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electronics design and manufacturing engineers.
On the site now: 46162 articles from 3067 suppliers!
...from 22 articles and news releases just added to the site:
EXCLUSIVE: New line cleans up on potting operations
The acquisition of a new self-mixing self-measuring dispensing machine is enabling CT Production to improve the efficiency of its potting operations.
Exclusive article from CT Production
Software package includes PXI/CompactPCI range
SoftView can manage multiple instruments simultaneously, providing the ability to test a complex system of cooperating instruments.
Product/Service News from KineticSystems Company ( 9 May 2008)
Competition promotes green electronics
Electronics engineers, students and inventors around the world are invited to submit designs for an innovative product that uses electronic components and has a positive impact on the environment.
Company news from Farnell ( 8 May 2008)
Paralleling power supply outputs for redundancy
Configuring a redundant power system is not just a matter connecting two power supplies in parallel: Alex Karapetian explains why.
Background article from Acopian Power Supplies
VMM methodology speeds I/O design
Pairing the VMM methodology with the VCS tool enabled NextIO to efficiently build highly accurate system-level and unit-level simulation environments that quickly identify design bugs.
User application article from Synopsys ( 9 May 2008)
All 22 technical articles, news releases, and user applications today...
From the Electronicstalk Editorial Newsletter this week
Laurence Marchini, Editor writes:
As any seasoned observer of the electronics industry will confirm, balancing supply and demand is akin to steering a fully laden supertanker: you turn the wheel, wait a few minutes and then realise you have gone too far one way or the other and have to compensate.
The problem, of course, is that the timescales involved in expanding capacity or educating a new workforce make the supertanker captain's task seem simple. With timescales measured in years rather than minutes, it's not even as simple as balancing supply with demand. The trick is to balance supply with future demand. And while we work in an industry where fortunes are won and lost predicting the nature of next year's "killer application", the provision of a supply chain to meet all possible eventualities remains a pipe dream.
Shortages, it seems, will forever be a part of the landscape. Whether it be RF engineers or DRAM, the pain must come before the pleasure.
Some (temporary) shortages arise from unforeseen disasters. For example, a major fire last month at LG Chem in South Korea has been blamed for creating a global shortage of lithium-ion batteries. That this should happen at a time when demand for laptop and notebook PCs is on an upswing is unfortunate. And in an industry where surplus capacity is frowned on, the chances of other suppliers stepping in to make up the shortfall are unlikely. However, those same other suppliers are predicting that the market should be rebalance by Q3 2008, which should minimise the pain for the PC industry.
There is, however, another class of shortage that is far more worrying. That is the shortage that arises when a new application of a commodity really begins to take off, bringing unforeseen forces to bear on traditional markets.
So, in just the same way that diversion of foodstuffs to the biofuels market is having a marked effect on food prices around the globe, the success of the solar energy market is now being predicted to have a major impact on the semiconductor market in the form of a global shortage of polysilicon. Researcher iSuppli Corp reckons that global revenue for photovoltaic cells will more than double from USD 9.6 billion in 2007 to USD 22.1 billion by 2007, and that by 2020 annual demand will be 20-times the 2007 figure.
Much has been written in recent years about so-called "disruptive" technologies. But who would have thought that two seemingly benign "green" energy sources could have such disruptive effects on existing markets?
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