01/10/08 : PE IC Design GmbH to provide Power-Saving-Integrated-Circuits

Less than 2.5 years after the foundation of Productivity Engineering IC Design GmbH (PE) in Kesselsdorf near Dresden there are 10 engineers working on customer specific integrated microelectronic circuits. This was the declared goal when the decision was made to establish PE in Dresden and it has become reality now. PE has strongly invested into EDA (Electronic Design Automation) software tools last year. This investment is the foundation to be able to develop highly specialized solutions. PE has developed customer ICs in silicon technologies ranging from 1 micron to 350 nanometer over the last 2.5 years.
The long lasting business relationship between "ASIC Design Malsch", an independent ASIC development company in Bad Schandau near Dresden and "PE IC Design GmbH" has lead to a friendly "take-over" of all assets of "ASIC Design Malsch" on January 1st 2008. We are quite happy that R. Malsch took the decision t o bring his many years of experience and recognition in the industry into our company. He will keep on supporting his former customer base and will support current and new customers of PE IC design as a "Senior ASIC Design Engineer".
PE will introduce its own new family of integrated circuits for Power Factor Correction (PFC) this year. These standard products will be implemented into switching power supplies. Electric power plants worldwide have to drive a certain power-overhead into their networks for the final user who takes the power from the wall plug socket. Parts of this wasted electric power, experts claim it can be as much as 10%, is reactive power consumed by switching power supplies. This is energy that is not dissipated in the load but will be returned to the source on each alternating current cycle. To reduce this reactive power a Power Factor Correction circuit brings the power factor of an AC power circuit like a switching power supply closer to 100% efficiency by supplying reactive power of opposite sign. PE is developing several ICs for different applications by using new highly efficient and flexible techniques. The project is funded in parts by the European fund for regional development (EFRE) and the state of Saxony. To download a feature sheet click (here->).

02/15/07 : PE IC Design provided capacitive sensor array signal conditioner IC family

PE has developed a family of ICs for capacitive sensor array signal conditioning. The system allows for a very high number of sensors due to the scalability of the signal conditioning ICs. A pair of PE5001 and PE5002 can operate as a sensor signal conditioner for up to 10000 capacitive sensors at once. Each of the sensors delivers a resolution of up to 10bits which results in 10Million distinguishable conditional phases in the sensing matrix. The system delivers the full set of data within just 25 milliseconds to a host processor. The ICs are aimed at applications for:
• palm/finger print micro-sensor arrays
• high resolution touch screens
• permittivity liquid analysis and flow monitoring
• biomedical artificial extremities sensors
• artificial hand with touch strength sensitivity
• laboratory bio-chemical cell growth monitoring
A demonstrator will be presented at the Sensor+Test Trade Fair in Nurnberg in May. (Download Feature Sheet)

10/10/06 : PE IC Design encourages after-school electronics work group activities

PE IC Design is conducting and supporting a weekly after-school electronics work group since the beginning of this school term at Geschwister-Scholl Gymnasium in Freiberg. Pupils learn theoretical basics and perform practical experiments and thus get closer to what is behind electronic devices. Microelectronics is one of the fastest growing industries in Saxony ("Silicon Saxony"). New generations of potential engineers shall be encouraged to study electrical engineering to be ready for the comming challenges in this industry.

03/01/06 : PE IC Design is member of Silicon Saxony

PE IC Design GmbH joined Silicon Saxony one of the biggest European networks of the semiconductor, electronics, and microsystems industry. The organization has more than 200 member companies, which all together stand for 3 billion € turnover/net.