Although 2007 is shaping up to be a difficult year for the auto manufacturers, especially those lines devoted to large SUVs and trucks, the reality of high gas prices is the Achilles heel to auto manufactures. Demand for these vehicles is prompting production and job cuts. With that being said, there are many opportunities for [...]

Last week STmicroelectronics announced it next ARM MCU, STM32, based on the ARM Cortex-M3 core. ST’s first general market ARM MCU, STR710 was introduced in 2004. This is ST’s first Cortex M3 MCU.
ST stated it was responding to customers asking for higher performance but with low power consumption. The company claims it is delivering on [...]

Recently Intel announced its Intel 3 Series Chipset formerly known as Bearlake. This chipset is designed for the upcoming quadcore MPU code named Penryn, Intel’s first MPU in 45nm.
Intel 3 will be known as the X38 and G35 Express Chipset. This family will feature a front side bus (FSB) of 1,333 MHz and support DDR3-1333. [...]

PowerQUICC has been a mainstay in the communications market for several years. Customers have found uses for it elsewhere. Last week Freescale announced a formal program to target industrial control and general purpose applications with PowerQUICC.
PowerQUICC is the PowerPC with a communications core added. The Industrial market is moving toward Ethernet-based networks. Freescale is offering [...]

Last week Freescale announced its latest 3D Accelerometer (MMA7450L) and new Proximity Capacitive Touch Sensor Controllers (MPR081/2).
The MMA7450L is Freescale’s first accelerometer with digital output. It provides three levels of g-level selection and a freefall detect pin. Freescale is offering this in a smaller package and with lower current consumption. The goal is to match [...]

Recently ARM announced its AMBA Verification IP. ARM has been growing at a strong pace driven by the mobile communications market. However, the non-mobile segment, while smaller, is growing at a faster rate. This includes enterprise, home and embedded control applications.
Another growing trend is multi-core. The eventual result will be much more complex SoC’s. These [...]

In recent weeks Akustica has made two major announcements. One is a high definition microphone and the other the world’s smallest microphone.
The high definition voice product is aimed at the emerging demand for higher bandwidth for VoIP. Akustica is in discussions with Skype and Google Talk.
The smallest microphone is the result of a die shrink [...]

Last week Microchip Technology announced further expansion of its burgeoning 16-bit product line. Microchip has become the leading vendor of 8-bit MCUs. However, it is also growing in the 16-bit MCU space with both standard MCU and Digital Signal Controllers (DSC) which are MCUs with DSP functionality. The new products are PIC24 and dsPIC33.
Microchip is [...]

Last week Semico had the opportunity to visit Interop at Mandalay Bay. With over 400 exhibitions, it was hard to pick a favorite, so here are some of the products that caught our attention.
For enterprise solutions the AdderLink ipeps (IP-engine-per-server) stood out among the KVM switches. A KVM-via-IP product, the palm-sized AdderLink ipeps enables computer [...]