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Nikkei Electronics

September 11 2006 Issue

Keyword .  .  .  p. 10

Whisker

What’s New .  .  .  p. 34

• Sony Voluntarily Recalls 6 Million Li-Ion Rechargeable Batteries Due to Fear of Combustion
• Creative Labs and Apple’s Patent Settlement May Herald the Beginning of a Strong UI IP Position for Creative
• Development of Visual Recognition LSIs Accelerates with Full-Scale Deployment in Automobiles
• Hitachi Develops a Direct Modulation IC Laser Operating at 40Gbps
• LED Signal Devices Aren’t Visible to “Drive Recorders” for a Few Seconds
  
  

Leading Trends

“Very Low Pricing” Creates the World for Information Terminals.  .  .  p. 51
There is a boom in the development of PCs and mobile phones for BRICs and other developing countries. The aim is to break into untapped latent markets with PCs for US$100 and mobile phones for US$20.

CarTronics Taipei 2006: Taiwanese Strength Finds a Path for Automotive Information Devices.  .  .  p. 63
Taiwan has grown into a worldwide development and manufacturing base for electronic appliances, particularly PCs, mobile phones, and LCD monitors. But now, car electronics is set to take over. A car electronics exhibition held in mid-August 2006 was bursting with automotive devices that made use of IT originally developed for household appliances.

Buyers’ Guide

Triaxial Acceleration Sensors.  .  .  p. 71
Triaxial acceleration sensors, which can measure acceleration in all three of the X, Y and Z axes with a single element, have begun to be adopted in a wider range of applications. In the field of consumer goods, they were first used to protect the HDDs of portable music players and notebook PCs against being dropped, and their price fell when they began to be used in mobile phones, the controllers of game consoles, and other devices. The models in focus here are the MEMS sensors which detect low levels of acceleration and are suited to miniaturization. Further expansion of applications is likely from 2006 into 2007, when the current price of around 200 yen per unit approaches 150 yen.

Cover Story

There Are No Blueprints—Moving away from “Programming Above All Else”.  .  .  p. 95
With a shift from “writing a program” to “drawing a design,” conceptions of software development are set to change. If we continue with the traditional system of development centered on source codes, further emergence of numerous quality issues is inevitable. But if we switch to the model base development system centered on design drawings, it will become easier to improve quality, which should also raise development efficiency.


What Is a Model?.  .  .  p. 98
From “writing” to “drawing”
A development system centered on design drawings is inevitable

FAQs.  .  .  p. 108
Understanding model base development in 10 minutes

Case Studies.  .  .  p. 110
Pentax / Riso Kagaku / Kenwood

Fundamental Technologies.  .  .  p. 115
Improving reusability by converting to models
Coordination including continuous models

Interview

Toyo University’s Board of Trustees, Chairman, Takuo Sugano: “Gather Together World Class Personnel in One Place”.  .  .  p. 127

Tech Tale

Renewing Information Is the Key to a Car Navigation System (Part 5): HDD Based Map Renewal Started in the US.  .  .  p. 130

Guest Paper

Asynchronous LSI’s with No Need for Clocks Allow the Creation of a Development Environment that Makes Design Easier.  .  .  p. 137
Handshake Solutions, an operations division of Philips Electronics, has joined together with ARM to develop the ARM996HS 32-bit CPU core, which is based on asynchronous digital circuit technology and does not use a clock signal. Compared to synchronous digital circuits, which do use a clock signal, asynchronous digital circuits, in which electricity is in the main used only by circuits required for the performance of calculations, have the advantage of greatly reducing electricity consumption. In the design, the asynchronous LSI development environment developed by Handshake Solutions was employed.
The new CPU core also has the special feature of allowing use in parallel with the EDA tools of a synchronous LSI and mounting of asynchronous digital circuits using a standard cell library. The increased circuit area, which has been cited as a drawback of asynchronous digital circuits, has also been overcome. This article explains the development environment together with the features of the ARM996HS.

NETs Seminar

Interactive Interface Functionality for Next Generation Optical Disks (Part 3): Blu-ray Java Allows Full Control of AV, However, It Won’t Accept Improper Alterations .  .  p. 148
Using Blu-ray Java, which realizes interactive interface functionality through Blu-ray Discs, users can use already stored audiovisual content and create original cuts or add or update content. Here, we look at the audiovisual playback control functions, virtual package functions, and security functions which support actions of this kind. (By Naoki Asakawa, Nikkei Electronics)

US Measures to Comply with the RoHS Order Move Slowly .  .  .  p. 153
The RoHS directive, which bans the use of hazardous substances, came into effect in the European Union on July 1, 2006. However, many US companies are still unclear about this regulation. While industry associations have issued documents announcing measures against the use of lead and other steps, there are many firms whose RoHS directive compliance measures are still at the planning stage.

The Start of the IPTV Standardization Process (Part 3): Guarantying a Fixed Quality Level over an IP Network.  .  .  p. 156
In two previous articles we have focused on three of the four elements required to realize an IPTV service: guaranteed uniformity of the rebroadcast signal, guaranteed anonymity, and methods for restricting the service area. This final article looks at methods for guaranteeing steady service quality.

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Keyword:	10
News Ranking	12
What's New:	34
Selected Shorts:	43
Leading Trends:	51
Buyer's Guide:	71
Cover Story:	95
Interview:	127
Tech Tale:	130
Guest Paper:	137
NETs:	148
Calendar:	196
From the Readers:	200
From the Editors:	201