SAN JOSE, CA -- The EDA Consortium announced that EDA industry revenue fell 10.9% to about $1.3 billion for the third quarter of 2008 and the four-quarter moving average declined 2.8%.
HERTFORD, ENGLAND – Daleba Electronics Ltd., a leading supplier of printed circuit boards (PCBs) in the United Kingdom,has promoted John Meyer to CEO. He joined the company in January 2008 as director of business development. As CEO, he will lead the company through the next stages of its growth and development.
Meyer brings over 25 years of experience in the electronics industry. Prior to joining Daleba, he worked for companies such as Arrow Electronics Inc., Philips and Electrocomponents.
SAN JOSE, CA– The Board of Directors at Cadence Design Systems Inc. has appointed Lip-Bu Tan as president and CEO, effective immediately. Tan had been serving as interim vice chairman of the Board and was a member of the Interim Office of the Chief Executive. He will retain his Board membership.
Read more: Cadence Names Lip-Bu Tan President and CEO
HERNDON, VA – iNEMI sponsored two forums in late 2008, both of which outlined industry action to address current and future environmental challenges and, in response to this input, iNEMI has identified new collaborative efforts.
Proposals for four iNEMI projects emerged from discussions at the Sustainability Summit: noncompetitive lifecycle assessments for information and communication technology products based on a building block approach using assembly emulators; PVC replacement alternatives, using LCAs to compare PVC vs. PVC-free cables and technical evaluation of alternatives; establishing a market for post-consumer plastics as feedstock for green products (e.g., polycarbonate, ABS — acrylonitrile-butadiene-styrene), and establishing electronics applications for post-consumer blended plastics (e.g., housings for power supplies).
Two of these initiates are currently in development, says the consortium. Tom Okrasinski, Alcatel-Lucent, and Todd Myers, Cisco, will champion the Eco-Impact Evaluator for ICT Equipment Initiative (noncompetitive LCAs); and Scott O’Connell, Dell, is championing the PVC alternatives effort.
To become involved in either project, contact Jim Arnold, iNEMI consultant, at This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it..
Other areas identified for industry action include working with an IPC standards committee to create a practical industry definition of “halogen-free”; creating an HFR- and PVC-free component and board test specification and metrology, and through traditional volume learning curves, achieving HFR- and PVC-free materials cost, delivery and quality parity.
SYDNEY, AUSTRALIA – Altium has added the CADstar file importer to the latest release of Altium Designer that already supports legacy design files from Allegro, OrCAD, DX Designer, PADS and P-CAD and Protel design tools.
The file importer will allow designers to move from older-style, legacy point tools to Altium’s next generation solution. Users will be able to unlock the potential of large-scale programmable devices while still creating custom-designed PCBs using Altium’s board design features.
SYDNEY, AUSTRALIA – Altium will return as a sponsor of the FIRST Robotics Competition (FRC), an annual competition among young robot designers. FIRST (For Inspiration and Recognition of Science and Technology) was founded in 1989 by inventor Dean Kamen to increase youth interest and participation in science and technology. Each of the high-school teams will use the Altium Designer electronics design solution to develop custom circuits and modules for the robots. After the competition, the teams will have access to Altium Designer for one year. This year, teams will also be able to download design files for the system, as well as study and modify them. Under a Creative Commons open source license, designs for the power distribution panel, digital side car, analog and solenoid breakout and several sensor carrier boards have been released. Teams using these designs for their custom hardware must publish the modified designs, creating a community of open hardware. The FRC Championship will take place April 16-18 in Atlanta, GA with over $9 million in scholarships up for grabs. “With its generous contribution to the FIRST Robotics Competition at our highest Crown Supplier level, Altium makes it possible for us to turn the FIRST vision of inspiring young people’s interest and participation in science and technology into a reality,” says Paul Gudonis, FIRST president.
