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Nikkei Electronics

January 30 2006 Issue

Keyword .  .  .  p. 10

Web 2.0

What’s New .  .  .  p. 30

• The Anatomy of the “Intel iMac”
• Microsoft’s FAT Patents Are Declared to Be “Valid”
• SANYO Electric’s $800 HDTV Camera to Use SD Memory Card and OLED
• Fuji Photo Film Develops a CMOS Sensor Using Organic Materials
• As Embedding Components within PCBs Gains Attention, Many Japanese Manufacturers Move into Mass Production
• KDDI Strengthens its Line of Mobile Phones Capable of Playing Music
  
  

Leading Trends

2006 International CES: Digital CE Devices Are Driven by Networks.  .  .  p. 53
Digital consumer electronics themselves were not centerpiece to the world’s largest consumer electronics show, 2006 International CES.  
Taking center stage were network services.  All the major companies that delivered keynote speeches proceeded to announce enhancements to their online services.

From the 2006 Detroit Motor Show: Hybrid Cars Flower in the U.S..  .  .  p. 69
At the Detroit Motor Show, North America’s largest auto exhibition held from January 14 to 22, 2006, U.S. and Japanese automakers put on display their latest hybrid models and concept cars.  Competition between electronics companies manufacturing secondary batteries, motors and other hybrid vehicle parts is also intensifying.

Cover Story

Reconfigurable Radio Arrives to Help with the Ever Changing World of Wireless.  .  .  p. 87
Reconfigurable radio—one chip continually transforming itself to receive signals for a diversifying range of wireless services: mobile phones, wireless LAN, and digital broadcasting.  RF signals of varying frequencies and bandwidths are able to be converted to baseband.  
There are two main methods to do this: by filtering the signals after they have been converted straight to baseband through sampling at RF band frequencies; and by making frequency characteristics of analog circuits variable.  
A number of these types of chips are going to emerge from 2006.


(Part 1) Impact.  .  .  p. 88
Enter the age of the universal terminal for band and frequency flexibility

(Part 2) Realization Approach.  .  .  p. 94
The emergence of various next-generation reconfigurable RF chips

(Part 3) Application.  .  .  p. 106
Cognitive wireless systems—frequency, time and space adaptability

Interview

Canopus Chairman & CEO Hiroshi Yamada: “We Are Becoming the Subsidiary of a Large French Company to Compete with Sony on a Global Basis”.  .  .  p. 111

Tech Tale

The Refrigerator that Increases Vitamin C Using LEDs (Final): “We Have to Increase Other Nutrients”.  .  .  p. 114

Guest Paper

Using Ferrite Coatings to Counter EMI Brings the Same or Better Results than Sheets.  .  .  p. 119
Equipment designers have always had to wrestle with the age-old problem of unwanted electromagnetic interference (EMI).  Despite efforts to control EMI right from the substrate layout design stage, EMI measurements taken from prototypes sometimes exceed standard levels.  
In addition to that, more compact and thinner devices mean there is less room to mount components for combatting EMI.  These circumstances, and especially a focus on thinness, have led to a rise in the use of EMI shielding sheets in recent years.
However, as EMI shielding sheets, which have made use of the marginal space between chassis and printed circuit board, approach 10µm thickness, their effectiveness has started to peak.  
This article explains ferrite coating, which is attracting attention as a technology that could enable still thinner devices and more effective EMI shielding than current EMI shielding sheets.

NETs Buyers’ Guide

Small Fingerprint Sensors for Mobile Phones.  .  .  p. 128
New privacy protection legislation that came into effect in April 2005 and the increasing use of electronic payment via portable devices have sparked moves to adopt biometric authentication, which provides for a relatively high level of security.
The authentication of individuals using fingerprints is characteristically reliable as it has a long history and is the official method employed by the police and other public institutions in the identification of people.  
Recently a stream of new fingerprint sensors with functions besides personal authentication have come onto the market featuring, for example, colored sensor areas for greater emphasis on design, and functions that you can operate in a similar way to a touch pad by sliding your finger across the surface of the sensor.

NETs Seminar

An Usability Seminar for Embedded Engineers (Final): Aim to Further Improve Usability by Reflecting User Inclinations in the Design Process.  .  .  p. 132
The last installment in our series on methods for improving the usability of embedded devices introduces the “human-centric design process.”  Usability of devices can be enhanced by visualizing the usage patterns of typical users and actually asking users for their opinions, then incorporating those preferences into design.

Validation Method for Embedded Software (Part 3): Developing the Model Test Tool “Garakabu”.  .  .  p. 138
The two previous installments have provided an overview of validation methods for embedded software.  This installment explains one formal verification approach that has gained particular attention of late—model checking.  
CATS Co., Ltd, in charge of writing this series, and Fukuoka Laboratory for Emerging and Enabling Technology of SoC (FLEETS), chiefly tell us about the tool they have developed.

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Keyword:	10
News Ranking	12
What's New:	30
Selected Shorts:	43
Leading Trends:	53
Cover Story:	87
Interview:	111
Tech Tale:	114
Guest Paper:	119
NETs:	128
Calendar:	174
From the Readers:	178
From the Editors:	179