News Briefs

Semiconductors and electronics together accounted for 46% of 2004's total North American machine-vision sales revenue, according to the Automated Imaging Association's recently released annual market study, Machine Vision Markets: 2004 Results and Forecasts to 2009. Nevertheless, the study found negative cumulative annual growth rates (CAGRs) in the semiconductor and electronics segments (p. 17). The industry's overall positive CAGR in both revenue and in unit volumes, the study suggests, comes from strong performance in other sectors, including the wood, printing, pharmaceutical, container, food, and fastener industries.

The study indicates that 2004 was a strong year for North American machine-vision companies, with 2004's total North American revenues at $1.863 billion, including a $488 million value-added contribution attributed to OEMs and system integrators. Worldwide revenues were approximately $8.1 billion, including value-added contributions.

The 352-page study predicts robust growth for the North American end-user market, to $2.7 billion, without value-added contributions, in 2009. It also sees the North American components market (optics, lighting, and cameras) extending to $417.6 million in 2009, vs. $1.184 million in 2004. It cautions, however, that machine-vision sales are sensitive to business cycles and that the industry recovery could be fragile. (Revenues shown in the figure exclude value-added contributions). www.machinevisiononline.org.

Representatives of the design, manufacturing-test, and silicon-debug supply chain announced the formation of the Design for Debug (DFD) Consortium during this year's Design Automation Conference (June 11–18, Anaheim, CA). The goal of the consortium is to address tool-interoperability and methodology issues.

Charter members include Corelis, DAFCA, First Silicon Solutions (FS2), Intellitech, JTAG Technologies, Novas Software, and consultant Fidel Muradali. The consortium plans to define and promote the products, design methodologies, and industry standards required for efficient functional debug of "in situ" silicon devices. Efforts will center on identifying data- and file-format standards that can simplify and accelerate the functional debug of chips mounted in silicon prototypes or systems.

According to Muradali, "The time needed to track down functional problems once a chip is in its prototype system is unpredictable and costly today, mainly because a broad set of silicon debug and diagnosis solutions is not yet publicly available. This cross-company consortium is valuable because it brings the focus needed to define practical solutions and methodologies that can bridge the design and manufacturing test domains." www.designfordebug.org.

JDS Uniphase, a maker of optical network equipment, has announced that it will acquire Acterna, a maker of telecom and cable test equipment. JDSU will pay approximately $760 million, in a combination of cash and common stock.

Acterna began its life as Telecommunications Techniques. The company merged with Wavetek Wandel Goltermann to become Acterna. Headquartered in Germantown, MD, Acterna manufactures test equipment used in the deployment and maintenance of optical telecom networks and cable networks. www.jdsu.com.

Aeroflex has purchased the SPG test-and-measurement division of UbiNetics Holdings for approximately $81 million in cash. SPG, headquartered in Melbourn, England, is a developer, manufacturer, and integrator of wireless test-and-measurement products for commercial wireless-product-development organizations and service operators.

SPG's products address infrastructure testing and mobile handset testing. SPG focuses on handset-emulation instruments and load-analysis tools that are designed to assist with the development of handset and infrastructure products and the effective deployment of wireless networks. www.aeroflex.com.

The NI LabView Embedded Development Module extends LabView to any 32-bit embedded microprocessor, providing scientists and engineers with a graphical approach to algorithm design as well as the simulation, prototyping, and deployment of custom designs for embedded systems. In addition to permitting the programming of applications using a graphical data-flow language, the Embedded Development Module allows engineers to use LabView front-panel controls and indicators to help interactively experiment with and debug their embedded code.

The module includes more than 400 analysis functions that address signal processing, linear algebra, curve fitting, statistics, and calculus. In addition to providing out-of-the-box measurement functionality for integrating real-world data early in the development process, the module also features a framework for integrating I/O drivers and board-support packages for taking advantage of specific processors. Users can develop their applications in LabView and then automatically generate C code to integrate with their chosen processor toolsets.

Base price: $9995. National Instruments, www.ni.com.

The portable TLA7012 and benchtop TLA7016 logic-analyzer mainframes provide a 3X speed increase over previous models, letting you zoom, search, filter, and trigger faster then ever before. A Gigabit Ethernet port on the instruments lets you transfer large data files across networks.

The TLA7012 can hold two logic-input modules, the same modules used in previous models. It has a 15-in. display, larger than the display on previous models. The benchtop TLA7016 supports up to six input modules, up from five.

Both models run Windows XP on Intel Pentium M processors, and they include TLA software version 5.0. This new software lets you control the instrument and adds features such as automated measurements, remote hosting, and drag-and-drop setup. With the remote hosting feature, you can perform full analysis over a network. You also can download the software and use it with TLA5000 and TLA700 series instruments.

Prices: TLA7012—$14,000; TLA7016—$16,000. Prices do not include logic-input modules. Tektronix, www.tektronix.com.

EMC Symposium, August 8–12, Chicago, IL. Sponsored by IEEE, EMC Society. www.emc2005.org.

Autotestcon, September 26–29, Orlando, FL. Sponsored by IEEE. www.autotestcon.com.

International Robots & Vision Show, September 27–29, Chicago, IL. Sponsored by Automated Imaging Association. www.machinevisiononline.org.

International Test Conference (ITC), November 6–11, Austin, TX. Sponsored by IEEE. www.itctestweek.org.

To learn about other conferences, courses, and calls for papers, visit www.tmworld.com/events.