Green slime from a stagnant pond may hold the answer to increased production of certain chemicals. So, 55 years ago, started a story in Electronics Weekly’s edition of January 11th 1961 The story continues: The green matter, Chlorella, is a simple micro-organism, easy to grow in the laboratory. Chlorella produces a range of unsaturated acids …
Imec develops wireless EEG headset
Imec and Nihon Kohden have developed a wireless electroencephalogram (EEG) monitoring device for clinical applications. Imec partnered with Holst Centre and Nihon Kohden to design and develop the headset to monitor Emergency Room (ER) and Intensive Care Unit (ICU) patients. A systematic approach was used to tailor electronics design, circuit design and mechanical design to …
TDK Lambda sponsors STEM award for kids
Devon-based TDK-Lambda UK helped bring electronics engineering to life for children and young adults at this year’s Big Bang Fair South West. Held at Exeter University, the one-day event attracted 1,800 students looking into careers in a science, technology, engineering and maths (STEM) related subjects. “Many local businesses participated in the event,” said Anne Sutton, Training …
Surrey firm sells satellite to Honeywell
Surrey Satellite Technology (SSTL) has signed a contract with Honeywell to supply a satellite to demonstrate the two-way VHF Data Exchange System (VDES) payload for the exactEarth maritime satellite constellation. Called the Vesta satellite, the deal is part of a memorandum of understanding Honeywell Aerospace and the UK Space Agency. It is a configuration of the SSTL-12 satellite …
UK and French team up for smallest avionics computer
Essex-based e2v and French design firm Adeneo are to develop a pocket-sized avionics computer weighing under 300g. e2v is providing the processing expertise in the form of QT10A which combines an NXP QorIQ T1040 processor (four 64bit e5500 1.4GHz power architecture cores ) with 1Gbyte DDR3L memory on a custom substrate – it is the first product family called Qormino. …
Plextek unveils phased array GaN MMIC reference design
Cambridge design house Plextek RFI has announced a reference design for a GaN power amplifier (PA) MMIC for use in X-band active phased array radars. “Active phased arrays require numerous PAs,” said Liam Devlin, CEO of Plextek RFI. “Our design has a die size of 1.5 x 2mm, which means around 2,300 can be fabricated …
A Tragedy
If anyone wanted to know why the UK has few major tech companies we’ve had a great explanation this week. ARM was built by decent men – Robin Saxby, Hermann Hauser, Warren East and others of that ilk. It succeeded because of trust. ARM’s customers trusted these men to deliver microprocessors on an impartial basis …
If not ARM, which architecture next for IoT
So let’s assume billions of chips are going to get sold for ‘IoT’, what ever that might be. And let’s assume they were going to have ARM Cortex-M_ cores in them. Now that ARM is no longer independent, I can see two futures: Softbank keeps ARM independent, and CortexM_ continues to be the core inside …
Read full article: If not ARM, which architecture next for IoT
Isolated power driver is the fastest yet at 5.7kV
Texas Instruments has introduced what it claims is the fastest 5.7kVrms isolated dual-channel gate driver. Called UCC21520, propagation delay is 25ns (5ns channel-to-channel matching) and the 4A source and 6A sink output results in 6ns rise and 7ns fall time for a 1.8nF load – meaning faster switching and therefore lower system switching losses for more compact …
22W ac-dc supply for LED light bulbs
Power Integrations has introduced a one-chip non-isolated LED driver for loads up to 22W. Capable of working from inputs from 90 to 305Vac, it is triac (and trailing-edge) dimmable on nominal 110V supplies, but not on 230V supplies. The dimming voltage is a clue here – this chip is aimed at commercial US installations where mains …