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Daily News
By Gail Helmer

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Tuesday, June 19, 2001

PC News

NVIDIA Ranked #1 Semiconductor Company
NVIDIA today announced that it has earned the highest ranking for semiconductor companies for the second straight year in BusinessWeek’s “Information Technology Annual Report - The Info Tech 100” cover story dated June 18, 2001. In addition to the #1 ranking for semiconductor companies, NVIDIA earned the fourth spot overall in the annual wrap-up of the world’s top technology companies.

In this special report, BusinessWeek selected the “Info Tech 100” companies based on quantitative criteria including annual revenues, revenue growth, return on equity, shareholder return and profits. In the section entitled “Little Niches That Could”, the staff of BusinessWeek wrote: “When the niche champs size up potential new markets, they look for conditions that play to their strengths. Once Nvidia had mastered the art of creating graphics chips for PCs, it built on the same core technology to create chips for the laptop and workstation markets. Then the company expanded into making graphics chips for video-game consoles, scoring a contract for Microsoft Corp.'s upcoming Xbox.”

New Matrox Millennium G550
Matrox Graphics Inc. today announced the Matrox Millennium G550 graphics card. The Millennium G550 graphics card features the new Matrox G550 chip equipped with Matrox's powerful new HeadCasting engine. The HeadCasting Engine uniquely accelerates high-resolution, life-like facial animations over low-bandwidth Internet connections through an extended hardware implementation of Microsoft's DirectX 8 Vertex Shader.The G550 DualHead board is an AGP 4X device equipped with 32 MB of fast Double Data Rate (DDR) memory . The Millennium G550 is based on the Matrox G550's powerful 2D/3D engine, which offers improved 3D performance and 360 MHz UltraSharp RAMDAC. The retail version will be available in Q3 '01 for US $125.

Military News

Global Hawk In Low-Rate Initial Production
Northrop Grumman Corporation's Integrated Systems Sector (ISS) has received $20.5 million from the US Air Force for advanced procurement of long-lead parts for the start of low-rate initial production of two Global Hawk unmanned aerial vehicles and one mission control element. Work under this contract will begin immediately and conclude in March 2003.



The Global Hawk programme is currently in engineering and manufacturing development following the successful completion of the Milestone II phase of the programme in February 2001. On June 7, Global Hawk returned from a successful six-week deployment to Australia, where it demonstrated maritime surveillance capabilities in a series of exercises with the Australian government.

Under development for the Air Force's Aeronautical Systems Centre at Wright-Patterson AFB, Ohio, Global Hawk is a high-altitude, long-endurance, unmanned aerial reconnaissance system designed to provide military field commanders with high-resolution, near real-time imagery of large geographic areas. Northrop Grumman ISS's Air Combat Systems business area is the prime contractor, with work performed at its Unmanned Systems facilities in San Diego and Palmdale, Calif.

Critical Integrated Avionics For The F22
TRW has announced the successful delivery of the final Engineering, Manufacturing and Development hardware system and Block 3.1 Integrated Avionics software for the Lockheed Martin F-22 advanced air dominance fighter aircraft.



The deliveries mark a significant milestone for the development of the communication, navigation, identification (CNI) avionics for the F-22 engineering development program. The avionics software and hardware on the F-22 was developed in three blocks. Block 1.0 provided the basic flight avionics functions; 2.0 added the electronic warfare (EW) sensors for self-protection; 3.0 added additional radar, EW sensor modes and advanced CNI functions. Block 3.1 adds the communication data links including the Joint Tactical Information Distribution System and Intraflight Data Link.

The CNI software, which accounts for 24 percent of the total air vehicle systems software, was developed by a TRW team and its engineers over a six-year period and is critical in the operation of the CNI avionics aboard the F-22 aircraft.

According to Jim Byloff, TRW F-22 programme manager, "TRW's software development team did an outstanding job of meeting the programme delivery commitment to our customer. The final software release is currently being integrated with the core avionics software prior to final installation on the test aircraft, which is scheduled for later this year."

Integrated avionics, a crucial element in the stealthy fighter's performance, is a sophisticated array of sensors, navigation aids and communications systems that will greatly reduce pilot workload while providing an added measure of safety during combat missions. F-22 pilots will be able to automatically acquire fly-to points, link sensor information with their wingmen, identify other aircraft and deploy countermeasures.

The integrated avionics systems include advanced integrated diagnostics capabilities that will detect failures and automatically reconfigure the systems to maintain critical mission capabilities. "TRW is also involved in the next generation of improvements to the CNI system," said Byloff. "We are working on a programme called the Digital Roadmap that implements a technology enhancement to the integrated CNI design, resulting in a substantial reduction in cost while improving reliability and performance over the entire system. TRW is committed to providing the best value in our products."

NE&SS Contract For Japan's New ASROC Missile
Lockheed Martin Naval Electronics and Surveillance Systems (NE&SS) - Marine Systems announced today that it has signed a direct commercial sale contract with Mitsubishi Heavy Industries Ltd. (MHI) for technical assistance in integrating Japan's New anti-submarine rocket (ASROC) missile into the MK 41 Vertical Launching System (VLS).



The New ASROC is being developed by MHI under a contract with Japan's Technical Research and Development Institute (TRDI) of the Japan Defense Agency (JDA). The new contract covers the first two phases of a multi-phase contract, which will be completed over a four-year period.

The New ASROC is a vertically launched anti-submarine rocket that, once over the target, converts into a target-seeking torpedo. Under terms of the contract, NE&SS - Marine Systems will provide design expertise to MHI's New ASROC design team to ensure smooth integration with the MK 41 VLS. The test phase of this programme will be conducted in Japan. After programme completion, the New ASROC missile may be installed in Japan's destroyers, which are outfitted with the MK 41 VLS.

Dale Bennett, Vice President and General Manager of NE&SS - Marine Systems said, "This is a significant opportunity for both Lockheed Martin and MHI. This contract marks the first time that Lockheed Martin has performed a 100% foreign (non-US Navy) missile integration into the MK 41 VLS, as well as the first totally direct commercial sale contract for a missile integration effort."

Designed and developed by Lockheed Martin, the MK 41 VLS is a below-deck launching system capable of firing many different missile types. NE&SS - Marine Systems has been supplying the MK 41 VLS for both the Japanese MURASAME and KONGO-class ships since 1989. Under a 1998 contract, NE&SS - Marine Systems licensed MHI to assemble, test, and sell the MK 41 launchers to the Japan Maritime Self Defense Force.


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