THe Antenna

Electronic News, Sept 14, 1998

WE'VE SPAWNED A HYBRID--With much of the semiconductor market moving to higher levels of integration, it is no surprise that the FPGA and ASIC vendors are going that way, as well. In fact, Actel, Lucent Technologies and QuickLogic have already introduced plans or products that combine ASICs and FPGAs onto one device, forming a hybrid logic product. Now it looks like Fujitsu Microelectronics is joining the game with some help from DynaChip. EN has learned that Fujitsu is working on combining DynaChip's FPGA architecture with Fujitsu's ASIC process to form its own hybrid logic device. More than likely, the device will be based on DynaChip's DL6000 architecture; however, specifics on the device are slim. It is unknown what target applications the Fujitsu hybrid would be used for or what ASIC process the company would combine it with. DynaChip uses Fujitsu as a back-up foundry for its FPGAs. Under that agreement, Fujitsu received access to the DynaChip architecture to work on this hybrid device.

THE NAME GAME--It won't be the UMAX Coliseum in Oakland, Calif. The Taiwanese manufacturer of scanners, digital cameras and Macintosh clones last year struck a deal to put its name on the home of the Oakland Raiders football team and the Oakland Athletics baseball team, but the arrangement foundered amid bickering between the Raiders and the Oakland-Alameda County Coliseum Authority, which owns the facility. UMAX Technologies, Inc., the Fremont, Calif.-based U.S. subsidiary of UMAX, last week said it will support a new deal between the Coliseum Authority and Network Associates for naming rights to the ballpark. The Network Associates Coliseum? Suddenly, 3Com Park doesn't sound so bad.

DEFINING MOMENT IN CYBERSPACE?--With news organizations far and wide poised late last week to rush the Starr report onto their Web sites, and with plenty of the public apparently anxious to read it, the 445-page tome covering President Clinton's alleged indiscretions with White House intern Monica Lewinsky and related matters could become a defining moment in the history of the Web... u