The thoughts of Rockinroy

From Wafers to Displays - Kopin Takes Another Step

Tue, 21 May 2013 04:09:59 -0400

It has been the week for standout acquisitions what with Yahoo nabbing Tumblr for more money than most of us can imagine. I had to double-take when I saw the details, a billion dollars for a blogging company, albeit THE blog of choice for many of us. Ahead of the inevitable backlash they assert that things will stay the same but cynicism is rampant in this game with plenty of precedents. Sad to say it is the way of the world where coalescence is the name of the game.

Anyway, I was also interested in another US takeover deal. Westborough, MA, USA based Kopin Corporation is a company hellbent on reinventing itself. Following one-time rival and geographic rival Emcore Corp., and still under the leadership of industry veteran Dr John Fan, Kopin is very different from the company I first encountered a couple of decades ago and more. Today Kopin describes itself as “a leading provider of critical components and licensing concept systems to partners who develop branded wearable computing products”. When I used to cover this company - and handle their adverts - it was a supplier of carbon-doped epitaxial wafers for several top RF chip companies - but all of that business has gone, see below, and it this week Kopin laid another flagstone on its path to a genuine leadership position in displays. With some of the cash from recent disposals it has acquired the majority share of privately held e-MDT America, Inc. This Santa Clara, CA based “expert in low-power analog/digital circuit designs” is at first glance an odd choice; it is a “chip” company albeit one with no in-house chip-making facilities (it uses “foundries” i.e. contract specialists for this). The reason e-MDT America was so inviting is that it designs ultra-low-power driver ICs and backplanes for displays, including reflective liquid crystal on silicon (LCOS) displays. Kopin needs such know how to perfect its own display products and expand its market presence.

As its CEO said it “is part of our strategy to provide our partners the best and most-complete technology portfolio of components and solutions for the emerging wearable computing market.”

Further it will “greatly enhance our capability in designing new smaller and lower power chip sets for wearable computing systems.”

The deal it not too surprising - but this was news to me - the two companies have been working together for quite so time. This is often the case and certainly Kopin looks to be the bigger of the two and so it is logical for the acquisition to have this way. It will contribute greatly to Kopin’s strategy to design in the least power hungry components in their wearable computing systems. Likely the keys to success in this part of the ferociously competitive displays market are viewing fidelity and longest user time - not to mention the novelty of the virtual reality experience of your own private video world.

Kopin is clearly well set on the road to be the provider of our means of connection to our favourite toys - today their technology portfolio covers not only ultra-small displays, optics, speech enhancement, software, but also lower power ASICs and likely the jewel in the crown, the ergonomically-designed Golden-i® concept headset computing systems.

In tandem the company has just opened its first WearableTechCenter and this is also on the other coast, in Silicon Valley. The WearableTechCenter will help drive development and innovation in voice- and gesture-based technologies and hardware components. Synergistically it will also focus on low-power IC design as well as other things like customer support. So it will assemble under the one roof its experts from the group that developed the Golden-i wearable headset concept systems and designers from e-MDT America, Inc. Kopin’s Scotts Valley, California office will carry on developing Government Systems products.

The new issue hot off the press so to speak - this is one of the pdf-based email newsletters we...

Mon, 13 May 2013 11:11:20 -0400

The new issue hot off the press so to speak - this is one of the pdf-based email newsletters we produce each month. Ironically perhaps, we also produce a print newsletter every other month. In this era of web-based publications I like to think that there are people out there who want to pick up a physical object and skim through it. This should be no surprise as I feel the same way though I very seldom buy a newspaper.

Nitride-on-silicon takes another big step into the market

Fri, 10 May 2013 08:11:01 -0400

International Rectifier Commences Commercial Shipments of GaN-on-Si Devices

To end the week I have selected a news item I was working on for the forthcoming issue of my monthly email newsletter, “Nitride News” which I concur is hardly a startling choice but it gets the job done. That is something you could say for devices from a long-established power device company that has been spending a lot of its own time and money on perfecting a process that combines the power handling (and other) virtues of the nitrides with the cost-advantages of the world’s best understood semiconductor material, silicon substrates.

International Rectifier has qualified and shipped product built on its proprietary GaN-based power device technology platform for a home theater system manufactured by a “leading consumer electronics company” and adds that they “fully anticipate the potential impact of GaN-based technology on the power conversion market to be at least as large as the introduction of the power HEXFET® by IR over 30 years ago,” and they should know.

IR’s President and CEO, Oleg Khaykin asserts that “Commencing commercial shipments… extends IR’s leadership in power devices and heralds a new era for power conversion, in line with our core mission to help our customers save energy.” The IR model enables customers with improvements in key application-specific figures of merit of up to a factor of ten compared to state-of-the-art silicon-based technology.

“GaN has the potential to be infused into every business unit and product line within IR over the long-term. We are excited about GaN, and see it as one of the major drivers for our long-term revenue growth, and market share expansion. I would like to thank all of the individuals involved and congratulate them for this tremendous accomplishment.”

The pioneering GaN-based power device technology platform is the result of a decade of R&D by IR based on their proprietary GaN-on-silicon epitaxial technology. This is, they say, a high throughput, 150mm GaN-on-Si process which, together with subsequent device fabrication processes, is “fully compatible with IR’s current cost effective silicon manufacturing facilities, offers customers a world-class, commercially viable manufacturing platform for GaN-based power devices”.

WS: http://tinyurl.com/nnr124-4

“Nitride News” has now reached its 124th issue and was launched as a riposte of sorts to the compartmentalization of this sector of the semi business. IMHO there is no unique summary available that covers the wide bandgap semis across the ever growing swathe of device types and applications as well as some of the other nitrides as appropriate. Yes, we also cover SiC and even SiN… I have a soft spot for the latter as I did my Masters thesis on nitride encapsulation of GaAs. I have always thought it might have played a teeny tiny role in the evolution of III-nitrides too as we were looking at flash annealing of wafers for implant, and magnesium in particular, that ever-challenging aspect of nitride devices, acceptor doping and p-n junctions!

May 10th 2013

Top Man for the Top Job in World Semis?

Fri, 03 May 2013 10:21:00 -0400

My spontaneous six pennyworth on a pivotal moment in one of the world’s most important companies… like em or not… Added to my blog on Blogspot, III-V Review, named after my old mag, III-Vs Review, and home to my other somewhat less “unserious” ramblings…

Top Man for the Top Job in World Semis?

Intel will shortly have a new CEO—52-year-old Brian Krzanich succeeding Paul Otellini who has resigned, and by the way all of the contenders were in-house candidates, see here: http://tinyurl.com/mer-3-1. Even more gratifying to read is that one was female.

One might wonder what mention of the silicon-dominated Intel is doing on this compound semiconductor blog. Well, as far as I can recall Intel once had an interest in antimonides as a route to higher speed circuits and had something to do with RSRE Malvern to this effect. Unless anyone can correct me then I will assume that this was discontinued at some point years ago.

It does, however, remind me of the earlier days in the eighties when some fairly clever folk were predicting how the “faster” GaAs would in time supplant silicon and we would see GaAs digital chips everywhere. Of course, this still has much potential but never really took off. Most of the commercial interest in that died off as HEMT-based devices and then HBTs took III-Vs into a golden era of success - so GaAs would generate small fortunes for some but in analog NOT digital. I for one am surprised so many people could have bought so heavily into the GaAs-beats -silicon story. As they say hindsight is 20-20….

We wish Mr Krzanich every success but we know zero about his fondness for GaAs…. he certainly has a challenge on his hands as the company reasserts itself in the highly competitive arena of smartphone and tablet (basically bigger cellphones, well, my Nexus seems that way to me). But who knows, maybe all this fuss about CMOS for PAs might tickle his fancy too…

Roy Szweda, May 3 2013

PS Has just occurred to me that this fits here but would IMHO be inappropriate for Facebook. Hmm, an intriguing thought… that is for the entirely “fun” stuff while T is better for longer speculative pieces. Besides I am unsure I want the FB audience I have to read these ramblings tho there is some overlap.

Sunshine Very Uneven on the Solar Cell Industry

Tue, 06 Nov 2012 14:07:20 -0500

Once again, the news from the photovoltaics sector was very mixed with a number of companies from all tiers announcing damage limitation measures or worse. Among the latest casualties is OPEL Technologies Inc which investigation divestiture of solar operations. Applied Materials will realign its global workforce implementing a voluntary retirement program and other workforce reduction actions. Cookson is to close one of its two ingot crucible production plants in China. It said overcapacity in the c-Si ingot/wafer supply chain has forced this decision with immediate effect. The company closed a similar plant in the Czech Republic in July, which has supplied crucibles, primarily to the European market.

The sale of Oerlikon Group’s loss-making Oerlikon Solar to Tokyo Electron (TEL) has received regulatory approval from the Chinese Ministry of Commerce (MOFCOM). The sale to Japanese semi-conductor equipment supplier TEL was originally announced on March 2 and according to reports, TEL is paying a purchase price of US$275 million for the thin-film firm; the companies are now entering the closing process.

GT Advanced Technologies announced that it is streamlining worldwide operations to better align its cost structure with current market conditions and enhance its ability to pursue strategic growth initiatives, including the consolidation of existing business units into a single Crystal Growth Systems (CGS) group

Amid the gloom there is better news such as Sumitomo Corp investing about $200 million to acquire a 25% stake in the operator of a major solar power generation facility in California. Under the Desert Sunlight Solar Farm project, $2.3 billion will be spent building a solar-powered facility capable of generating 550 MW of electricity on land near Palm Springs. XsunX, Inc announced it was on target to complete the assembly of its CIGSolar TFPV cell evaporation system in October. 5N Plus Inc subsidiary Sylarus Technologies, LLC won $1.32 million from the US Defense Logistics Agency (DLA) to upgrade a portion of the National Defense Stockpile (NDS) high purity germanium metal inventory to unfinished germanium substrates for multifunction solar cells employed in National Security Space (NSS) applications.

Back to Europe to end this missive, Saint-Gobain of Courbevoie, France (which designs, makes and distributes building materials and electronic materials), signed a memorandum of understanding with HRH Prince Faisal Bin Salman Bin Abdulaziz Al Saud, to set up a high-tech company in the solar energy sector in Saudi Arabia.

For the future prospects could be getting better if new R&D projects deliver on their promises. Imec and its partners in the Solliance initiative have launched, together with the Institute of Materials Research of the University of Hasselt (IMO), the Solar Flare Interreg Project. Solar Flare is co-funded by the EU and the regional governments and supports regional projects in the Eindhoven-Leuven region that focus on the development of thin-film solar energy with higher efficiency and lower cost.

Also, working under the Solliance initiative, the new Solar Flare project that includes ECN, TNO, imec, Holst Centre, TU/e and the University of Hasselt/IMO, will aim to make thin-film PV a viable alternative to Si PV technologies. The plan is to boost the competitiveness of CIGS thin-film technology with conventional crystalline silicon technology that would ultimately support the overall cost reduction of solar energy as a viable alternative to Si PV technologies.

Then finally, after the first solar module was installed at Topaz Solar Farms, (San Luis Obispo County, Calif) in May, MidAmerican Solar and First Solar, Inc proudly announced the one millionth solar module installed at what is the largest solar project under construction in the world. When complete, the 550-MW-AC project will include nearly 9 million PV modules.

Roy Szweda, November 6th, 2012

Footnote - Adventures in Publishing… one of an occasional series…

There was once I time when I laboured hard on a monthly print newsletter for the world’s largest science publisher, Elsevier. After leaving the company, various jobs came my way - one in particular fell into my lap after a casual mention during a lunch one day. Said publication was called “Photovoltaics Bulletin”. Learned minds had laboured hard too in order to launch this noble vehicle for collected and sorted info from the then burgeoning PV biz. Sadly it was to be mine for an all too brief period.
It is the lot of the freelancer to suffer many a sling or arrow in his time. This one had an unusual aspect to it. I had hoped it would be mine for a few years. It was not a subject new to me but it still had a learning curve. I applied myself with naive enthusiasm to produce work of at least an adequate standard. All the time I had it never was a single issue late nor decried for inaccuracy or whatnot. So what could I have done wrong I pondered to myself months later when they told me the work would end come the New Year.
Little did I know of the politics and machinations that permeate even such slow-paced activities as newsletter publishing. It was not to do with the incipient arrival of online alternatives so much as a change of heart. The company had decided to launch another product, oddly enough one that competed in the same area as mine. I was fairly unimpressed with this logic on more than one level but I could only accept my fate. That publication did not provide me with work even though it is still being published. Nowadays I can earn my coinage from PV in other ways hence my surviving interest. My ire over this episode returns to haunt me from time to time but a decade on I am sanguine and living in mute acceptance of the foibles of fate. Perhaps in another epistle I shall relate the tale of the fate of my parallel work with another print newsletter.
Thank you for reading this far… if I can have amused, entertained and maybe even enlightened you for a short while I shall be happy. Well, for a little while longer…
All my bestest, Roy Szweda MSc

An example of my features what I wrote - it had to have at least two per issue, try finding that two dozen times a year without repeating yourself or running out of inspiration!
http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1473832503000282

GIG REVIEW: Virgil & Joanne Rock MK

Tue, 23 Oct 2012 07:20:25 -0400

We thoroughly enjoyed the gig at The Stables Milton Keynes last night which featured Virgil & The Accelerators supporting Joanne Shaw Taylor’s band. A blues-rock evening par excellence in almost all respects. In this review I will give my impressions of the gig, the venue and perfromance. I do indulge in ratings or other rankings but this has to be for me one of the best gigs of the year.

Virgil are a young power trio as it might once have been called but with a bluesier edge. Their roots are clear with renditions of Hendrix and SRV material and extended workouts within their own son

gs. How that guy’s right hand could strum like that for song after song amazed me - if you know how SRV used to play you will appreciate the technique required. And of course, such playing demands an excellent rhythm section and in this case both were up to it, especially his younger brother on drums.

They played for at least half an hour but like all good times it seemed shorter. The packed audience responded well and no doubt the boys’ post-gig merch sales reflected this. That is one of the good things about The Stables, the audience are true fans of live music (yes folks there are a lot of those around MK despite rumours to the contrary) and will pay attention to the support (usually one) as much as the headliners.

After another pint of Murphys (not the cheapest in town and the bar was busy but the beer was smooth and tasty plus you are allowed to take your glass into the theatre, a civilised bunch at the Stables). We all ambled our way back in to resume our seats stage left.

The anticipation was as they say palpable and soon enough it was time for the clocks to speed up when the lady herself took the stage. Well, it is not really a stage as it is only a foot off the floor but the amphitheatre of the venue gives nearly everyone a good view.

I think they must have been having some technical “issues” because the first few numbers we could hardly hear her guitar. The mix was fine for fans of electric organ but we had come to hear JST sing her powerful songs and most of all twang the hell out of her various guitars. But by song three her distinctive soul-blues notes were coming through better and we could relax and enjoy nearly 90 minutes of electric blues courtesy of her five piece.

There are very few rock histrionics to report other than passionate, sincere and intense delivery of her own songs and one or two covers - their rendition of Manic Depression was a highlight of course. As with Virgil and his boys, the song was taken to new places and given thorough wringing out before returning to the song’s moody basics. Twinges of sadness there too because the last time we had heard that tune on a stage in MK it was the Hamsters’ farewell gig.

She had a few problems with tuning in the middle of the set but those did not stop her providing very fine renditions of what are becoming her own standards blending well with her new material - the new album (Almost Always Never) getting a few plugs. As with most of these young Brit blues practitioners, one wonders what life has taught them to be able to write songs with such angst and passion as platforms for their guitar virtuosity. Mistake you not, this gal really has the chops, in fact it makes you wonder how one person can pack in so much talent and come across as vulnerable and yet at other times so confident and joyous in her work. Her short history has taken her world over and brought support-slots-to-die-for such as with Joe Bonamassa so she certainly has paid her dues. We first set eyes on her on that stage a few years ago as part of the Blues Caravan tour. This precious wallflower only got one number of her own but that was a stand out of the gig. We said then we wanted to see her again with her own band so last night was a wish come true.

As we came to the end we were sent to bed with a rendition of one of my fave electric blues numbers, Freddie King’s Goin’ Down. For this she invited Virgil to return and what followed was a pyrotechnic and intense duel almost. Their smiles revealed just how much fun they were having as they traded licks.

The audience were very keen for more and the encore featured two of her own numbers in a perfect end to the show. Personally, while I like her impassioned workouts she is blessed with a voice that carries much power in some of the quieter moments.

I think on reflection new songs such as Jealousy were my highlights of the evening. Maybe if could have had a wish then a short acoustic interlude as per Aynsley Lister would come mid-set. Sometimes less is more and I think nearly all her album stuff is electric so her playing acoustic and her incredible voice filling the theatre would have been icing on the delicious cake.

Before I conclude this lengthy diatribe let’s have a little mild criticism. Thank you for reading down this far and I promise to be gentle. The bands were almost without fault and we enjoyed them immensely but it is the setting I have less enthusiasm for. It was maybe a tad too loud at times but we are talking of live rock here and I have heard louder elsewhere.

But my main criticism concerns the visuals; as with several other rock gigs I have been to at the Stables, the lighting is insufficiently used. The rig is comprehensive but under-played with the performers bathed in only white light most of the time. Having enjoyed the spectacular true rock lighting at the Pitz so many times these bands deserve better. My preference would always be for standing too, Comfy seats are OK for comedy and “serious” music but not for rock IMHO.

Performers there have told me that despite the apparent intimacy (the front row is only a metre from the stage and there are no barriers) they cannot see much of the audience so feedback is largely by applause etc only.

Live rock is a special experience, it is my opinion that to be at its best the band and audience must fully interact. This creates a surge of collective emotion never to be found in any other context. The people turn up and the band take them on an emotional journey which can be intense and in some cases frightening. This is the real reason to attend gigs, to plug into that collective energy. The very best gigs are such as these and not just an “I play, you watch” experience.

Overall, this was a memorable gig and amongst the best of the year for me. One of the others has to be Oli Brown at the same venue. It has not been a great year for gigs in the wasteland for nocturnal live rock that MK stands in peril of becoming but there are gems if you look hard enough. Roy Szweda October 2012

In-flight refuelling - the future looks bright!

Wed, 17 Oct 2012 12:28:51 -0400

The month has already heavily featured milestones in the ongoing development of major systems and in particular with their in-flight refueling capabilities. The JSF took on actual fuel while the Grizzly, the A400M, had to make do with pretend but it was nonetheless as close as you can get to a real-life operation.

As a portent of what is to come, Boeing’s long-awaited “supertanker” the KC46 took a big step when the company opened its new factory to manufacture the plane’s refuelling boom.

The US Marine Corps claimed credit for the first F-35 in-flight refueling by an “operational aircraft” when four F-35Bs from Eglin AFB refueled from a KC-130J tanker. Previous aerial refueling operations with the F-35 had been conducted with test aircraft. The Joint Strike Fighters, two at a time, on two separate sorties, took fuel midair from a KC-130J Hercules from Marine Aerial Refueler Transport Squadron 252 based at Cherry Point.

Also in the US, Boeing said it had begun assembling the first refueling boom for the US Air Force’s all important next-generation aerial refueling tanker aircraft at its new KC-46 Boom Assembly Center that opened ahead of schedule at Boeing Field in Seattle.

The KC-46A will feature a modernized fly-by-wire boom based on the proven system on the Air Force’s KC-10, which will give it advanced refueling capabilities, allowing it to refuel any fixed-wing receiver aircraft anytime and on any mission.

The first boom will enter testing during the third quarter of 2013 at a System Integration Lab (SIL), known as SIL 0. It is one of five labs designed to reduce risk for avionics and aerial refueling integration.

Boeing invented the air refueling boom and has been building, upgrading and modifying them for more than 60 years.

Meanwhile, in one of Europe’s most important aerospace programs, Airbus Military reported a simulated air-to-air refueling (AAR) of the A400M airlifter from a C-160 Transall tanker of the French Air Force. The twenty “dry” contacts where no fuel was passed were said to be representative of a normal refueling operation. Wet contacts will take place in the first quarter of next year.

The A400M has now successfully performed refueling contacts with a VC10 of the Royal Air Force, the C-160, and an Airbus Military A330 MRTT new generation tanker/transport.

But the demo with the most import for the future had to be the world’s first air to air refuelling simulation by two remotely piloted aircraft. In this story autonomous refueling trials with two Northrop Grumman RQ-4 Global Hawks demonstrated that unmanned air vehicles (UAV) could actually refuel mid-air.

These two large and very very expensive “drone” aircraft flew in close proximity during nine high-altitude test flights. While this is a major achievement they were never physically linked and so no fuel was passed; it wasn’t even a “dry” contact as per the Grizzly.

Nevertheless, analysis reputedly showed that the aircraft were in the right configuration to have done so on up to three-fifths of the attempts. There was no statement as to actually when this might take place but the participants were likely confident that now that is considerably closer.

Of course there has been speculation as to the nature of such operations and whether there might soon be contracts for dedicated tanker drones loitering in the skies much like the KC46 will be doing in a few years time. Or would this simply be between that kind of manned tanker and a drone, the jury is out.

All in all very impressive given the difficulty of precision flight at 44,000ft where the tests took place and the fact that the “pilots” were located many miles away linked to the aircraft via satellite. No doubt both teams were very mindful of the significance of this test and the responsibility of avoiding a mid-air collision.

News Review for September

Fri, 05 Oct 2012 13:15:56 -0400

The month of September will be remembered not only for the launch of the new generation iPhone but also for the profusion of datacom products on the occasion of the ECOC show.

There was no shortage of formal announcements for the latter but no company that scored sockets in the new iPhone 5* was able to issue press statements as to the street cred of their products through this very high profile consumer device.

Tear-down analyses revealed the goodies and who supplied them with mainly US companies taking the lionshare of RF wins. Skyworks provides two baseband PA modules (SWUA 147 228 RF antenna switch module and the 77491-158 CDMA PA module), TriQuint also provides PA modules but once again Avago did well with two slots: the AFEM-7813 dual band LTE duplexer module and A5613 ACPM-5613 LTE PA. And according to Chipworks there is an additional RF chip, which could be from RFMD.

Picking from the news stories is seldom easy but I was taken with the item from Silicon Labs which if it holds up (and we all know the hyperbole to found in PRs (I should as sometimes write them!)) could mean a boon to designers but worries for optocoupler suppliers. It has launched the first drop-in replacement for optocouplers based on CMOS with what it calls a “LED emulator input” that adds up to complete immunity to the output variations that plague LED-based optocouplers and its CMOS-based capacitive isolation technology provides more than ten times the MTTF rate of optocouplers. Also in opto who would have thought that butterflies would hold such promise. Oclaro and partners have a new MSA setting a new standard SFF pump laser package - now everyone can design their amplifiers in a butterfly package about a third the size of the legacy 14-pin format package.

To end for now, there was good news in the solar sector not the least congrats to Tokai University’s Solar Car Team, sponsored by Panasonic, who won the Sasol Solar Challenge South Africa 2012. Equipped with Panasonic’s top level HIT solar cell as well as high-capacity lithium-ion batteries, Tokai University’s solar car successfully completed the longest distance solar car race in the world**.

Roy Szweda

*Teardown here: http://www.ubmtechinsights.com/apple-iphone-5/

** http://news.panasonic.net/archives/2011/1021_7104.html

"Never mind Mars Curiosity where's a better meter?"

Fri, 10 Aug 2012 08:37:59 -0400

About time something got put in this inviting empty box - here is something I penned for the Diabetics Forum and it just kept on coming until it turned into something half-worthwhile, cogent even. Sometimes it just falls like that so I thought hey, this will do for Tumblr and my other blog… so much on the web to distract us from ever getting any work done and now here is something you might read to steal another few minutes.

“Never mind Mars Curiosity where’s a better meter?”

It is the end of the week and time for a rant thinly disguised as a plea….

Some of you may know I used to edit a journal on biosensors and we had lots of papers on how various clever people round the world were perfecting a portable BG meter. This was in the early 1990s and thanks to all that work we can buy a gadget cheaply that was unheard of just a few decades ago. Each one in the right hands is a boon to DM sufferers… but isn’t it time for the next step?

This testing biz has been getting me down. After a period of not doing it I have been doing a scatter graph experiment all week to see the highs and lows. So far I have over a dozen points… one pin prick for each one… data literally born in blood and pain. This truly is not a lot of fun. I commiz myself that so far no results have been in double figures nor under four.

That said it occurs to me that we are way overdue for something simpler than this method of testing.

Like mentioned elsewhere on this forum each test is not necessarily accurate nor even correct. And sometimes I get it slightly wrong and the meter rejects the sample so I have to start again wasting a strip and usually suffering another pin prick let alone the faff etc it builds up to become a mighty inconvenience.

OK, I know that in time I shall gain insight into what food suits and what doesn’t and I can test less. But I want to keep an eye on my bloods several times a week for “peace of mind.

It is really is overdue for something simpler and easier than this meter system.

So forgive me when I am unimpressed with the Mars rover success. Never mind that engineering excellence let us get back down to Earth and make the lives of so many DM sufferers just a little easier to cope with.

But of course this is just the tip of an iceberg, maybe industry is not interested. After all every strip pack they sell is money in the bank, a “non-invasive” system using say a LED would have no disposables and their cash cow bonanza would be over.

I foresee an ear-ring gadget like a Bluetooth phone thing that fires a beam of light through the blood vessels in an earlobe and a number pops on our phone display…. come on industry it can’t be that hard can it? After all, a simpler non-painful method might make all the difference to the survival of all of us now and to come.

Last Days of April and time for some wafflings....

Mon, 30 Apr 2012 07:55:03 -0400

It’s Monday again and time for some exposition from the fields of defence. Remiss of me to not keep up with entries here but never mind, this is from some work I have been doing lately and I may well pop it over onto Google+ too this week avec some more wafflings and edits. Thing is I doubt I would put it up on Facebook - I wonder what that says about that SN or the people on there I interact with?

Before we embark on that, however, the good news amid the gloom has been the debut of our new website for our modest company. So why not dissipate a few moments of your life and visit www.rnr-associates.co.uk, it will only take a few minutes and immediately solve any doubts that I had a proper job. Well, it isn’t the full score, I do much more than this every month, no wonder I am so tired and irritable all the time. Anyway, time to quit waffling and get to the serious stuff…

Defence companies are continually merging and acquiring each other and in the past month the majors were no less busy with the likes of Indra Sistemas S.A. nabbing 100% of the shares of Park Air Systems Norway from Northrop Grumman Denmark, a “leader in the landing systems market with its NORMARC brand and is well positioned in voice communication control systems and in systems for the surveillance and guidance of aircraft”.

L-3 Communications grabbed the assets of Thales’s Training & Simulation Ltd’s fixed-wing civil aircraft simulation and training business while big boy Boeing now owns privately held Inmedius, Inc, a Pittsburgh, Penn.-based provider of software applications and services for managing and sharing information and learning content.

British companies are always fair game in M&A but then we grab lots of theirs. In April, ITT Exelis completed its acquisition of privately held Applied Kilovolts Group Holdings, Ltd, theSussex, UK-based provider of precision high voltage power supplies

Meanwhile, Sikorsky Aircraft added privately held Impact Technologies, LLC, the Rochester, N.Y.-based provider of Condition Based Maintenance and Prognostic Health Management systems.

In the sexy end of aviation (whaaat?) that of unmanned aircraft systems, (UAS or drones to the common herd), privately held ReconRobotics, Inc acquired privately held Xollai, LLC, the St. Paul, Minn.-based developer of advanced automated guidance technology for UAS and other intelligent vision and sensory systems.

In manufacturing, Flextronics International Ltd completed its acquisition of Stellar Microelectronics, Inc, the Valencia, Calif.-based full service Electronics Manufacturing Services. Siemens AG acquired all of the outstanding common shares of RuggedCom Inc, the Concord, Ontario-based provider of rugged communications networking solutions designed for mission- critical applications in harsh environments.

Cobham was arranging to part with its beacon business at ACR Electronics Inc while acquiring more shares of Thrane & Thrane A/S, a Danish comms company. Cobham took another 22.74% share from Jupiter Asset Management Ltd.

Around the same time, J.F. Lehman Equity Investors III, L.P. of J.F. Lehman & Company announced the agreement to acquireFort Lauderdale,Floridabased ACR Electronics, Inc. from Cobham; as of April 18, 2012, the transaction was approved by Federal Trade Commission and the antitrust division of the Department of Justice even though it was all very low key.

You may not have heard of them but ACR Electronics, Inc., doing business as Cobham Beacon Solutions, has helped save countless lives - it designs and manufactures safety and survival products to aviation, marine, outdoor, and military markets worldwide. The company sells a popular range of personal locator beacons, EPIRBs and accessories, automatic identification systems (AIS), searchlights, emergency locator transmitters (ELTs), ELT antennas, ELT remote switches and accessories, flight tracking products, rescue lights, survival products and GMDSS, and direction finders.

Wow if you read that you deserve a reward… pop along to YT and have a listen to a band I stumbled on this morning called Airbag, I like Porcupine Tree and their ilk so I loved this…. misery and yet uplifting at the same time, how can this be?

Thanks for reading… over and out!

www.youtube.com/watch?v=dX0a0YWr3e0

Warmer days ahead...? Reflections on Thermal Management

Thu, 22 Mar 2012 13:33:38 -0400

Easter is upon us and with it comes the better weather; at least in this hemisphere. Not to say that we have not had the odd brighter day of late. The industry has been having more ‘brighter days’ too.

Encouraging signs that the semiconductor winter is over are becoming more frequent. Beneath the hype there is cause for hope that telecoms and fibre optics in particular, are staging a recovery. As evinced by recent contracts or it simply could be that they were saving up these and technical/product first for the 2012 OFC/NFOEC show brought some interesting new items to light.

The many thousands of visitors – all with substantial travel budgets and time away from their factories and offices – heard about the hot technical matters that are enabling technologies for fiber capacities beyond 100 Terabit/s and space division multiplexing. 100-Gbps modules look actually to be ready for sampling shortly with companies including Opnext likely ahead of the pack and others like Oclaro, Fujitsu Optical Components and JDSU while Finisar showcased its prototype 100G coherent module.

But that is now, I wrote the bones of this epistale as an editorial for my magazine III-Vs Review quite a few summers ago – back then I was in an optimistic mood saying that there were reports of more substantial contracts such as in what was the long-awaited fibre-to-the-premises (FTTP) business which has now, of course, spread globally.

Hopefully, this will all before too long be a major contributor to the welfare of the laser and detector sectors and the market forecasters’ dreams will come true. Nevertheless, some will find reasons for concern.

Relevancy is a personal thing but the responsibility of magazines like III-Vs Review once was, is to draw attention to topics which complement and challenge the existing order now and tomorrow.

No one should be complacent of course. Back then I had spoken to SiGe Semiconductor’s Stuart Strickland for a feature and he had freely remarked that despite the company name, they didn’t see it as a straightjacket.

Their SiGe IP was going to be strong for years to come but they are sensibly keeping an eye on CMOS and even III-Vs. Well, that came true in a way somewhat different from how we had thought it might. Why become like all the other companies with offerings spread too thing. It was their specialisation that made them stand out. Maybe it was a little too attractive because within the past year they have become a division of a US company that is a leader in GaAs-based RF circuits, Skyworks Solutions.

Another challenger, I said, came in the form of the ‘silicon-like’ semiconductor diamond (crystalline carbon) which is just above silicon in the Periodic Table. Naturally it has a set of properties attractive to the electronics industry. It was appropriate therefore to look over some developments in that family which has been termed ‘diamond-like carbon’ (DLC) thin films.

There continues to be a sizeable interest in DLC materials not only for R&D (i.e. publishing papers) but also for source materials, process tools and characterisation. Relatively speaking it is still fairly small compared to III-nitrides and SiC but interesting nonetheless for the overlap with the usual content of that magazine.

DLC continues to have potential for commercially useful opto- as well as micro-electronic devices. Thus many labs are producing workable prototype detectors and emitters over a range of wavelengths.

As I said, it would be some time before we could report on commercial devices but various commercial diamond products are around. And then there is the hybrid approach with GaN-on diamond. High power lasers might benefit from thermal management (TM) based on DLC. A crucial factor would be cost. New developments in CVD are worth keeping an eye on in this respect.

I really stuck my neck out back then “Who knows, in ten years time you might be able to buy a notebook PC with diamonds inside”. They would be part of the much needed TM system controlling the temperature of the processor etc. “This would be a great benefit to those of use who cook their laps while typing up magazine editorials,” I lamented.

OK this has yet to come about but there have been some other interesting developments to the continuing problem of laptop cooling. This past week there was a lot of interest in liquid cooling.

Asetek released a video that shows off a liquid cooling system that can not only work in laptops but also in all-in-one desktops. It reckons its patented solution overcomes previous attempts at liquid cooling portables, which offered little advantage over traditional heat sinks. Great for laptops and maybe even for the next iPad to come along – that too seems in its latest iteration to be causing a stir because in certain quarters they claim it is getting a little hotter than its predecessors.

Roy Szweda

http://www.asetek.com/press-room/news/338-asetek-demonstrates-liquid-cooling-for-laptop-and-all-in-one-pcs.html

Movie Review: Stormhouse

Wed, 14 Mar 2012 15:05:00 -0400

Today I concluded watching a movie I had high hopes for. Sadly these were not to be fulfilled in fact it may have been one of those occasions when you exclaim “well there is 90 minutes of my life I won’t get back” but it is always the risk you take. Luckily I borrowed this one so I am at least not out of pocket. Perhaps I am writing this in the expectation that someone out there might read it and save their money and time for something more rewarding. Nevertheless, as with anything you should make your own mind up about such things.

Below is a YT preview of the movie, the one that engaged my intrigue. It is a novel precept having the military capture and confine a supernatural force. I doubt that this is hardly original but it has a topical context to give it a newish angle. That is about as far as it goes though. Think of the movie or they made of Doom - the last one where it relies on things jumping out of the darkness over and over again. BORING! It also has elements of Alien and numerous other movies - the haunted house whereby a “thing” is after a group of people and kills them one by one allowing the filmakers to assemble a sequence of grisly demises. This could work if like Alien you care about the protagonists. In this new movie I did not.

The main character is an American woman with some unexplained talent for talking to ghosts. She is a sort of love interest whereas nearly all of the others are creature fodder and you know this fairly early on.

Possibly the worst thing about this type of movie is the use of very poor lighting so you have to sit in the dark to discern anything. The soundtrack is muffled and muddied too so whatever might be going on - and I listened hard to pick up elusive clues as to what the hell was going on - all to no avail.

My suspicion remains that like too many of these Brit war-horror movies there is no proper plot. There certainly is no decent dialogue or acting. In fact there is no one in it I have seen in anything else. The scenery looks like some disused army base with lots of concrete and doors, cheap machinery and control boards etc.

In fact I am now bored with writing about this movie and will go off and think about writing something more worthwhile.

Stormhouse horror film Official Teaser 2011 (by Stormhousefilm)

<src=”http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tp5a6T0kCCw”“>

Revisting Past Glories: Market Reports Part One, Lasers...

Tue, 13 Mar 2012 12:58:12 -0400

Almost a decade ago I found myself in a dilemma - I had to write two market reports in one year. This did not happen often enough in a way but they are a monstrous job to undertake especially if you are earning a crust through other means. Nevertheless, we gave it a go and to my astonishment it not only was delivered on time to spec but also sold quite a few copies.

Sadly, however, it did not get to its second edition et seq. This is the bane of writing market reports. Only for a few of the half dozen or more I originated some time back ever got further than a single edition. Before you look at me and wonder was I deficient in some way then I offer in my defence the notion that it also takes for the publisher to be on your side too. They had other fish to fry at the time and people move on… without your internal champion your efforts can often come to nought.

I always thought of this report as part of the ongoing series. We had done one on gallium arsenide to start and that ran for about three editions. Then we did one on gallium nitride and that did at least two. A companion report was other compounds I thought, maybe indium phosphide and its alloys but instead we produced one on devices. Well, nominally on devices because it had wafer markets in there as well. The fourth and last one I did for Elsevier was Silicon Germanium. Sadly that never made it past the first edition either. Circumstances and industries change so maybe it was for the best.

Anyway back to lasers, this report examines the development of the diode laser industry over a six-year period, 2000 to 2005, incorporating analysis of trends in markets, technologies and industry structure. It is designed to provide key information to users and manufacturers of substrates, epitaxial wafers (epiwafers) and devices.
http://covers.openlibrary.org/b/id/2054785-L.jpg
The coverage includes components, laser diodes, and the semiconducting (SC) wafers and epiwafers on which most of these devices are made.

The geographical coverage of the report includes North America, Japan and Europe, which together will account for over 90% of the production and consumption of diode laser materials and devices over the next five years.

However, many other countries have activities in this field including South-East Asia (Taiwan, South Korea, Singapore, Malaysia etc), China, India, Australia and Eastern Europe (Russia, Poland, Hungary, the Czech Republic) amongst others. Activities in these countries are commented on in the text where relevant, but are not quantified in the market data.

Chapter 1 is an introduction to the market study and Chapter 2 contains an executive summary.

Chapter 3 overviews materials markets. The size, quality, and particularly the price, of substrates and wafers are key factors in determining the ability of companies to produce competitive laser products. Chapter 3 also examines trends in materials technologies for laser diodes, the impact of the device markets on wafer demand, and the main suppliers. This chapter introduces the semiconductor materials that are presently or will likely become important to the fabrication of diode laser devices. The principal distinguishing properties of these materials are explained with reference to their application.

Chapter 4 chapter examines the basic application sectors for laser diode devices as well as the basic commercial opportunities, changes and forces acting within each sector. The chapter also examines the market for the basic types of device as well as the promising newer types. For each type of device, market data and forecasts are provided and future prospects described.

The application data are presented for the usual industrial groups.
Check out my modest masterpiece at Amazon in the US or UK, if not then pop along to Elsevier’s Science Direct.
http://www.amazon.co.uk/Diode-Laser-Materials-Devices-Technology/dp/1856173860

Aerospace Deals Aplenty in February - Electronics to the Fore, latest avionics in ancient jet airliners!

Tue, 13 Mar 2012 12:42:39 -0400

Most industries have their business flow punctuated by the major shows that dot the calendar. These are a haven for all the usual movers and shakers to interact and hopefully transact some deals in surroundings that would take them many months and many thousands of bucks in travel expenses to see at any other time. The one in question that generated most of the headlines for February was the Singapore Airshow where just about all the major players chose to exhibit and of course this is what they were saving up those press announcements for.

The aerial action was of course something of a showcase and showing off of the best characteristics of the best aircraft available – and as ever centre stage were the most expensive machines such as the Eurofighter Typhoon and Dassault Aviation Rafale, two superb aircraft that are vying for the attentions and orders of numerous air forces around the world.
This sequence is as good a visual summary as any and it certainly looks as thought everyone was having a jolly nice time.
http://videos.airbus.com/video/bb86d116519s.html
The aerial action had some interesting local support as well as the international stars.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FUT0A-6edv8&feature=related
For instance, Lockheed Martin unveiled a new version of the F-16: the F-16V which will feature enhancements including an active electronically scanned array (AESA) radar, an upgraded mission computer and architecture, and improvements to the cockpit which it says are all capabilities identified by the US Air Force and several international customers for future improvements. It added that it has developed an innovative solution to affordably retrofit this technology into existing F-16s. F-16V it sees as an option for new production jets too. By the way it gets the V appellation from the favoured nickname for this aircraft from US pilots “Viper”.
Outside of the airshow probably the largest single contract award of the month once again concerns the aerospace sector. Mid-month the Israeli Air Force (IAF) announced it had selected the Alenia Aermacchi M-346 as its future trainer to replace its fleet of obsolescent Douglas Skyhawks. This is a somewhat unusual contract because it involves the joint venture specially set up by Israel Aerospace Industries Ltd (IAI), Elbit Systems Ltd, called Thor, buying the thirty aircraft, maintain them then sell air time to the IAF. In exchange for the procurement deal, the MoD expects a matching billion dollars in reciprocal procurements from Italy which may include the IAI AEW&C platforms as well as jointly developing a new reconnaissance satellite with Israel.
As well as being the primary trainer for the Italian Air Force, the M-346 has been selected by Republic of Singapore Air Force (RSAF) to replace the ST Aerospace A-4SU Super Skyhawks in the Advanced Jet Training (AJT) role. Alenia Aermacchi will shortly begin delivering the dozen aircraft while Boeing will supply the training system. For the future, in the USA, Alenia Aermacchi will bid the M-346 Master for the US Air Force’s T-X program to replace Northrop T-38 Talons; the T-X program has an export opportunity for up to 1000 aircraft.
All that notwithstanding the month saw numerous other deals and contract announcements across the gamut of radar, EW, comms, weapons and other systems. The THAAD program was producing more contract awards for Lockheed Martin and its partners. In addition Raytheon delivered the first international version of its APY-10 surveillance radar to Boeing which will be installed on the P-8I aircraft Boeing is building for the Indian Navy.
In another first, UK-based Plextek Ltd signed an MOU with South Korean firm Nuriplan Co. Ltd, for the supply of Blighter radars into the South Korean market.
Looking further ahead Northrop Grumman was participating in US Fleet Forces Command’s Joint/Coalition Amphibious Exercise Bold Alligator 2012, employing its BAC 111 test aircraft to provide F-35 Joint Strike Fighter (JSF) sensor capabilities. The venerable BAC 111 is being configured with the F-35’s AN/APG-81 AESA radar and the AN/AAQ-37 infrared distributed aperture system (DAS).
The BAC 11 used to be a common sight in the skies over Europe but sadly is now only to be seen as museum exhibit such as that held at IWM Duxford. Here is a video of the test bed with iys prominent thimble nose:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dhZmLUc6nwE
I find it intriguing that this humble stalwart of the UK’s airlines is now responsible for testing some of the most advanced electronics systems for the latest generation avionics. Northrop Grumman owns two BAC 1-11s that have served as test beds for many developmental programs such as the B-1B, F-16, and F-22 radar, Falcon Knight electro-optical sensor, and the YF-23 avionics.
In electronic warfare BAE Systems said it had won a contract from Northrop Grumman – Aerospace Systems to provide ESM systems for use on all 20 B-2 Spirit bombers, a complete replacement of the current aging AN/APR-50 system. With this award, BAE Systems will now be providing EW systems on all three of the U.S. Air Force’s Low Observable platforms; the F-22, F-35 and B-2 aircraft.
In another deal BAE Systems was selected by the US Army as one of two contractors to develop the next generation Common Infrared Countermeasure (CIRCM) solution. CIRCM is a lightweight directed infrared countermeasure system for Army, Navy, and Marine rotary-wing aircraft. The US Army also awarded Northrop Grumman a contract for CIRCM Technical Demonstration program to develop the next generation of aircraft survivability equipment to defend helicopters.
In weapons, the F-35 made its first test flight with external missiles attached - two AIM-9X, two AIM-120 (AMRAAM) as well as two internal 2,000-pound guided bombs (GBU-31). However, the news was not so good for the companies making the AMRAAM and its successor. Firstly, the Pentagon has slowed down acquisition of the new AIM-120D version due to problems with producing its rocket motors but even so the Pentagon is to spend $423 million on continued production for a total of 180 missiles, including Navy and Marine Corps buys. Worse news was to follow with the Air Force cancelling the next generation missile (NGM) replacement for the AMRAAM as well as the AGM-88 HARM for affordability reasons.
Perennial star of the communications sector, Harris Corporation was able to celebrate the shipment of its 100,000th Falcon II® High-Frequency manpack tactical radio — it claims it is the world’s most widely deployed software-defined HF radio system; Harris also unveiled the Harris Falcon networking system — the first end-to-end system for connecting warfighters in the field to the tactical cloud.
Other companies were not being left out though with Thales, through its fully owned subsidiary Omnisys, a Brazilian technology company based in São Bernardo do Campo, delivering the first batch of SOTAS intercom systems to equip Brazilian Army Urutu vehicles.

Counterfeit Parts—The Growing Menace

Mon, 27 Feb 2012 05:40:00 -0500

Time for an missive since it has been quite a while since the last one. Mostly this is due to the avalanche of news to process and simply getting it into each issue of my regular e-newsletters every month—alongside our venerable print bimonthly newsletter on electronics packaging - we are convinced some people out there still prefer to handle a newsletter rather than read it on their screens, tho I am thinking of doing a Kindle edition!.

The companion newsletters are on silicon germanium and nitrides - LEDs and transistors plus enything else that we find interesting from the month. As I like to say to anyone within earshot, it is quite a workload for anyone every month, and there’s just the pair of us.

Some things stand out from time to time - and this time it is the plague that is counterfeit components. SAE International issued a new technical standard to combat the increasing volume of fraudulent and counterfeit electronic parts entering the aerospace supply chain.

The stats are indeed worrying—reports of counterfeit parts have quadrupled since 2009 according to IHS iSuppli. Some 1,363 separate counterfeit-part incidents worldwide, up from 324 in 2009. 2011 was the first single year that saw the total number of reported counterfeit incidents exceed a thousand. Moreover, these reports have risen by almost a factor of 700 over the last decade. That this should arise is no mystery; there are several ways counterfeiters can insert parts into the supply chain. In fact were the suppliers and users to destroy old parts perhaps recycling them then there would be able to cut off one source. Scrap materials are sorted, boards depopulated and parts refinished. A more insidious approach is to use smaller components and package them in different package formats.

One of the underlying reasons why the counterfeit plague has not abated is the reluctance of companies to track the history of every part on every board in every product. It has not helped that technology is making it easier to create cheaper and more convincing fakes. Plus parts can be sourced globally via the Internet with no meetings face to face. Even though this situation is affecting nearly all segments of the electronics industry perhaps it is most problematic in the defense industry. It looks likely that in order to achieve compliance with new NDAA requirements and avoid significant costs they may now incur for counterfeit-related incidents, companies within the mil/aero electronics business must now procure systems and data to analyze, assess, and act on counterfeit and suspect counterfeits.

Plus they must use trusted suppliers but this is going to cause major problems because there are thousands of parts and suppliers across many programs and throughout the supply chain. Agencies are looking to implement new tools and ongoing reports to detect, monitor and report for counterfeit, substandard and high-risk parts and thereby achieve NDAA compliance.

In the US steps are being taken and on the last day of 2011, the US President signed the fiscal year 2012 US National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA). This wide ranging edict includes regulations for counterfeit part detection and avoidance. From now on members at all tiers of the defense supply chain must put counterfeit risk mitigation procedures in place and certain steps must be completed within 270 days. It will remain to be seen when or even if this has effectiveness and, of course, it only affects the US and the industry awaits news of measures forthcoming from Europe, for example. The clock is ticking; no disaster has yet been attributed to this subtle form of warfare but it can only be a matter of time and the industry must bear the cost.

So there we are, all done—if you want to read more about this report then you can visit the following link… some may prefer to know less about this given the potential for disaster that it implies all in the name of quick profits and to the shame of the industry.
WS: http://tinyurl.com/89vamyb

Strickly on Ice Meets El Camino... yes really!

Mon, 09 Jan 2012 17:01:32 -0500

More TV fun at the weekend aside from the movie moment and playing El Camno over and over again. It is only half an hour but that is 29 minutes more fun than most recent efforts by better known artists of longer standing.

The Akron duo are no newcomers of course with half a dozen albums in the pantry for our delectation and tantalisation of the musical taste buds. But I am hardly unbiased; they could do the phone book and I would like it.

Maybe it is brave of them to confine the track count to around ten. That way we get what they think is the essence of their progress. Moreover, we get the album before xmas… so it could miss the ridiculous critic faves in the mags but fill our stockings then we might get another helping in the new year.

These guys are probably efficient workers because only two to fall out over what goes on which album etc. Catch them on tour fans old and new in the UK tho why they come over here when they are so well thought of in North America but good for them.

We have also been ploughing through the latest ITV morass pf a skating contest for middle range celebs looking to score panto jobs for 2012. I will not proffer spoilers but may the notional “best man win” fell at the first hurdle…

And then there was Treasure Island… oh dear, oh dear - is there peyote in the water supply some days or was it really a casting person’s idea of a joke?

And did it work? Find out in tomorrow’s amazingly tense and puerile episode of Roy’s wafflings on the moaning of life… plus what we thought of Ironing Lady. Hurrah!

Roy Reviews RED The Movie (BRD)

Sun, 08 Jan 2012 07:52:00 -0500

Slothful and indolent we stayed moored in front of the box last night. Old age is creeping in like a wounded badger (WTF? Ed). Lovefilm is just another addiction or compulsion. I like it but do not love it but then it is a cheapish VFM way to watch discs I do not want to buy only to have cluttering up the house.
Nice to watch a movie without subtitles for a change. “Red” was highly enjoyable and not too bad a way to spend two hours. Had to pause it a couple of times but basically the plot is simple enough that most could keep up anyway.
The word “formulaic” springs to mind but thanks to some good cameos and sharp quotes well delivered by two of my fave Brit actor types, Ms Mirren and THAT Mr Cox, the hours flew by.
A conspiracy thriller I suppose you would call it but there is little substance to it besides. It looks good and knows it. Clever dick graphics and SFX punctuate some fine set scenes and witty dialogue.
Curiously it inhabits a place in between categories I think. There is no sexy stuff in it, no skimpily clad folks, not much more than a snog or two, a bit of humorous bondage but no funny business, no swearing, the violence is almost cartoon-like and delivered in a serves you right fashion - with one exception. Other highlights are the appearance of Dexter’s dad for a while and of course the mighty Morgan Freeman.
That is how I judge the watchability of movies these days - who is in it that I like. Simply seeing them strut their stuff is enough. OK, some actors may feel they need a role that is easier than, for example, tackling Mamma Mia then Thatcher but others retain integrity and will enhance even the worst script simply by their presence. Besides, if it aint quite so good it is easier to lambast it afterwards.
The likes of Mr Brooker have made a career of pouring vitriolic clever-dick prose into the columns but to their shame they seldom venture away from the bleeding obvious. These are what I call soft targets. Dripping venom over the likes of X Factor and SCD is hardly flexing the grey muscles is it?
So when stuck for an easy on the eye escapist romp then you could do worse than “RED” - why it is called that i will leave for you to discover (it is explained in the movie but is nigh-on irrelevant).

BTW the BRD has extras including a commentary track and some out-takes etc.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rMCh4etBbkU

Black Keys - El Camino, a stab at reviewing a mini-masterpiece

Sat, 07 Jan 2012 12:45:24 -0500

I began typing about just one track on the new Black Keys album and without any real effort it turned into something akin to a mini-review. Far from wishing to sell their unique brand of meaningful music to anyone, if you have not enjoyed the Akron combo then yours is a huge box of delicious choccies waiting to tickle your taste buds.
That is indeed an odd literary statement given that the Black Keys will tickle your earholes and thence your cranial pleasure centres rather than via your mouth but there you go. I don’t actually write this because it is I am sure some kind of spirit using my fingers. Enough, on to the the meat of the matter.
Have been enjoying the new album from the Black Keys for the past week. Spoilsorts have joined the gang that choose not to stream their wares via Spotify which is a shame but it’s their decision which we have to respect. You can listen to most tracks on YT anyway and this is possibly my fave track not that there is a duff track anywhere on El Camino.
Like too many of late, they have not fully exploited the capacity of a CD and the album is only a tad longer than half an hour. But then why dilute it with stuff you feel is not up to the standard of the others? IMHO maybe a set of acoustic renditions would be good.
Even tho The BK’s are more or less a duo they fill your room with their warming rock sounds. In this case the album is nearer to pop than the raw bluesier stuff they started out with. I have no complaints because this album just about beats everything else I can recall from 2011. In fact I would go so far as to say there is not a single track in their entire output I dislike. El Camino is a very fine adjunct to the back catalog without pushing too far it should encourage new fans to explore their earlier music.
Enjoy this track “Sister” and maybe you can figure out what the hell they are on about. I presume he does not really mean his sister. Some kind of metaphor. At times it sounds like the Isley Brothers… a Summer Breeze guitar homage maybe?
Whatever the case, it has an impressive groove going. Like much near-perfect pop it appeals to the mind, the heart and the feet.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8kC6Rl3HXaA&feature=results_video&playnext=1&list=PL5574517E363318EB

Horizon "Review" on Grauniad Page... my addition

Tue, 16 Aug 2011 12:57:00 -0400

To follow is something I wrote after watching the BBC TV documentary Horizon, a prog that has rarely filled me with admiration. Now you can read on and discover in part why I thought the first in the new series fell so short of even my expectations.

I seldom watch this program but last week’s was interesting and this one had its moments. Sadly, as I expected, while it was great to show off the HD TV it was bereft of much that I would call science or engineering.
I am not even sure quite what the intention of the program actually was. So, coincidentally several ‘big budget’ projects are going on around the world involving ‘telescopes’ and this is important - why? Casual viewers will again be astonished that so much money is available for the pursuit of knowledge that is unlikely to have much impact on us. It did not help that most of those interviewed did not seem able to point to why either.
Having a science degree I was intrigued and hopeful that some revelation would appear in the show to explain what was actually new. OK, putting a telescope in a 747 is impressive but I did not learn much about how they achieved this. Less than ten minutes later we were off somewhere else for some more eye candy and some pointless stuff about altitude sickness.
Later I was even more confused about what these days a âtelescopeâ actually is; they were talking about neutrinos â where in the rainbow do they come?
It could have been so much better and I was left thinking what a wasted opportunity. And where was anything British? Maybe we are relieved that so little of our cash is being spent on such cosmic ponderings.

PS Does anyone else out there find the narrative style used in these shows rather irritating? Is it just me or did she have the emphasis in each sentence in the wrong place? Highly puzzling.

I found it quite food fun to write, more fun than watching the prog. Maybe I will review some other stuff. I should add I was not a fan of the reviewer’s grasp of the prog either but that is his opinion.

Just added this:

IMHo the music was the least of its problems. And I did a double take on that temperature he told us, I think he meant 273.5K but will relisten. Whatever the case it is an impressive achievement so have a great admiration to their onboard engineers tho I would be very leery of sharing a plane with all that cryogenics, as probably many know there is not only a hazard from the cold but also explosive and asphyxiation from LN2 let alone LHe. In a pressurized cabin at six miles… ? No thanks. Bad enough down here. So having written that I can only restate how such fascinations were overlooked by this doc. Would have loved to see a whole prog on SOFA or whatever it was called!U

The perils of investing too much time in YouTube

Thu, 09 Jun 2011 17:18:00 -0400

Should have learned my lesson several years ago when I lost all my vid clips after YT shut me down. Couple of weeks ago I posted one clip too many it seems. The irony was that it was a clip of a band performing at a charity gig. Nevertheless, somehow I crossed the line and before I could remove the clip, YT switched off my site. In so doing one wrong move cost me over 500 clips in a collection of other bands who were evidently quite happy for my clips of them to be seen by anyone on the web.

Now I should have known this was going to happen to me but I had decided to brave it out. Now I am paying for it. I really hope I can sort this out but so far my pleas to YT have gone largely ignored. I have in the meanwhile begun another YT page as well as putting my clips up elsewhere like Dailymotion and Megavideo. By spreading myself further I think I am less vulnerable.

I therefore caution anyone putting the vid clip collection on YT to think carefully. I got two of the three strikes with copyright infringement nearly two years ago. Unlike your drivers licence these marks count against you indefinitely. Therefore when I got the third one the first I knew about it was an email telling me it had resulted in my termination. I felt like a criminal.

I am determined that this will not happen to me again and the vid clip that heads my first foray into the world of Tumblr is another phone vid… with the blessing of the band… and signals my defiance. But be warned…