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ECA Reports Upswing in Component Orders

Electronic component orders in September continued the upward momentum from August, according to the four-to-five-week index compiled by the Electronic Components, Assemblies & Materials Association (ECA). The 12-month average remained relatively flat.

The pattern depicted by the ECA report is remarkably similar to last year; if it holds, the upswing will continue through October and subside before the holidays.

"Electronics supply and demand is not a chain, but a wheel with continuous flow among raw materials, production, distribution, consumption and recycling," says ECA President Bob Willis. "The key is understanding what is happening within this complex system of interdependent groups, and having the understanding to adjust quickly."

The ECA represents manufacturers and producers of passive and active electronic components, component arrays and assemblies, and materials and support services.

RF Tester Supports China's TD-SCDMA Standard

Tektronix Inc. now includes TD-SCDMA, the mobile telecommunications standard developed for China, as an option to its NetTek wireless RF field tester.

The company claims to be the first in the industry to provide TD-SCDMA RF field test and measurement capabilities in a handheld form, enabling network providers, network equipment manufacturers and contractors to easily diagnose TD-SCDMA node B transmitter problems and effectively manage the roll out of the new technology.

"Tektronix's NetTek suite of RF field test applications will help us deliver the quality and reliability that our customers have come to expect from the new standard, leading to increased 3G services adoption and subscribers' satisfaction," said Wensheng Xu, senior technical manager of the product testing department at Datang Mobile.

Tektronix's RF field test solution combines hand-held spectrum analyzer, GPS location information and internal mapping capabilities to create a field-ready frequency- clearing tool for spotting and dealing with erroneous RF signals. Additional capabilities include demodulation measurements for new technologies, including W-CDMA and HSDPA.

Agilent Announces Organizational Changes

Agilent Technologies, Inc. of Santa Clara, California, reports that David Cooper, senior vice president, finance and treasurer, was leaving the company November 3 to join Art.com, Inc. as its chief financial officer.

Didier Hirsch, Agilent's corporate controller, will assume the responsibility of vice president controller, while Hilliard Terry, Agilent's director of investor relations, becomes vice president and treasurer. Both positions report to Adrian Dillon, executive vice president finance and administration and CFO. Terry will retain responsibility for investor relations until his successor is named.

Dillon said, "I want to thank David for his contributions to Agilent's success over the past 18 months, particularly those in the area of innovative financing and capitalization.

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Laird Technologies Establishes Presence in India

Laird Technologies, a leading designer and manufacturer of antennas, EMI shielding, telematics and thermal management solutions, will open a manufacturing facility in Chennai, India.

Expected to open in mid-2007, the 150,000 square-foot building will initially accommodate antenna production followed by EMI products for handset applications. Laird plans to expand the scope of the new plant to include design engineering, research and development, tooling and manufacturing of all the company's products used to support customers in India.

"The establishment of this new facility and organization in Chennai is just the start of what we anticipate to be a much more extensive presence for Laird Technologies in India in the future," said Martin Rapp, Laird's CEO.

The company also will establish a local technical sales force to support the Indian market.

Israeli EMI Filters Come to the U.K.

EMC Solutions has been appointed the sole United Kingdom distributor for Israeli manufacturer RF Immunity. Established in 2001, RF Immunity is fast becoming one of the world's leading designers and manufacturers of EMI/RFI filtered connectors and other filtered modules.

David Hobbs, sales director of EMC Solutions comments, "RF Immunity's products are based on highly advanced filtering technology and techniques, with the emphasis on the design and manufacture of a unique filtering solution, made to meet each customer specific requirement."

Products from RF Immunity offer miniaturization and quality and are designed to meet extreme environmental conditions. These high performance devices make them ideally suited for a variety of military, commercial, avionic and other applications.

RF Immunity's product range includes diverse forms of frequency filtering: filtered connectors, filtered units for single line and multichannel configurations and protective devices for power supply systems. They are designed to meet the rigors of Def-Stan 59-41 and MIL-STD-461. 1275A, and 704A and RCTA-DO160D.

Schaffner Acquires JACKE Transformatoren

The Schaffner Group, based in Luterbach, Switzerland, has acquired JACKE Transformatoren GmbH, a German company that develops power quality technologies. The acquisition is a move to strengthen Schaffner's technological base and become the first international company to offer solutions combining EMC, power quality and energy supply for systems and devices with globally recognized quality and performance standards.

The merging creates a unique EMC and power quality competence which provides the foundation for new, innovative solutions to increase the operational safety, efficiency, productivity and profitability of electrical and electronic systems. Schaffner Jacke GmbH will continue its engineering and production operations in Büren, Germany under its current management team.

JR East to Generate Power Using Footsteps

East Japan Railway Co. is testing a device embedded in a floor that generates electricity using the vibrations from people stepping on it to pass through ticket gates.

Using the ‘'energy of rush hour,'' JR East plans to supply electricity to operate automatic ticket gates or information displays in the future.

The device was placed at six of the eight ticket gates at the Marunouchi North Ticket Gate of Tokyo Station and testing began at 4 a.m. when the gate opened. As the number of commuters increased around 7:30 a.m., the electricity generated for the day, shown on a nearby panel, also increased.

When a person passes through a ticket gate, 70 to 100mW is generated. Even if the device is placed at all ticket gates in the station, which sees about 700,000 passengers a day, the output will only be about 70kW, enough to light a 100W electric light bulb for 10 minutes.

The testing, which is to continue until mid-December, is aimed at checking power generation efficiency and the durability of the device, according to the railway operator.

"Beam me up, Scotty"

Scientists at Copenhagen University and the Max Planck Society have successfully demonstrated that the quantum states of a light pulse can also be transferred to a macroscopic object, an ensemble of 10 to the power of 12 atoms, reports NASA Tech Briefs. This is the first case of a successful teleportation between objects of a different nature, representing a "flying" medium (light) and a "stationary" medium (atoms).

The experiment used the principles of quantum entanglement, where one particle is entwined around another but does not touch. While the teleportation of people romanticized in science fiction remains distant, this innovation is an advancement in quantum computing, which requires manipulation of information contained in the quantum states of the atoms, including physical properties such as energy, motion, and magnetic fields.

Waldom Electronics Partners with Triad Magnetics

Waldom Electronics, an electronic component redistributor for more than 50 years headquartered in Rockford, Illinois, is partnering with Triad Magnetics, a manufacturer of power conversion products. Waldom inventories Triad's products, including power and audio transformers, power supplies, inductors, switchmode/high frequency magnetics and wall plug-in adapters.

"Waldom maintains the resources to inventory the complete product line and provide same-day shipments, which other re-distributors are typically not capable of doing," said Bill Dull, president of Triad Magnetics.

Waldom Electronics caters solely to the unique needs of distributors, providing them with access to premier brands, off-the-shelf delivery, low order minimum, broken- pack quantities and same-day shipments. The company has more than 280,000 part numbers in stock.

"We are honored to partner with such an outstanding company like Triad Magnetics," said Eric Smith, Waldom's corporate product manager. "Triad will enhance Waldom's product offering."

IEEE Approves UWB Net Spec

The IEEE 802.15.4a task group, working on a wireless personal-area network (PAN) standard for the low-rate industrial market, has chosen the chirp spread spectrum PHY technology designed by Nanotron Technologies GmbH as the baseline PHY standard.

Following the demise of the 802.3 UWB PAN standard last year, 802.15.4a was seen as one of the core potential UWB applications within PANs. The standard passed its first sponsor ballot with a 94% approval rating.

The network is meant for real-time precision location and sensor networks. Former 802.15.4a vice chair Jason Ellis of Staccato Commu-nications described the network as a combination of ZigBee and RFID, though its 2Mbps data rates and low power consumption are optimized for factory and medical applications rather than home or enterprise use.

Nanotron plans to offer spread spectrum-based chips that can be used either indoors with ranges up to 60m or outdoors up to 900m.

Antennas for Mars Lab

NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory has awarded EMS Defense & Space Systems a $1.2 million contract to provide Ka-band antennas for the Mars Science Laboratory (MSL) exploratory rover. The MSL is scheduled for liftoff in September 2009 during a launch window that occurs for a few weeks every 26 months.

The MSL is twice as long as and carries a greater payload than the Mars Exploration Rovers, Spirit and Opportunity. The MSL will carry the largest, most advanced set of instruments for on-the-spot science duties ever dispatched to the Martian surface. The rover is being designed to assess whether Mars ever was, or still is today, an environment able to support life.

The Ka-band antennas, which use EMS's slot array technology, are a critical part of the Terminal Descent Sensor (TDS) which will guide the MSL to the surface of Mars. EMS anticipates that the TDS antennas will be used on other future Mars missions as well.

German Industrialist Wins IEC Prize

Wolfgang Reichelt is the winner of the 2006 Lord Kelvin Award from the International Electrotechnical Commission (IEC). IEC President Renzo Tani presented the award at the 70th IEC general meeting in Berlin, Germany.

Reichelt is the owner and managing director of Block Transformatoren-Elektronik near Bremen, Germany, which specializes in network inter faces such as transformers, power supplies, reactors and electromagnetic compatibility filters. Since 1982, he has held numerous positions in international and national delegations, committees and subcommittees and particip ated in nearly 20 standard ization teams. He advocates the importance of the IEC's work at national, European, and international levels.

Miller Dial PSC Rep

Miller Dial has agreed with Danish company PSC to be the sole U.S. distributor for its range of EMC products and coatings. PSC, in business since 1948, has spent 20 years focusing only on optical filters for the filtering of light and radio interference in electronic instruments

Miller Dial, in business for 70 years, is an industry leader in the membrane switch and electronics industry.

"The addition of the PSC line answers the call from our customers to be able to provide them with this solution," said Jim Kaldem, Miller Dial's general manager.

O'Brian Becomes Boulder Laboratories Director

Thomas R. O'Brian, chief of the time and frequency division at the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST), has been appointed director of the NIST Boulder Laboratories in Colorado. O'Brian is the senior site manager with oversight of the facilities and technical infrastructure for the agency's 400 scientists, engineers, technicians and support staff.

The NIST Boulder Laboratories are engaged in research in measurement science, including time and frequency standards; electromagnetics; optoelectronics; chemical engineering; materials reliability; laser physics; quantum and optical physics; and computational methods.

O'Brian earned a bachelor's degree in chemistry from Washburn University in Topeka, Kansas, and a doctorate in experimental atomic physics from the University of Wisconsin in Madison. He joined NIST in 1991.