We talked with Rakesh Agrawal from SnapStream about a metadata-based content search system that organizes storage and search functions. The system can handle 10 channels per unit, and units can be cascaded for greater capacity. The system uses closed captioning and time codes to generate data streams for search. This equipment can be integrated into…
NAB, Las Vegas—We met with Fraunhofer Alliance Digital Cinema and talked about the research organization and its work in next generation technologies for video. The organization has an international presence with the main research facilities in Germany, in Erlangen, Berlin, and Ilmenau. Other facilities are in the US and in Asia. The four main institutes…
We talked with Samsung about their various memory product lines. The constant drivers for changes are the demands for higher performance, higher capacity, and in of growing importance, lower power. The specific product lines we discussed were DDR three, SSD, and mobile memories. At the high performance and of the spectrum, DDR-3 memories are used…
We talked with Renesas about their latest products at Design West, formerly the Embedded Systems Conference. Among the new releases were a low power microcontroller, a motor control kit, a capacitive touch evaluation kit, and new software support for the various products. The 32-bit RX62G group are optimized for digital power control applications, including motor…
We talked with the Rapid I/O group at Design West, formerly Embedded System Conference. The increase in infrastructure, especially in 3G and 4G wireless base stations, demands higher performance in the I/O sections of the system. RapidIO is deployed in virtually 100 percent of all 4G/LTE systems and 60 percent of new 3G systems worldwide….
March 27, 2012, Design West Conference, San Jose, CA—Scott Emily from Ramtron posited that their F-RAM (ferro-electric RAM) is better suited for many applications than flash. The technology uses a different storage mechanism than most memories The storage element is a thin ferroelectric film of lead zirconate titanate [Pb(Zr,Ti)O3], commonly referred to as PZT. The…
While at the OTT conference, we talked with Cavium about their latest wireless interfaces and media processors. The company focuses on high-performance processors and interfaces. They now have a reference design featuring their media processor that should cost less than $20 for the total BoM. The reference design allows mobile devices with WiFi to connect…
As an extension to their existing touch solutions products, Atmel announced a flexible touch sensor. The Xsense is a flexible film-based touch sensor that can be integrated into a flat panel display. The impetus for this product is the growth in touch-based interfaces on many products. The primary drivers are smart phones and tablets, but…
We talked with Richard Duval from Tektronix about the latest releases in the TV and broadcast product lines. The test equipment and software releases cover all areas of technical work from field, to post, broadcast, and cable. For production, they have waveform monitor WFM7200 and rasterizer WVR7200—a waveform monitor without a display for rack use—to…