A Standard Missile (SM-3) is launched from the Aegis combat system-equipped Arleigh Burke class destroyer USS Decatur (DDG 73) during a Missile Defense Agency ballistic missile flight test. (See story below.)

New Aegis Radar Systems

Cobham Antenna Systems of Dorset, U.K. will provide major RF and microwave assemblies for Aegis surveillance and fire control radar systems ordered as part of new-build Arleigh Burke guided missile destroyers for the U.S. Navy and foreign customers.

In a deal worth about US$40 million, Cobham will provide prime contractor Lockheed Martin Mission Systems and Sensors with 3700 assemblies for each Aegis system which has been fitted to several classes of US Navy vessel- and shore-based locations. So far the Navy is committed to building eight Arleigh Burke vessels between 2011 and 2016.

The Aegis system is a maneuverable low-cost ballistic missile defense radar for smaller platform ships such as frigates. Cobham Antenna Systems Vice President Fred Cahill said this follow-on order is testament to the performance of Cobham components on earlier versions of the radar.

Retlif Enters Alliance with Acme Testing Co.

Retlif Testing Labs of Ronkonkoma, New York, has formed a strategic alliance with Acme Testing Co. of Acme, Washington. The arrangement brings Retlif’s wide array of advanced EMC and ESS testing as well as extensive engineering capabilities to the Puget Sound area.

The expansion in combined capacity and capabilities enables Retlif and Acme to service the rising demand from commercial maritime, commercial aviation, homeland security and defense industry sectors.

The Retlif-Acme alliance offers in-house EMI, electromagnetic pulse (EMP), power line fluctuation, and magnetic effects testing, in addition to EMC site surveys and EMC final compatibility testing.

Combined ESS offerings include in-house full classic shock testing capabilities, as well as ballistic and pyrotechnic shock, vibration testing up to 20,000 lbf, salt fog, inclination, temperature, humidity and many more capabilities. In addition, Retlif and Acme also offer vibration site surveys and acoustic noise site surveys.

Fang-Chen Luo Honored with IEEE Medal

Luo

Dr. Fang-Chen Luo was named as the recipient for the 2011 IEEE Jun-ichi Nishizawa Medal for his long-term contribution to the development of thin film transistor liquid crystal display panels (TFT-LCDs), AU Optronics (AUO) Corp. said.

The IEEE Jun-ichi Nishizawa Medal commemorates Dr. Jun-ichi Nishizawa of Japan, who made achievements in the development of semiconductors.

The Medal is awarded based on a stringent set of criteria, including quality of the technical achievement; research effort and resources devoted; number of publications, patents and awards, and their significance; impact on the academia, industry and benefit to the society.

Luo, the chief intellectual property officer at AUO since October 2010, has devoted himself to TFT research and development for more than 40 years. In 1973 and 1974, respectively, Luo demon-strated the world’s first TFT-EL and TFT-LCD panels at Westinghouse. Around this time, he also pioneered the application of TFT-LCD to avionics. While serving at GE and OIS, he made successful attempts to develop TFT-LCDs for military use.

Chang Named 2011 IEEE Medal of Honor Recipient

Chang

Morris Chang, who helped shape the semiconductor industry and technology policy in Taiwan, is being honored with the 2011 IEEE Medal of Honor. Chang, the founding chairman and CEO of Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co. Ltd., greatly influenced industry business models and was a key contributor to Texas Instruments’ rise as the leading integrated circuit company in the world.

Chang’s work had a lasting effect on the integrated circuit industry, including the creation of the dedicated silicon foundry business model. Chang helped build both the foundry industry and the fabless semiconductor industry.

Before moving to Taiwan, Chang was president and COO of General Instrument Corp. Previously he worked for Texas Instruments for 25 years.

STMicroelectronics Appoints New COO

Lamouche

STMicroelectronics of Geneva, Switzerland reports that Alain Dutheil, who has held the position of ST’s COO since 2005, has decided to retire following 27 years with the company. Replacing Dutheil as ST’s new COO is Didier Lamouche (pictured below), who has been a member of the supervisory board of STMicroelectronics since April 2006. Following a transition period, Lamouche will formally take over from Dutheil as COO and VP of the Strategic Committee.

From 2004 until mid-2010, Lamouche served as chairman and chief executive officer of Groupe Bull, a global IT company. Lamouche, 51, is a graduate of Ecole Centrale de Lyon and holds a PhD in semiconductor technology. He has more than 20 years experience in the semiconductor industry, holding various senior operational and general management positions. He was named Chevalier of the Legion of Honor by the French Government in April 2010, in recognition of his contribution to the digital electronics industry in France.

Physware Names Raul Camposano as CEO

Camposano

Physware of Mountain View, California, a leading provider of scalable and parallel solutions for signal integrity, power integrity, electromagnetic interference and simultaneous noise integrity, has appointed Dr. Raul Camposano as CEO.

Before joining Physware, Camposano held several senior roles in industry and in academia, both in the United States and Germany. He was CTO, senior vice president and general manager for over 10 years at Synopsys. After Synopsys, he served as CEO of Xoomsys. Dr. Camposano is active in the EDA professional community, serving on various boards, technical program committees and editorial boards worldwide. He has published more than70 articles and three books on electronic design automation and was elected a fellow of the IEEE in 1999. Camposano holds an M.S. from the University of Chile and a Ph.D. in computer science from the University of Karlsruhe.

New Deep Space Network Antennas for NASA

General Dynamics SATCOM Technologies has received a $40.7 million contract from the National Aeronautics and Space Administration’s (NASA) Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) to build two additional 34-meter beam waveguide antennas for NASA’s modernization and transformation plan to explore distant bodies in the solar system. The antennas will be located at the Deep Space Network (DSN) facility in Canberra, Australia.

Originally designed by JPL and built by General Dynamics, the antennas enable the DSN to communicate with existing flight missions, such as the Mars Exploration Rovers, as well as support future NASA space missions. The company has built nine 34-meter antennas for NASA’s Deep Space Network. The Jet Propulsion Laboratory, division of the California Institute of Technology in Pasadena, California, manages the DSN for NASA headquarters in Washington.

Beam waveguide-style antennas house sensitive electronics and systems in a room inside the antenna’s ground-based pedestal rather than in the center of the dish or reflector. This design makes it easier for technicians to maintain the equipment and implement technology upgrades. Construction, integration and testing for the new antennas, designated Deep Space Stations 35 and 36, are scheduled for completion by 2014 and 2016, respectively.

Agilent Awarded $1.8 Million Navy Contract

Agilent Technologies Inc. of Santa Clara, California has been awarded a $1.8 million contract by the U.S. Navy. Under the contract, Agilent will supply handheld spectrum analyzers (HSAs) to the Navy for five years. The instruments will help the Navy’s technicians install, monitor and maintain RF electronic systems in the field.

Agilent will provide the Navy with the N9342CN and N9342CNTG HSA instruments, two special versions of its 7GHz N9342C HSA, specifically tailored to meet Navy requirements. The N9342CN and N9342CNTG HSAs make field testing easier by providing faster, more precise measurements, improved ease of use, and a range of user-customization and ergonomic features.

Agilent’s design enables users to make measurements in tough field environments, while the performance ensures they can make the high quality RF measurements necessary to discover small signals and capture intermittent interferences. Field test automation allows users to cut test setup time by up to 95%.

World’s First Commercial Graphene Application

Angstron Materials Inc. of Dayton, Ohio has developed the world’s first commercial graphene application. Angstron’s graphene material is being used by a major manufacturer which produces actuator and sensing components for the touch screen market.

The world’s largest producer of nano graphene platelets, Angstron’s single layer graphene has exhibited the highest electrical properties, including exceptional in-plane electrical conductivity (up to ~20,000S/cm) when compared to other nanomaterials. These include carbon nano-tubes and carbon nano-fibers. Products targeted are a wide range of consumer electronics, such as smart phones and other portable electronics, computer peripherals, touchpads, POS kiosks and industrial controls.

Angstron Materials offers a variety of graphene materials in sizes ranging from nano to micron in the x, y and z axis. These advanced materials are collectively referred to as nano graphene platelets.

Michigan Tech Researches Cognitive Radio

By decree of the FCC, everything from cell phones and wireless LAN to TV shows and FM radio is only allowed to transmit on certain frequencies of the radio spectrum. Meanwhile, frequencies in other bands – amateur radios, pagers and cell phones – are rarely bogged down by too much traffic. A test in New York City showed that about 16% of the spectrum is occupied at any moment.

This means that theoretically there’s really plenty of room in the radio spectrum for everyone, says Zhi (Gerry) Tian, an associate professor of electrical and computer engineering at Michigan Tech.

That door is cracking open on a new technology called cognitive radio. Instead of being stuck on one frequency, new intelligent devices would be able to dynamically pick the best frequencies and use them to transmit their signals.

Primary users such as AT&T and Verizon buy the rights to a portion of the radio frequency spectrum. If they could share unused portions amicably, everyone would benefit.

A cognitive radio network would have to identify frequencies that have white space. Then, it would have to get that information to the user that needs it. Alternatively, cognitive radios could form a peer-to-peer network and decide among themselves what frequencies to use without help from a central controller.

RX600 Microcontroller Family Tests High

Langer EMV of Dusseldorf, Germany and Renesas Electronics of Irvine, California now boast that the RX600 microcontroller (MCU) family is the most robust MCU Langer EMV has ever tested against environmental noise. Langer EMV, an independent testing company, confirmed the outstanding EMC performance of the Renesas Electronics RX62T MCU.

The RX62T microcontroller has pushed the testing threshold limit. The outstanding EMC performance of Renesas Electronics’ MCUs helps reduce development costs, as the microcontroller no longer needs to be protected by a specific transient voltage surge suppressor or an expensive multilayer ceramic capacitor.

The measurement system devised by Langer EMV enables comprehensive testing of the microcontroller’s response to Electric Fast Transient (burst) tests on each pin. The injected noise and voltage spikes/pulses reach 500V on the signal pins. Langer EMV has tested Renesas Electronics’ RX62T MCU and the test results show the highest level of robustness for a microcontroller.

Two Hospitals Select Novel RF Detection Technology

Good Samaritan Medical Center of West Palm Beach and West Boca Medical Center of Boca Raton, are the first two hospitals in South Florida to use RF detection technology in their operating rooms. The RF Surgical Detection System is designed to help surgical teams prevent and detect foreign items inadvertently left inside a patient during surgery. Good Samaritan and West Boca are implementing this technology as an adjunct to the standard practice of manual counting.

“Our number one goal is zero incidents,” said Mitch Feldman, CEO, West Boca Medical Center. “The system allows us to accurately scan patients to ensure that no surgical item is left behind post-surgery while promoting staff confidence and compliance.”

Results from 1600 patients in the largest prospective multi-center study on the effectiveness of radio-frequency detection technology demonstrated that RF detection can speed identification and reduce the use of radiation (x-rays) to locate missing sponges and retained surgical items regardless of whether the manual counts were accurate.

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