Actel (NASDAQ: ACTL) announced that its IGLOO field-programmable gate arrays (FPGAs) and ProASIC3 FPGAs were awarded Best All Around FPGAs in Penton Media’s 2008 Best Electronic Design Competition. Featured in Electronic Design magazine’s December special issue, the award highlights the most significant technologies in advancing electronic design.

AMD (NYSE: AMD) released the AMD Sempron™ 210U and 200U processors for embedded systems. These new processors are available with five-year longevity that is standard for AMD embedded components and feature lidless ball grid array (BGA) packaging with the low power and high performance of AMD’s Direct Connect Architecture.

Analog Devices (NYSE: ADI) developed a new motion sensing device specifically for energy-constrained portable consumer products. The ADXL345 three-axis digital integrated microelectromechanical system (iMEMS^®) accelerometer is the lowest power device in its class, achieving an 80 percent power savings compared to competing three-axis inertial sensors.

Apexone Microelectronics was recognized by China Software and IC Production Centre (CSIP) at its 2008 ChinaChip Awards Dinner Celebration as one of China’s top fabless companies that have demonstrated excellence through their success, vision, strategy and future opportunity in the nation. At this event, Apexone was honored with the Best Market Performance Award.

austriamicrosystems (SWX: AMS) expanded its inductorless boost converter portfolio with the AS1302, an ultra-small inductorless direct current/direct current (DC/DC) boost converter. The AS1302 is capable of output currents as high as 30mA from a wide ranging input of 2.9V to 5.15V.

Bay Microsystems’ ABEx^® 2020 Multiservice Transport Gateway platform, which enables InfiniBand extension over wide area networks (WANs), was accepted into InfiniBand Trade Association’s (IBTA) Integrators’ List.

Broadcom (NASDAQ: BRCM) teamed with Sharp Electronics to deliver innovative Bluetooth^® technology for next-generation digital television (DTV) products. As a result of this collaboration, Sharp is now shipping its new AQUOS^® XS1 series of DTVs with built-in Bluetooth from Broadcom featuring the BCM2046 single-chip Bluetooth receiver in both the television and the remote control.

Electronic Products magazine awarded California Micro Devices (NASDAQ: CAMD) with its 2008 Product of the Year award for the CM1233-08DE. The CM1233-08DE is the industry’s first product to provide both outstanding signal integrity and robust electrostatic discharge (ESD) protection for high-speed differential signals such as High-Definition Multimedia Interface (HDMI) and DisplayPort.

SFR selected Cavium Networks’ (NASDAQ: CAVM) OCTEON CN50XX processor family for their next-generation gigabit, triple-play home gateway, the neufbox.

Conexant Systems (NASDAQ: CNXT) surpassed 300 million cumulative digital subscriber line (DSL) semiconductor port shipments. Conexant has a long history of technical innovation and leadership in broadband access technologies, including developing and delivering the industry’s first DSL chipset.

Cortina Systems was named to Deloitte’s Technology Fast 50 Program for Silicon Valley Internet, media, entertainment and communications companies.

DSP Group (NASDAQ: DSPG) introduced its CleaRange technology for extending the effective range of clear voice communications for Cordless Advanced Technology-Internet and Quality (CAT-iq) Digital Enhanced Cordless Telecommunications (DECT) and U.S. DECT 6.0 cordless telephones. Strengthening DSP Group’s rich portfolio of telephony performance enhancements, the innovative technology plays an integral role in the company’s continuing efforts to push the boundaries of DECT coverage without increasing power consumption and radiation.

eSilicon used Magma’s IC implementation software to design the world’s fastest field programmable chip. With Magma’s integrated synthesis and place-and-route system, eSilicon was able to maximize performance and achieve first-pass silicon success.

Fulcrum Microsystems’ new Monaco platform is the first 10Gb Ethernet (10GbE) original equipment manufacturer (OEM) switch to offer lossless fabric switching, allowing Ethernet switch manufacturers to deliver Ethernet throughout the data center that can carry storage, clustering and networking traffic.

Delivering unprecedented speeds for multimedia connectivity, Monster Cable and Gennum (TSX: GND) are developing HDMI connectivity products to be manufactured and sold by Monster.

Infineon Technologies AG (NYSE: IFX) announced its third generation of ultra low-cost mobile phone chips. The X-GOLD™110 is the world’s highest integrated, cost-effective, one-chip solution for Global System for Mobile Communications/General Packet Radio Service (GSM/GPRS) ultra low-cost phones.

Inphi introduced a 28G bit error ratio (BER) receiver reference design. The 28G BER receiver is for research and development (R&D) or production testing of emerging high-speed protocols from 13Gbps to 28Gbps, including 100Gb Ethernet, 40G differential quadrature phase shift keying (DQPSK), 14G Fibre Channel and 100G dual-polarization quadrature phase shift keying (DP-QPSK).

At the Learning and Technology World Forum in London, Cisco, Intel (NASDAQ: INTC) and Microsoft unveiled plans to underwrite a multi-sector research project to develop new assessment approaches, methods and technologies for measuring the success of 21st-century teaching and learning in classrooms around the world.

Jennic successfully implemented and installed the first phase of a wireless control network using its own solution. It is designed to help the city of London improve control of the heating system in its renowned school for girls, offering better comfort preventing overheating, and helping it meet its obligations to reduce its carbon footprint.

Super Micro Computer selected LSI’s (NYSE: LSI) 6Gb/s SAS RAID-on-chip (ROC) and MegaRAID^® products to enable its next-generation entry- to enterprise-server platforms.

Luminary Micro released a brushed DC motor controller module (MDL-BDC) and reference design kit (RDK-BDC). Offered both as a volume production module and a complete, open-tooled reference design, the MDL-BDC module provides OEMs with the freedom to choose how to go to production through volume procurement and integration of the cost-effective MDL-BDC module unit, or by using the complete MDL-BDC hardware and software design files and RDK-BDC reference design kit as a jump start to a customer-tailored, Stellaris-based design.

Nordic Semiconductor ASA (OSE: NOD) appointed Innotech as its distributor for the important Japanese market. Innotech says its goals are to solve challenging technical problems by supplying cutting-edge technology that is considered to be best in its sector.

The ability to drive big displays now comes in a small package with the release of NVIDIA’s (NASDAQ: NVDA) Quadro^® NVS 420, the industry’s only low-profile professional graphics solution designed for maximum display real estate with a small form factor (SFF) computer. Featuring NVIDIA’s nView^® display software and support for four 30-inch displays at 2560x1600 high resolutions, business professionals can maximize productivity through increased desktop real estate and easy-to-use display management tools.

ZTE Corporation chose PLX Technology (NASDAQ: PLXT) as the key supplier of PCI Express (PCIe) interconnect devices for ZTE’s current and next-generation system platforms.

Qualcomm (NASDAQ: QCOM) is working with three local non-governmental organizations (NGOs) to support social and educational initiatives in India. The company will work with Save The Children India in Mumbai, MV Foundation (MVF) in Hyderabad and Sikshana Foundation in Bengaluru.

In response to growing demand for its visual enhancement engine (VEE) technology among users of Qualcomm chipsets, QuickLogic (NASDAQ: QUIK) has developed a proven system block (PSB) for VEE that connects directly to the EBI2. The PSB simplifies the use of VEE technology with a Qualcomm chipset and a smart liquid crystal display (LCD) to enhance image viewability and significantly reduce system power.

Redpine Signals released a pair of serial wireless device server modules based on its ultra low-power Lite-Fi™ 802.11n technology. The modules provide industrial devices and other equipment with advanced wireless connectivity to local-area networks, enabling communication with the devices from servers anywhere on the local network or on the Internet without the need to install wireless networking software or a network stack.

RF Micro Devices (NASDAQ: RFMD) released the industry’s first fully integrated 5.8GHz transmitter to comply with China’s electronic toll collection (ETC) standard GB/T 20851.1-2007: Electronic Toll Collection - Dedicated Short Range Communication (DSRC) Part 1: Physical Layer. RFMD’s ML5830 is a low-power amplitude shift key (ASK) and frequency shift key (FSK) transmitter operating in the 5.8GHz industrial, scientific and medical (ISM) band.

SiBEAM’s line of wireless half-duplex transmission module (HDTM) chipsets has entered volume production. SiBEAM has provided sample wireless chipsets to select customers since Q1 2008 and is now preparing to broadly expand its partners’ product development activity.

Skyworks Solutions (NASDAQ: SWKS) introduced the industry’s first multi-mode and multi-band frequency division duplex (FDD)/time division duplex (TDD) power amplifier module (PAM) for fourth-generation (4G) long-term evolution (LTE) applications. Skyworks’ PAM is also the first product to specifically target LTE-TDD bands 38 and 40. LTE TDD is expected to become the dominant 4G standard mobile operators utilize in China and other parts of the world.

Paratek and STMicroelectronics (NYSE: STM) entered into a strategic relationship to supply radio frequency (RF) tunable products to mobile wireless markets. The two companies have been cooperating to advance the next generation of Paratek’s ParaScan™ materials technology for high-volume manufacturing and to jointly develop tunable products that improve total radiated power (TRP) for mobile phones, leading to longer battery life and fewer dropped calls.

Teradici has partnered with Samsung Electronics to provide its revolutionary PC-over-IP (PCoIP) technology directly integrated into Samsung’s new SyncMaster 930ND 19-inch LCD.

TranSwitch (NASDAQ: TXCC) released its new Atlanta™ 2000 communications processor product family. Atlanta 2000 offers robust gateway routing, security and voice over Internet protocol (VoIP) capabilities with unmatched performance and power efficiency.

Trident Microsystems (NASDAQ: TRID) announced that Grundig Eletronik’s Vision-9 FHD 100Hz DTV has adopted Trident’s HiDTV™ PRO-QX system-on-chip (SOC) with an integrated advanced motion estimation and motion compensation (MEMC) frame rate conversion engine, providing naturally smooth 100Hz video motions.

Avnet Memec signed a pan-European distribution agreement with Tundra Semiconductor (TSX:TUN) under which Avnet Memec will market and sell Tundra’s entire product portfolio to new and existing European customers, and will provide comprehensive technical design-in support for Tundra’s products utilizing Avnet Memec’s network of 31 offices in 19 countries.

Ubicom closed a $7 million Series 5 financing round. Ubicom is now opening its platform to address adjacent market segments, including integrated access devices (IADs), enterprise access points, security virtual private network (VPN) routers, VoIP products, digital photo frames and digital media players.

Ubidyne successfully demonstrated full functionality and 3GPP radio performance with its breakthrough Antenna Embedded Radio™ architecture.

VIA Technologies (TSE: 2388) released the VIA NSD7800 home server, which supports up to eight full-sized hard drives with a fraction of the hassle associated with larger servers, enabling system integrators to offer the ideal solution for small office/home office (SOHO) and family storage needs.

Vitesse Semiconductor (OTC: VTSS.PK) released the SparX-II-16™ and SparX-II-24™ SOC devices with an integrated, high-performance processing engine. SparX-II™ introduces carrier-class features such as content-aware security, fast failover protection and advanced quality of service.

ProVision Communications is using ViXS Systems’ ViXS XCode™ 3290 video processor for their new AXAR 1000 product, which distributes HD video throughout the home over an 802.11n wireless network.

WiSpry successfully sampled its first custom product containing its proprietary programmable RF technology to one of the largest cellular handset manufacturers in the world. This custom solution combines WiSpry’s proprietary RF MEMS digital capacitor technology in an RF CMOS manufacturing process with advanced analog and digital support circuitry in a true single-chip implementation with no external components.

Wolfson Microelectronics (LSE: WLF.L) expanded its highly successful portfolio of high-performance digital-to-analog converters (DACs). The WM8742 is targeted at professional audio applications and addresses the increasing demands of high-end home audio applications such as audio/visual (A/V) receivers, compact disk (CD), digital video disk (DVD), super audio CD (SACD) and home theatre systems.

Mele selected Xceive’s XC5000 hybrid silicon tuner for its new line of HMC-3915T and HMC-S01BT personal video recorders (PVRs). Targeted to European markets, these products are now being manufactured under the Emtec brand for use in its Movie Cube Q800, Movie Cube S800 and G-Movie Cube product lines.

Xilinx (NASDAQ: XLNX) introduced the industry’s first Ethernet audio video bridging (AVB) endpoint for development of broadcast, professional and consumer A/V, automotive, and home networking systems. Developed in collaboration with Harman International Industries, the Xilinx Ethernet AVB LogiCORE intellectual property (IP) core uses cutting-edge programmable technology to easily adapt to changes in the emerging Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE) 802.1 Ethernet AVB standard and support custom features.

ZiLOG (NASDAQ: ZILG) introduced the ZBASE Live!™ Web portal that supports model search and download, and offers consumer electronics and set-top boxes real-time access to the industry’s most comprehensive universal infrared (UIR) database.

Zoran (NASDAQ: ZRAN) announced that 41 printer, copier and multi-function peripheral (MFP) deployments that incorporate its intrusion detection (IPS™) software solution were recognized for excellence by the independent industry testing and research organizations BERTL and Buyers Laboratory Inc. (BLI).