Electronix Express Newsletter

October 2006 Issue

Welcome to the October 2006 Issue of the Electronix Express Newsletter

STORIES

Fingerprint Sensor Software Locks Down Laptops?

Webs of Optical Fiber See In All Directions

The China Syndrome

Intel: A Lesson in How NOT to Diversify

Fabrics Get Smart?

Your Name In Lights, On Your Body?

Watches Connected to Wireless Data?

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1. Fingerprint Sensor Software Locks Down Laptops?

A handful of companies have for a number of years been pitching biometric sensors as the best protection for portable PCs and other electronics. Interest in this technology is catching on with some enterprise IT departments. But a technology such as a fingerprint sensor needs software support to supplant or complement a password in protecting notebook PC data. So Fujitsu Microelectronics turned to software partners Phoenix Technologies and Cogent Systems for support in launching its latest sweep sensor, the MBF 320.

The trio is offering a fingerprint sensor that is active before the operating system boots in. Although you must configure the USB 2.0-based sensor at the operating-system level, it operates at the BIOS level after configuration. Phoenix supports the sensor in its TrustedCore firmware, and more than 50% of the company's BIOS customers now ship the TrustedCore software. Meanwhile, Cogent provides the fingerprint-matching engine that the TrustedCore BIOS hosts. The three components offer OEMs a turnkey approach to adding biometric security.

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2. Webs of Optical Fiber See In All Directions

Researchers at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology have fashioned a web of optical fibers into an optical system that boasts potentially useful advantages over conventional 2-D lenses or detectors.

The 1-mm-thick fibers feature a glass core that has metal electrodes running along its length and is encased in a transparent, polymer insulator. When researchers weave these fibers into a spherical shape, they constitute an optical system that with the help of a computer for interpretation can detect the direction, intensity, and phase of incoming light. The fiber spheres can sense light all around them. This is an advantage over conventional lenses, which are limited to the view along a certain axis. The researchers cite flexibility, durability, and low weight as other advantages of the technology over conventional lenses. A densely woven fabric of smaller diameter fibers could one day enable visually aware clothing for soldiers or people with sight impairments, according to the MIT team.

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3. The China Syndrome

China-based Lenovo Group, the Electronic Business 300's growth leader for companies with $10 billion or more in 2005 electronics revenue, found success by making and selling desktop and notebook computers, as well as servers, mobile phones, imaging equipment and a variety of other products, at the lowest possible prices. The company, which acquired IBM's PC operations for $1.75 billion in May 2005, experienced stellar 112.4 percent total electronics revenue growth over the past year.

For truly spectacular growth, there's no beating China's Changhong Electric. Listed top among firms with $2 billion to $5 billion in electronics revenues, Changhong recorded a breathtaking 635 percent growth, more than any other EB 300 company, regardless of size. Owned by the Chinese government, the firm manufactures an array of products, ranging from air conditioners to LCDs to batteries. The company's customers include a variety of global electronics giants, including Microsoft (7.5 percent growth), Sanyo Electric (28.8 percent growth) and Toshiba (8.6 percent growth.

Lenovo and Changhong Electric are just a few of many Chinese tigers that are rapidly reshaping the global electronics industry.

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4. Intel: A Lesson in How NOT to Diversify

Intel's retreat from communications is the biggest reversal in the company's history. On April 27, Intel CEO Paul Otellini announced that the company would cut $1 billion in costs and examine its unprofitable businesses for possible cuts. In June, the company sold off its Xscale handheld and cell phone chip business to Marvell for $600 million plus debut, and sources have confirmed that Intel has put its network processor business up for sale as well. Otellini is bringing Intel full circle, focusing on its bread-and-butter PC business and dispensing with expensive diversifications. The sale of the money-losing communications businesses will close a chapter on how Intel sought to use its profits from its near-monopoly on PC microprocessors to cash in on the rise of the Internet.

Diversification as a strategy made sense. But Intel did so many deals so quickly that it failed to execute on tying everything together. As an example, Intel bought VxTel, a voice-over-IP (VoIP) startup for $550 million in February 2001. But as the market soured during the year and Intel saw that the VoIP market would take time to take off, it canceled most of VxTel's projects and reassigned the engineers to other projects. Then Intel sold off what was left of VxTel for $1 million in 2004. Analysts give Intel good marks for trying to diversify, but poor marks for execution.

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5. Fabrics Get Smart?

If your idea of smart fabrics is a pair of khaki pants that sheds food stains, think again. The smartest fabrics are becoming electroactive, allowing them to address far more important engineering problems. These textiles can help you build flexible sensing systems, detect chemicals, generate mobile power, and perform other tasks. Interestingly, more than 70% of the surfaces we interact with daily are textiles. Once those textiles can carry data and electrical power, it opens up a huge new world of applications.

Electroactive smart fabrics encompass many combinations of textiles and electrically conductive materials. Though manufacturers often base smart fabrics on elastomeric fibers, such as Lycra, they can also create them from a wide variety of synthetic and even natural fibers. Various knit, woven, and nonwoven fabrics can all be smart, too. As for the electrical properties, smart fabrics most commonly contain fine metal wires, either in the yarn of the fabric or in the fabric alongside ordinary textile fibers. Other smart fabrics get their electrical properties from inherently conductive polymers (ICPs) or nanocomposites deposited as coatings on the fabric's fibers.

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6. Your Name In Lights, On Your Body?

Philips Research has demonstrated jackets featuring its Lumalive textiles, which integrate flexible arrays of LEDs into the fabric. The jackets feature 200×200-mm color panels and discreetly concealed battery and electronics packs that the user can, we hope, remember to disconnect and remove before washing.

The company states that the production-ready technology can scale to illuminate drapes, cushions, or even an entire sofa to enhance the observer's mood and positively influence his behavior. We wonder how long it will be before an entrepreneurial hacker couples one of the jackets with a wireless connection and becomes a walking billboard.

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7. Watches Connected to Wireless Data?

Bangalore start-up Innoviti Embedded Solutions has developed a two-chip, wireless product that enables wrist watches to receive personalized messages and news feeds. One chip performs the RF-reception tasks, and the second controls other functions, including timekeeping, power management, and display.

The RF chip operates in the FM band of 88 to 108 MHz and uses the excess bandwidth available in commercial FM-radio-transmission streams to send data as a subcarrier. This approach enables data to coexist with the radio transmission and allows radio stations to use their infrastructure to provide value added services. The company based the controller chip on an 8051 core, and the device has a two-cycle execution with power efficient modes. The watch uses an OLED (organic-LED) display in place of more common LCDs to reduce power consumption. OLEDs are power efficient and slim, and they provide high visibility, even in low-lighting conditions.

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