August 1, 2011 National Semiconductor Corp., has introduced seven new 24-bit and 16-bit multi-channel, sensor analog front-ends (AFE) that offer system designers a greater range of choices from high-performance to low-cost options that span channel configurations, current sources, and resolution. National’s LMP900xx sensor AFE integrated circuits (ICs) provide an easy to configure signal path solution for interfacing sensors to microcontrollers. Read more

July 28, 2011 Audi will use National Semiconductor's FPD-Link III SerDes chipsets in its upcoming car generation due in 2012. The carmaker plans to equip its modular high-end infotainment systems with NatSemi's high-bandwidth data transmission technology. Read more

July 26, 2011 Chip maker Texas Instruments Inc., said Monday (July 25) that two semiconductor fabs damaged in the March 11 earthquake in Japan resumed production ahead of schedule as the company reported second quarter results that beat analysts' expectations. Read more

July 12, 2011 National Semiconductor Corp., has introduced a family of analog-to-digital converters that the company claims are the industry’s first to directly sample RF signals beyond 2.7 GHz, with third-order intermodulation distortion (IMD3) up to -71 dBc and sampling at up to 3.6 GSPS. Read more

June 29, 2011 National Semiconductor Corp. has introduced two new high-voltage system power management and protection integrated circuits (ICs) with on-chip power management bus (PMBus) support. The 48 V input voltage LM5066 and -48 V input voltage LM5064 integrate high-performance system protection and management blocks that precisely measure, control and manage the electrical operating conditions in systems such as routers, switches and base stations. Read more

June 20, 2011 National Semiconductor Corp. has introduced what the company claims is the industry’s first 100 V half-bridge gate driver optimized for use with enhancement-mode Gallium-Nitride (GaN) power field-effect transistors (FETs) in high-voltage power converters. National’s new LM5113 is a highly-integrated, high-side and low-side GaN FET driver that reduces component count by 75 percent and shrinks printed circuit board (PCB) area by up to 85 percent compared to discrete driver designs. Read more

June 9, 2011 National Semiconductor Corp. has introduced the industry’s first 2 A red, green and blue (RGB) LED driver for portable projectors that drives three common anode RGB high-brightness LEDs sequentially with a single inductor. The highly-integrated LM3435 includes an I2C control interface for LED current control. Read more

June 9, 2011 National Semiconductor Corp. has introduced the SolarMagic arc detection reference design that comprises analog front end integrated circuits (ICs) and multi-band dynamic filtering firmware which the company claims is the first commercially available chipset to detect hazardous DC arc faults in photovoltaic (PV) systems. Read more

June 6, 2011 National Semiconductor Corp. has introduced a highly integrated linear LED driver that simplifies the design of high power, wide area lighting fixtures such as streetlights.  The LM3466, with just a few passive components, provides a complete system that drives each LED string from any off-the-shelf AC/DC constant-current power supply. Read more

June 1, 2011 National Semiconductor Corp's WEBENCH Designer tools are now available in the Portuguese language Worldwide expert and novice electronic engineers as well as mechanical engineers have used WEBENCH to create over 1.5 million analog designs cost-free and quickly since its introduction in 1999. Read more

April 5, 2011 Texas Instruments Incorporated has signed a definitive agreement with National Semiconductor under which TI will acquire National for $25 per share in an all-cash transaction of about $6.5 billion.  The acquisition combines two industry leaders in analog semiconductors and the boards of directors of both companies have unanimously approved the transaction. Read more

March 21, 2011 National Semiconductor has introduced a new family of clock jitter cleaners that claim to feature the industry’s lowest phase noise and rms jitter performance: 111 fs from 12 kHz to 20 MHz, and a wideband noise floor of -162 dBc/Hz at 184 MHz output frequency. The level of phase noise enhances the performance of systems used in wireless and wired communications, test and measurement, medical imaging, software defined radio (SDR) and digital broadcast applications, while reducing overall bill of materials (BOM) cost. Read more

March 14, 2011 National Semiconductor Corp. has introduced ten new SolarMagic ICs, the first in a series developed to reduce cost, improve reliability and simplify design of photovoltaic (PV) systems. Ranging from the industry's first full-bridge gate driver to a micropower voltage regulator, the new ICs are designed for a variety of photovoltaic electronic applications, including those found in microinverters, power optimizers, charge controllers and panel safety systems. Read more

March 7, 2011 National Semiconductor Corp., has unveiled what the company claims is the industry’s first full-bridge pulse width modulation (PWM) controllers to integrate all four primary-side bridge MOSFET gate drivers. The LM5045 and LM5046 are well-suited for delivering higher efficiency and higher power density in quarter-brick and eighth-brick power modules used in a variety of high input voltage communications infrastructure applications. Read more

February 24, 2011 National Semiconductor Corp. has unveiled what the company claims is the industry’s first stereo analog subsystem with integrated Class G headphone amplifier and automatic level control (ALC) for smartphones and feature phones. The PowerWise LM49251’s Class G headphone amp dynamically reduces the supply voltage to lower power consumption and extend audio (MP3, movies, etc.) playback time. Read more

February 22, 2011 National Semiconductor Corp. has introduced a pair of high-current, synchronous buck regulators which the company claims delivers the industry's highest efficiency at 97 percent.  The LM21212-1 and LM21215 are well-suited for high-performance FPGAs, ASICs and microprocessors used in a variety of low-voltage applications including wireless, networking and optical communications infrastructure.  Read more

February 22, 2011 National Semiconductor Corp. is releasing the company’s WEBENCH Designer tools in the Russian language. National's WEBENCH environment features WEBENCH Visualiser, which claims to be the only tool to provide visual navigation of virtually unlimited power and lighting designs optimized to meet desired specifications in seconds, and WEBENCH Power Architect, which makes creation of highly optimized multiple load, multiple supply power regulation systems almost effortless. Read more

February 2, 2011 In this news analysis article EE Times Europe Analog's editor, Paul Buckley, talks with  Anita Ganti, Precision Systems Business Unit Director at National Semiconductor about how the analog IC company aims to help sensor systems designers cut the time they take to create a modern sensor design system from weeks, or even months, to a matter of minutes. Read more

January 31, 2011 National Semiconductor Corp. is claiming a breakthrough in high-speed signal conditioning by becoming the first company to successfully demonstrate 28 Gbps discrete quad-channel retimer technology with ultra-low power consumption to drive 100 Gbps to 400 Gbps interfaces in next-generation data center systems. Read more

January 28, 2011 National Semiconductor Corp. has unveiled three multi-channel PowerWise 10 Gbps repeaters that claim to provide the industry's highest equalisation gain (36 dB), consume half the power (55 mW/channel) and deliver twice the reach (20 m over 24-AWG cable) of current industry solutions. Read more

January 24, 2011 National Semiconductor Corp., is unveiling an innovative design engineering solution which aims to slash the time taken to create a modern sensor design system from weeks, or even months, to a matter of minutes. The company plans to revolutionize how sensor systems are designed by simplifying the design process and speed time-to-market with the launch of two configurable sensor analog front-end (AFE) integrated circuits supported by a new bench-top evaluation tool. Read more

December 22, 2010 So it is that time of year when you want to put your feet up after digging your car out of the snowdrift. While you are waiting for your Xmas turkey or nut cutlet to defrost you can pass the time by taking a peek at EE Times Europe Analog's Top 10 most popular news stories of 2010.  The results are based on the news stories that were accessed by EE Times Europe Analog's readership since January 1, 2010. Read more

December 7, 2010 National Semiconductor Corp. has released the company’s SolarMagic MYPVDATA Solar Operations Center (SOC) which is software as a service (SaaS) developed to help users analyse data collected from the array by delivering meaningful information through an easy-to-use web-interface, so maximum energy can be harvested. Read more

December 1, 2010 National Semiconductor Corp., has introduced a new LED driver with the industry's best phase-based dimming performance for high-brightness light-emitting diode (LED) applications. The LM3450 LED driver integrates active power factor correction (PFC) and phase dimming decoding to provide uniform, flicker-free illumination across a wide, programmable dimming range. Read more

September 20, 2010 National Semiconductor Corp., has introduced a high voltage, dual-channel, dual-phase, synchronous buck controller with emulated current-mode (ECM) control. The LM5119 enables regulation of single or dual high-current voltages directly from inputs as high as 65 V, simplifying high voltage DC-DC conversion and reducing PCB footprint by up to 50 percent versus alternative solutions requiring two conversion stages. Read more

September 14, 2010 National Semiconductor Corp., has introduced WEBENCH FPGA Power Architect, which the company claims is the industry’s first design tool to model and optimize power supplies for FPGAs in minutes. Read more

September 7, 2010 National Semiconductor Corp. has unveiled the industry's first eight-channel ultrasound transmit/receive chipset specifically designed for portable ultrasound systems used in hospitals, clinics, ambulances and remote point-of-care facilities. The PowerWise chipset's innovative circuit architecture enables the design of both hand-carried and handheld units that deliver longer battery life and imaging performance comparable to larger console systems. Read more

September 7, 2010 National Semiconductor Corporation and Siemens Medical Solutions USA have agreed a strategic alliance to advance ultrasound technology, creating ultrasound imaging systems that produce enhanced image quality and advanced 3D/4D imaging capabilities, while consuming less power. Read more

September 2, 2010 The Wireless Power Consortium has launched the Qi 1.0 standard which enables consumer electronic brands and device manufacturers to bring interoperable wireless inductive charging devices to market. The Consortium also announced today the first products certified with Qi. Read more

August 9, 2010 A new linear root-mean-square (RMS) radio frequency (RF) power detector from National Semiconductor Corp., offers the industry’s highest precision with up to 40 dB dynamic range. The PowerWise LMH2120 increases wireless coverage and extends battery life for third-generation (3G) and fourth-generation (4G) mobile handsets. Read more

July 28, 2010 National Semiconductor Corp. is claiming the industry’s first analog audio subsystem with integrated noise reduction for use in smartphones and full-featured phones. The PowerWise LM49155 improves the talker’s voice-signal-to-background-noise ratio while retaining natural speech quality. Read more

July 6, 2010 National Semiconductor Corp. has unveiled a new synchronous voltage-mode buck controller that drives a variety of high-current point-of-load applications in printers, telecom, networking and embedded computing applications. Read more

June 21, 2010 National Semiconductor Corp. has acquired the technology of GTronix of Fremont, California, USA, a fabless semiconductor company specializing in programmable and adaptive analog sensory processing technology. Read more

June 16, 2010 National Semiconductor Corp., has unveiled its FPD-Link III family of automotive-grade serializer and deserializer (SerDes) chipsets featuring the industry's first real-time, bidirectional control channel for driver-assist video cameras. Read more

June 2, 2010 National Semiconductor Corp., has recently released what the company claims is the industry's fastest 12-bit analog-to-digital converter (ADC). Read more

June 1, 2010 National Semiconductor Corp, is hailing the advent of a new category of solar systems - “smart panels” – following the introduction of the solar industry's first in-panel SolarMagic chipset. Read more

June 1, 2010 National Semiconductor Corp., has introduced its Channel Link III serializer and deserializer (SerDes) family featuring the industry's first integrated zero-latency, bidirectional control channel. Read more

May 24, 2010 National Semiconductor Corp., is claiming the Industry’s fastest 12-bit analog-to-digital converter (ADC) with the introduction of its 3.6 GSPS ADC12D1800 which makes the ADC 3.6 times faster than any other available 12-bit device. Read more

May 18, 2010 A new ultra-high-speed operational amplifier (op amp) from National Semiconductor Corp., claims to deliver the industry's lowest noise (0.69 nV/sqrt Hz) with -3 dB bandwidth of 900 MHz at a gain of 10. Read more

April 26, 2010 National Semiconductor Corp. is claiming the industry’s first LED driver with dynamic headroom control and multiple outputs for high-power applications that accurately and efficiently drives up to four strings of LEDs. Read more

April 14, 2010 The industry's first configurable I/O chip for serial digital interface (SDI) broadcast video equipment from National Semiconductor Corp., simplifies design by providing manufacturers the flexibility to program their BNC interface connectors as either inputs (equalizer) or outputs (cable driver). Read more

April 14, 2010 A new triple-rate (3G/HD/SD) audio/video clock generator from National Semiconductor Corp., eliminates the need for external clock conditioning in professional and broadcast video equipment. Read more

April 7, 2010 National Semiconductor Corp., is introducing what the company claims is the industry’s first zero-drift, programmable instrumentation amplifier with on-chip diagnostics. Read more

April 6, 2010 National Semiconductor Corp., and Silicon Laboratories Inc., have released a new quarter-brick isolated DC-DC converter evaluation board and reference design to help power supply designers get higher power density in networking, communications and high-end server applications. Read more

March 12, 2010 Don Macleod has risen through the ranks of National Semiconductor Corp. to take on the CEO role late last November and has become the man with a mission - growth in revenue. Read more