HP's LATEST SPY-WARE SENSOR SOFTWARE CHIPS

[Anonymous]

HP’s LATEST SPY-WARE SENSOR
SOFTWARE CHIPS
HP
senses potential in a new market: Company’s new sensor technology can
collect data in variety of areas
DEC 2009 Today, an
abundance of Web-connected computers and cell phones keeps information
constantly at our fingertips. But engineers at Hewlett-Packard envision a
future of “IT everywhere” in which not just computers but every day
objects connect invisibly to provide even more data about the world
around us. HP Labs on Thursday announced a new semiconductor-based
sensor technology, up to 1,000 times more sensitive than current
sensors, to help accomplish its vision.

The new
micro-electro-mechanical systems (MEMS) accelerometers are essentially
computer chips with moving parts that can collect data in everything
from bridges and roads to tsunami warning systems and heart monitors.
Accelerometers sense vibration, shock or changes in speed from everyday
objects and translate that into information that can be collected and
interpreted in a wide range of applications.”With a series of sensing
devices on a bridge structure, you could monitor changes in vibration
and the number of cars across the bridge,” said Shaun Wilde, a senior
strategist with HP in Palo Alto, Calif.That information could have
helped engineers sense structural problems in the San Francisco-Oakland
Bay Bridge before a large chunk came careening down onto traffic, she
said.

Although HP won’t sell its accelerometers to the broader
market, the technology has the potential to open the market to new
applications. And that means new opportunities for local chipmakers such
as SEH America and Linear Technology down the road.”Sensors work with
high-precision devices that process that data,” said John Hamburger,
spokesman for Milpitas, Calif.-based Linear Technology, which operates a
semiconductor plant in Camas. “We make those high-precision parts.”

The
market for wireless sensors is expected to grow 57.5 percent by 2013,
according to an industry analysis by Frost & Sullivan.The technology
isn’t new. Consumers with an iPhone already know the accelerometer
function, which flips the screen from vertical to horizontal with a tip
of the phone. And airbags are deployed using the same MEMS technology.On
the high-cost, high-performance end, commercial jets have sophisticated
accelerometers but they run about the size of a brick.

HP’s
hybrid
HP has developed a new hybrid of those chips that does it
faster than the consumer chips and cheaper than commercial versions,
according to the company.”This represents at an industry level another
huge step in the evolution of MEMS devices,” said Grant Pease, a
business development manager with HP in Corvallis, Ore.

Typical
accelerometers consist of a weight between springs encased in a single
silicon wafer just a few millimeters in size. As the weight moves in
relation to the casing, it creates a signal.HP’s device uses three
wafers stacked together, allowing the weight to be 1,000 times heavier.
And in MEMS, heavier means higher resolution, said Pease.

Hewlett-Packard
is new to the sensor market but it’s been a leader in MEMS sales for
the past five years through its thermal inkjet printer division.”We had
to make only minor modifications in existing equipment,” to switch from
the MEMS production for inkjets to the sensors, said Pease. “The
organization and the fab and the intellectual capability is the same
group.”
http://www.tradingmarkets.com/.site/news/Stock%20News/2634033/

[Author]

December 21, 2009 at 10:13 AM