems, including their use as backup power source for wind turbine blade pitch systems.

The secrets of climate change and the formation of giant lava flows on Mars may soon be revealed to a British professor and his research team, as they investigate the lava flows from Mount Etna.

ChipX has announced an ongoing relationship for deploying Aniotek’s critical UFC100-F1 Fieldbus Controller in an easy to use Structured ASIC platform. Aniotek selected the ideal slice from ChipX’s CX3000 family of Structured ASICs supporting 3V and 5V I/O for this application. The UFC100-F1 is a pin- and software-compatible alternative to the Yamaha YTZ420 chip that offers improved jitter tolerance and a larger first-in/first-out (FIFO) mem...

STMicroelectronics has introduced a family of energy-metering ICs that incorporate all of the core circuitry necessary to implement a complete meter system without requiring any other active component. The STPM1x family, measuring active energy as pulse frequency output and featuring fast digital calibration, provides electronic meter manufacturers with a complete, cost-effective series of power-metering chips specifically designed for low-end ap...

Just announced by Murata is the LQM31P family of low profile, multilayer, monolithic power inductors. Available in either 0.55mm or 0.95mm height packages, these cost competitive and space saving components are ideal for incorporating into DC/DC converters designed for small portable equipment such as mobile ‘phones and multimedia devices.

As leaders in the Internet Protocol arena, Amplicon is organising a free ‘Focus on IP’ seminar at the Russ Hill Hotel, near Gatwick Airport on Wednesday July 4th. The seminar will give a jargon-free explanation of the whole area of IP, what it is and crucially, what it can offer within a commercial environment.

SiGe Semiconductor, the supplier of RF front-end solutions for wireless systems, has announced the appointment of Fred Shlapak as chairman of the Board of Directors. Shlapak’s addition expands the Board to seven members. “We are honoured that Fred has joined our Board of Directors,” said SiGe Semiconductor CEO Sohail Khan. “He brings over three decades of leadership and operational experience coupled with deep knowledge of the semiconduct...

Petrobras, one of Latin America’s largest oil and gas companies, has selected National Instruments' LabVIEW software and data acquisition hardware to develop a mud-gas separator for underbalanced drilling (UBD) applications. Using NI tools, Petrobras engineers have developed a high-throughput UBD application capable of reducing the time it takes for a well to become fully productive as well as eliminating the need for costly fracturing after th...

STMicroelectronics has announced it is providing the digital broadcasting chipset for SIRIUS Backseat TV, a ground-breaking TV service that delivers live TV from the best family TV programmers directly to vehicles. SIRIUS Backseat TV will be launched later this year in select 2008 model Chrysler, Jeep and Dodge vehicles. SIRIUS Backseat TV, which offers consumers three channels of family TV programming, can be received via an in-vehicle satellit...