News briefs

Researchers at the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) may have found a way to use an existing technology to measure nanometer-scale linewidths on semiconductors. By adapting an x-ray scattering (SAXS) technology that was developed for studying the atomic structure of materials, the NIST team has been able to determine the average size of periodically repeating features on three chemically different samples; the features were similar to the polymer masks used to print IC designs. The researchers say the SAXS method can be used on various materials to evaluate the quality of surface and subsurface patterns consisting of features smaller than 100 nm.

To demonstrate the viability of the method, scientists from NIST, DARPA, and the US Department of Energy conducted an experiment in which they characterized an area of about 40 µm x 40µm within 1 s. They assembled images from x-rays deflected by electrons in the sample and were able to precisely measure linewidths, spaces, line-edge roughness, and feature geometries.

In addition to NIST polymer scientists, the research team included researchers from ExxonMobil Research Co. (Annandale, NJ), Argonne National Laboratory (Argonne, IL), and the Shipley Co. (Marlborough, MA). NIST reports that the team published its findings in Vol. 83, Issue 19 of Applied Physics Letters. ojps.aip.org/aplo.

AlazarTech (Montreal, QC, Canada), a new company in the PC-based instrumentation market, has released its first product. The firm aims to provide low-cost, high-performance instrumentation.

The company's first offering is a $995, 50-Msamples/s digitizer card for the PCI bus. The ATS850 can digitize two channels with 8-bit resolution over voltage ranges from ±20 mV to ±20 V. The base model comes with 256 ksamples/channel of waveform memory with an option for 16 Msamples.

The team that founded AlazarTech is led by Muneeb Khalid, who also founded Gage Applied Sciences in 1997. Gage was sold to Tektronix (Beaverton, OR) in 2000 and was then acquired by KineticSystems (Lockport, IL) in September 2003. www.alazartech.com

To help engineers navigate the CISPR 16 standard, the International Electrotechnical Commission (IEC) has reorganized the four-part document into 14 separate publications. The IEC chose to reorganize the standard, which covers radio disturbance and immunity measuring apparatus and methods, because it was not "sufficiently user friendly."

Previously, users had to contend with hundreds of pages when seeking information. The new, smaller documents enable them to more easily find what they need to know about a single subject. Numbering for the publications will be 16-1-X, 16-2-X, 16-3, and 16-4-X, where the "X" values will range from 1 to 5 depending on the subject. www.iec.ch/zone/emc/baspubs.htm.

With the goal of simplifying setup and programming for its line of data-acquisition, imaging, and signal-conditioning cards, National Instruments (Austin, TX; www.ni.com) has rewritten its NI-DAQ drivers. NI-DAQmx now includes functions previously found in LabView, LabWindows/CVI, and Measurement Studio.

A DAQ Assistant lets you configure any NI instrument card in your system and generate code for LabView and most text-based languages. You also get test panels that let you operate a card "manually" to test it. The application programming interface includes functions beyond basic instrument control. The rewritten driver also speeds single-point measurements and control loops by at least 10X. For more details, visit www.tmworld.com/nidaqmx.

Vanu (Cambridge, MA) has announced that The National Science Foundation (NSF) has awarded an $800,000 research grant to a consortium led by Vanu, the Stevens Institute of Technology (Hoboken, NJ), and the University of Colorado at Boulder. With the grant, the consortium will develop and install test bed facilities for researching and testing advanced wireless systems in which mobile devices are simultaneously connected to multiple wireless networks and use flexible software radios to improve quality of service, security, and performance.

The test beds, which will be installed at the Stevens Institute and the University of Colorado, will also be used to explore steerable antennas and upper millimeter-wave microwave communications. Vanu will provide the software radio communications infrastructure, and BBN Technologies (Cambridge, MA) will provide network management tools and expertise. www.vanu.com.

VXI Technology (Irvine, CA) has launched its Online Custom Microwave Configurator that helps engineers define custom microwave switches. The configurator gives engineers access to data sheets and prices for hundreds of standard microwave components manufactured by various vendors.

Using the configurator, engineers can evaluate and select standard off-the-shelf microwave components. The Web tool provides information on products, frequency ranges, switch configurations, connector types, attenuation, and gain. www.vxitech.com.

ATE. Credence Systems (Fremont, CA) has reported net sales of $57.8 million for Q4 (which ended October 31), an increase of 34% over the company's $43.2 million net sales in Q4 2002. Net sales also increased over fiscal Q3 by $12.3 million or approximately 27%. Despite these gains, the company still had a net loss for Q4 of $22.1 million. In Q4 2002, the net loss was $112.0 million. www.credence.com.

Equipment. SEMI (Semiconductor Equipment and Materials International; San Jose, CA) has forecasted that sales of test equipment will total $3.94 billion for 2003, a 45.39% increase over the $2.71 billion in sales in 2002. Further, SEMI forecasts that 2004 sales will be $5.53 billion, an increase of 40.36% over the forecast for 2003. www.semi.org.

Components. In its monthly index of electronic component orders, the Electronic Components, Assemblies & Materials Association (ECA) says orders hit a two-year high in November, marking the fourth consecutive month of growth. www.ec-central.org.