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Welcome to the November 2005 Issue of the Electronix Express Newsletter
STORIES
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The smaller, U.S.-based contract manufacturers that carve out a niche, are doing so by providing great customer service and excellent product quality. Even when their suppliers and customers are located in the U.S., small and midsize EMS manufacturers labor under obvious disadvantages compared to the big companies. For one thing, they have shallower pockets and lower production capacity. When large EMS companies move their operations to low-cost regions, the disadvantages for their smaller competitors multiply. For an offshore company, labor, property and overhead costs drop precipitously. Not so for a domestic player, which still has to pay U.S. rates for everything. Small U.S.-based EMS manufacturers haven't disappeared and aren't likely to. First, these companies' business models differ vastly from the big manufacturers'. "A big tier-1 player has volume going for it," says Pick. Business models for most small companies include specific niches; intimate customer service; and proximity to their OEM customers. Most, but not all, smaller players also tend to support customers with low-volume needs.
Second, small players aggressively and continuously strive to increase quality and efficiency. That alone can entice customers to bring production back to the U.S.
EMS companies Avo Photonics, Electronic Technologies International and SMC Electronics Manufacturing Services illustrate how small U.S.-based businesses can successfully compete in the highly competitive $100 billion global EMS arena. All three are privately owned, and each has annual revenue of less than $50 million.
Headed by EarthLink founder Sky Dayton, the company says it's trying to bring the culture of phone use in South Korea--where networks are more advanced and subscribers spend far more time and money on multimedia and entertainment features--to the United States.
"We're really behind the times when it comes to wireless in the United States," Dayton said. "I think a lot of people are tired of waiting." With fashion-conscious phones, a simple pricing menu, and even a few flagship stores planned, Helio seems to hope to become the Apple Computer of the phone world. But it's launching into what could be an extraordinarily difficult market.
The joint venture is what's known in the mobile phone world as an MVNO, or mobile virtual network operator. That means that it won't actually own cellular towers or networks itself, and will instead buy time and access to the high-speed networks of Sprint Wireless and Verizon Wireless.
Part of Helios' draw will be to introduce advanced Korean phones into the U.S. market, which has generally been a year or two behind Asian markets in terms of handset capabilities and design, Dayton said. The phones will use the high-speed data networks, called EV-DO, operated by Sprint and Verizon.
Nokia will work with the Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence Laboratory (CSAIL) at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology to research new areas of mobile technology. Nokia and the university are setting up a new research center close to the MIT campus in Cambridge, Mass. The center will come into operation on January 1, 2006.
At the new Nokia Research Center in Cambridge, 20 researchers each from CSAIL and Nokia will work together on new concepts and products that the center's founders hope will make mobile phones part of an ecosystem of information, services, peripherals, sensors and other devices. The facility will also work on new user-interfaces that incorporate speech and other functions, new mobile computing platforms that use low power and wireless communication, and improved software architectures.
The new center will be headed by Dr. James Hicks from Nokia Research Center.
Fujitsu Microelectronics America has introduced an ASSP that supports FlexRay 2.0. It will be useful for automotive applications such as engine control, braking, and steering.
The MB88121 delivers 10 Mbps over two channels and provides fault-tolerant, deterministic data transmission. The device uses IP from Robert Bosch GmbH, which Fujitsu licensed in January. FlexRay 2.0 supports a faster and more reliable bus than other standards for vehicle applications. The standard is also backward-compatible with existing automotive buses including CAN (controller area network) and LIN (local interconnect network).
Engineers who are working for auto companies and their tier-one supporters are now beginning to develop the first 'x-by-wire' applications for early adoption. The benefits of the single-chip means that the auto industry can move ahead with brake-by-wire, steer-by-wire, and stability-control systems that make cars and trucks safer, more stable, and more reliable.
The MB88121, which comes in a 64-pin LQFP, is available in production quantities and costs less than $5 (10,000). The company plans to introduce a 48-pin version.
Toshiba Corporation announced a prototype of a very compact direct methanol fuel cell (DMFC) that could be integrated into small electronic devices such as digital audio players and wireless headsets for mobile phones. The company it will be exhibiting two new MP3 players powered by the new fuel cell - a flash player that can operate for approximately 35 hours on a single 3.5-ml charge of concentrated methanol, and hard-disk player that can operate for approximately 60 hours on 10 ml of methanol. They will be exhibited at CEATEC Japan, which starts on 4 October.
Fuel cell design can be active or passive fuel delivery systems. Active systems use a pump and fan to feed methanol and oxygen into the cell stack where the oxygen reacts with the methanol to produce electricity. Passive systems rely on a concentration gradient to supply methanol and oxygen to the cell stack and circulate it through the stack. Active systems generate more energy, but they are more complex and are better suited to large fuel cells. The Toshiba DMFC employs a passive system.
As electronics permeate the car, software reliability takes on paramount importance. Industry organizations and tool vendors are acting to help engineers ensure the quality of code that can have life-or-death implications. With increasing software complexity, error-free software assumes importance equal to defect-free hardware. As vehicle manufacturers add more and more systems, they must ensure not only that each individual system operates correctly, but also that the various subsystems interact properly.
The industry is attempting to address software-quality issues through initiatives such as MISRA-C: 2004, a set of recommended programming practices that the Motor Industry Software Reliability Association (www.misra.org.uk) developed. The organization launched Version 1 in 1998 as a set of 128 rules that make writing C code safer. Since that time, the guidelines have found applications everywhere from aerospace to mining.
As a result, many compiler vendors offer MISRA-C code checkers and have changed their own sources to be compliant. Meanwhile, the core MISRA group continues to work with peers from the US-based SAE (Society of Automotive Engineers); its Japanese equivalent, the JSAE; JAMA (the Japanese Automotive Manufacturers Association); and groups from the ISO (International Organization for Standardization). The new Version 2 specification adds some new rules for arithmetic operations and refines the original document. Version 2 also replaces some blanket rules with specific directives and hardens some advisory rules into do-or-don't guidelines.
Embedded motor control for robotic applications is changing medical research and procedures, from the drug-development lab to the radiology department to the operating room. Robotics has profoundly affected the efficiency of drug-discovery research. A linear motor, which is effectively an "uncurled" electrical motor that has a flat stator, produces a linear motion instead of a rotation, and is useful for managing precise amounts of liquids. In addition to managing the accurate dispensing of less-than-microliter quantities of liquids, these systems can accurately manage and position thousands of tubes or phials at a time. Servo motors can be precise enough to rotate, drive, and position the carousels of tubes.
The motion-control system may use a variety of techniques, such as analyzing the motor-current draw and employing position encoders, to detect whether the machine has made contact with the patient and to avoid potential injury.
Robotic surgical-assistance devices have made great strides in recent years. Today, they even support minimally invasive heart surgery through 1-cm ports in the patient.
Acoustic neuromas are benign tumours that grow in the nerve connecting the ear and inner ear to the brain. They appear close to where people usually place their mobile handsets, so it was an obvious choice of cancer for the scientists to investigate.
The study was carried out in five countries (Britain, Denmark, Finland, Norway and Sweden) that established mobile networks early on and have a high mobile phone penetration, on 678 people with acoustic neuroma. It compared their use of mobile phones over a 10-year period with a group of 3553 people who had not developed the condition.
Adding to the topic's popularity is a recently released book titled "Everything Bad Is Good for You: How Today's Popular Culture Is Actually Making Us Smarter". This book makes the claim among other things, that TV and video games can enhance a child's cognitive abilities. According to Harvard professor Chris Dede, 'No matter what age you are, your learning style can be shaped by the kind of media you use.' In view of this fact our tiny brains find some sense in the notion that we all will need more mental calisthenics to stay fit in the digital age.
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