ARM has acquired embedded vision specialist Apical for $350 million in cash, The acquisition supports ARM’s long term growth strategy by enabling new imaging products for next generation vehicles, security systems, robotics, mobile and any consumer, smart building, industrial or retail application where intelligent image processing is needed. Apical’s technology will complement the ARM® Mali™ …
Transmitted reference cuts Rx power in IoT radio scheme
Attempting to cut receiver power consumption in IoT sensor nodes, the University of Twente in The Netherlands is proposing a novel technique – effectively moving the Rx local oscillator to the transmitter. Not only that, but its team has found an interesting way to foil front-end amplifier saturation at the same time. Its engineers argue …
Top 10 (+10) Q1 IC Vendors
Thanks to IC Insights for this one – the top 20 semiconductor vendors in Q1:
IQE ties up with Imec for GaN-on-Si
IQE and imec have demonstrated 650V GaN-on-Si power diodes on 200 mm wafers GaN technology offers faster switching-power devices with higher breakdown voltage and lower on-resistance than silicon, making it an ideal material for advanced power electronic components. The partnership builds on promising results achieved in a recent project, in which imec and IQE collaborated …
If At First You Don’t Succeed . . . . .
China is taking to heart the old maxim: If at first you don’t succeed, try, try again. It has found another route into the DRAM business. UMC is to help China make DRAM in an agreement which has been approved by Taiwan’s Ministry of Economic Affairs. China has a problem with its huge trade deficit …
TI claims industry’s fastest 14bit ADC
Texas instruments is claiming the fastest 14bit ADC yet with one that works at 3Gsample/s, delivering “an instantaneous 1.5GHz-per-channel bandwidth, enabling engineers to implement wideband in-phase and quadrature-component receivers beyond 2.5 GHz”, said the firm. The dual-channel ADC32RF45 can be used for direct RF signal conversion up to 4GHz,” said TI. “The first in a new data …
Narrowband green is easier for migraine sufferers
Exposing migraine sufferers to a narrow band of green light significantly reduces photophobia and can reduce headache severity, according to a report by researchers at Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center in Harvard University and published in Brain: Migraine photophobia originating in cone-driven retinal pathways. “Although photophobia is not usually as incapacitating as headache pain itself, the inability …
MEMS photonic integration opens door to 25Gbit/s
IRT Nanoelec in Grenoble has integrated a III-V/silicon laser and silicon Mach Zehnder modulator to transmit at 25Gbit/s down a single 10km optical fibre, claiming this to be a first. “This transmission rate usually is achieved using an external source, over a 10km single-mode fibre,” said the R&D organisation, which is predicting increased bandwidth and reliability …
ARM multi-core v8 test chip fabbed on TSMC 10nm finfet process
ARM today announced the first multicore, 64-bit ARMv8-A processor test chip based on TSMC’s 10FinFET process technology. Simulation benchmarks show impressive power and efficiency gains relative to TSMC’s 16FinFET+ process technology, which is currently used to implement chips powering many of today’s leading premium smartphones. The successful validation of the test chip (tape out completed …
ARM multi-core v8 test chip fabbed on TSMC 10nm finfet process
Imagination goes with Debian OS for MIPS64 processors
Imagination is working with the Debian Project to accelerate development of the open source Debian operating system for its 64-bit MIPS processors. As part of its work with the project, Imagination is providing the project several MIPS64 processor based platforms, its calls SDNA-7130, for development and evaluation purposes. The SDNA-7130 (Software Defined Network Appliance) platforms …