Cover Story
Open Source Even for Hardware
Technologies for Implementing User-Generated Devices
Spread
Part 1: The Dissolution of Hardware
With Faster and Cheaper Output Devices, Users Will Begin Making UGDs
Eventually you may be able to download 3D CAD data and print out an actual device at your desk. If the process for developing hardware becomes “soft,” creating UGDs on an individual level could become a reality. Reductions in the prices of output devices and a shortening of the output time will help make it happen.
Part 2: What Must Change
Everything From Frames to LSI Chips, Wherever Users Have Influence
Assuming the age of UGDs arrives, what part of hardware will users actually be able to modify and how? We take a look at the technologies for implementing UGDs in the various hardware areas, including combinations of components, device frames, printed circuit boards, and LSI chips.
Part 3: You Don't Have to Be an Engineer
The Key to Creating New Devices is Simple Tools
Componentization of functions and technical advances will lead to an environment conducive to the easy creation of devices by users, provided user enthusiasm exists. The first step will be to build an environment that will accommodate such enthusiasm by allowing users to try their hand at making devices.
Special Feature
TVs in Transformation as the Use of Si Tuners Expands
Acceleration of Multi-Channel Simultaneous Receiving and Thickness/Size Reduction
With the planned ending of analog broadcasting in approximately 2 years, the tuners used for TV broadcasting are undergoing a major change. ICs called “Si tuners” are beginning to replace RF analog circuits. Additionally, signal-demodulating circuits are also undergoing some evolutionary steps. As we track the changes occurring in these two types of circuits, we begin to envision the direction of further evolutions of TVs in the future.
Goodbye to Hardware-Centric Approach; Software Becoming the Decisive Factor in Camera Competition
Analysis: PMA09
PMA, one of the camera industry’s two major exhibits, was held in Las Vegas, Nevada from March 3 through 5, 2009. The impression received by attendees at the latest exhibit differed greatly depending on their occupation. While sales people complained that there was nothing worth seeing, those in charge of the planning and development of software and image processing expressed excitement that the exhibit was more informative than ever before. This difference clearly demonstrates that the focus of competition has changed.
NE Academy
Intensive Analog Seminar: Session 2
Time-Resolved Circuits and TDC (Part I of II)
We are approaching an era that will see the design of time-resolved analog circuits, in which analog signals areprocessed along a time axis rather than a voltage axis.Such circuits have already been commercialized, and research papers are actively being published. Against this background is the fact that progress in reducing IC/LSI design rules and voltages is making measurement/computation/control utilizing voltage amplitude more difficult. Reflecting on the new tide of analog circuit technologies, we describe circuit operations and application examples with a focus on TDC (time-to-digital converter).
Practical Measurement Seminar: Part I
How Reliable are Your Measurement Results?
In the electronics field, measurement technologies are extremely important. There have been many cases in which products measured before shipment and confirmed to satisfy customers’ required specifications did not actually do so, resulting in major problems. To prevent such problems, it is essential to accurately assess the reliability of the measurements. This article explains the concept of “uncertainty,”a quantitative expression of reliability, from the basics to application.
Embedding Tutorial: Period II, Session 2
Diagram for Use in Developing Software
Designing Software by Diagramming Functions and Configurations
Documentary
How Innovations Happen: Development of Sanyo Electric’s “Xacti” (Part 2)
Cameras with Such Low Image Quality Cannot Possibly Sell
Sanyo Electric withdrew from the video camera industry and entered the digital camera industry in 1995. In order to avoid direct competition with its major OEM customers, the company added video functions to its digital cameras, but their image quality was so low that the captured images could never have beenregarded as proper video. Thus, the company set out to improve the quality of its video images.
Keyword
Mobile WiMAX
Cost Reduction Based on Design Philosophy with Roots in Ethernet
Interview
IBM Corp., IBM Fellow, VP Strategic Alliances & CTO, Systems & Technology Group, Dr. Bernard S. Meyerson: 3-D Technologies to Drive Semiconductor Evolution
IBM Corporation pioneered many semiconductor technologies, including Cu interconnect, strained-Si, and SOI. We asked Dr. Bernard S. Meyerson, an IBM Fellow and CTO of the company's Systems & Technology Group, which includes the Microelectronics Division, to talk to us about the future direction of semiconductor technologies.
Closeup
Medical Electronics: Verification Testing of “Remote Preventive Medicine”
Embedding: OGIS-RI to Provide, Free of Charge, Tool for Visualizing Software Quality Characteristics
Energy: Japan to Adopt German-Style Solar Cell Promotion Measures Beginning in 2010
World Report
From U.S.A.: What Went Wrong? Plan to Cease Analog TV Broadcasting Delayed.
NE Reports
- Third Generation iPod Shuffle Dismantled
- Sanyo Electric Develops New Wafer-Level Chip Scale Package (CSP)
- Sony Installs FeliCa Port in the BRAVIA, Promoting Linkage between TVs and Cellphones
- HP’s New-Generation Multifunction Printer(MFP) Not Doing Well
