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Nikkei Electronics

March 27 2006 Issue

Keyword .  .  .  p. 10

PSE Law

What’s New .  .  .  p. 30

• The PS3’s Launch Is Delayed until November
• The Launch of SED TV Is Delayed
• Jupiter Telecommunications to Provide an HDD Equipped STB for 840 Yen per Month
• PMA Camera Trade Show: Many Ultra Sensitive and Other Devices Appear
• Intel Reveals Details of Its Next Generation Microprocessor Architecture
• Renesas Technology Proposes a New Architecture to Speed up Internal and External Communications within SiPs
• Sumita Optical Glass Develops a Combined LSI Laser and Optical Fiber for a White Light Source
  
  

Leading Trends

Digital Controls Will Completely Change Power Sources[Supply].  .  .  p. 55
Digitally-controlled power supply circuits equipped with functions for detailed setting of output characteristics according to the software are starting to attract a lot of attention.  There is a possibility the role of power supply circuits within electronic devices will change considerably.

CeBIT 2006 Detailed Report: Korea, Taiwan and China Show Their Momentum in Mobile Phones and Personal Computers.  .  .  p. 67
Exhibitors from Taiwan, China and South Korea were a major presence at CeBIT 2006, the world’s largest electronics and information technology fair held in March in Hanover, Germany. They displayed a string of new products related to mobile phones and personal computers.  You barely noticed Japanese manufacturers were there.

Cover Story

The Scenario for the Evolution of Digital Home Electronics as Drawn by Telecommunications Carriers.  .  .  p. 85
Nippon Telegraph and Telephone Corporation (NTT) and other fixed-line telecommunications operators (“carriers”) around the world are pursuing the construction of next-generation IP networks. 
Carriers can use these next-generation networks (NGNs) to ascertain data on users, or terminals, and service data in order to provide the most suitable communications services.  Connection with terminals will be essential if this concept is to take off.  Carriers have their minds on vertical integration as they focus on the development of digital home electronics.


(Part 1) General Overview.  .  .  p. 86
NTT wants to be like NTT DoCoMo—targeting connection between fixed lines and Internet-connected home electronics

(Part 2) Terminals.  .  .  p. 94
SIP terminals in mobile terminals to home electronics

(Part 3) Communications Infrastructure.  .  .  p. 100
Open source, low-price, high quality communications equipment

Interview

Eastman Kodak’s Vice President and Kodak Japan’s President Yusuke Kojima: “‘Japan + Something’ Is the Key to Winning in the Worldwide Market”.  .  .  p. 105

Tech Tale

The Trajectory of Hand Motion Compensation Technology (Part 4): “From the Middle of ‘Destruction and Creation’”  .  .  p. 108

Guest Paper

Plating Technology to Reduce Whiskers; Avoid Short Circuits from Narrow Pitch Connectors.  .  .  p. 113
Many device manufacturers agonize over the hair-like metallic crystals called “whiskers” that appear on connectors and flexible circuit boards.  Longer whiskers grow to a length of well over 100µm.  These whiskers cause short circuits between terminals leading to signal failure.  Failures caused by whiskers have recently surfaced with the advanced use of lead-free plating, a response to the RoHS Directive to be enforced in Europe from June 2006. 
With implementation of the RoHS Directive just around the corner, most manufacturers are accepting the extra costs involved in switching to gold plating, through which whiskers are not formed.  Panasonic Shikoku Electronics Co., Ltd., however, joined up with Ormecon Chemie GmbH & Co. KG of Germany to develop a plating technique to control whisker formation without having to use gold.  Panasonic Shikoku Electronics explains to us the features and effects of their technique.

NETs Buyers’ Guide

Lead Free Solder.  .  .  p. 120
The electronics industry has worked as a whole for the last 10 years or so to eliminate the use of lead in solders, and those efforts are drawing close to completion with the June 2006 implementation of European restrictions on hazardous substances, the RoHS Directive, just around the corner.  Demand for lead-free solders is diversifying, which is why solder manufacturers offer device manufacturers solders to match their needs. 
In clarifying the features of the different types of lead-free solders, this article introduces the mainstream Sn-3Ag-0.5Cu product lineup.  Manufacturers are competing with each other in the supply of solders that support high-temperature preheating and high-speed printing processes.

NETs Seminar

Validation Method for Embedded Software (Final).  .  .  p. 126
The final installment in this series describes software configuration management tools.  Currently only a minority of organizations carry out configuration management systematically during embedded software development.  We provide a simple comparison of the different configuration management tools. 

The Expectations for Electronic Paper (Part 2): A Myriad of Electronic Book Readers Appear around the World.  .  .  p. 131
United States company, E Ink Corporation, put its “electrophoretic” electronic paper to practical use ahead of the competition.  Reading devices employing the company’s electronic paper are already on sale and the number of such products is expected to rise further in 2006. 
In this installment, we receive an explanation of how e-paper is applied in reading devices, which are a major application of the technology, and we hear about E Ink’s product development direction.

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Keyword:	10
News Ranking	12
What's New:	30
Selected Shorts:	47
Leading Trends:	55
Cover Story:	85
Interview:	105
Tech Tale:	108
Guest Paper:	113
NETs:	120
Calendar:	152
From the Readers:	156
From the Editors:	157