We offer a series of Integrated Circuits including a monostable multivibrator, a digital replacement for the classic 555 timer, as well as programmable musical sound generators.

Old News

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During the month of December we released several variations of HTC150. We also improved our HTC555, to monitor its inputs constantly and change output frequency as input changes. We are currently working on the release of HTC852. Another product of ours, HTC850, is part of the family of PWM controllers designed for power management of DC loads such as electric motors, illumination devices (light bulbs, LED etc.) and displays. This is minor news compared to Y2K though. We strongly believe that Y2K is going to be an over exaggerated news story. One good thing that the media did for society is they exposed the roots of the problem that gave birth to this story. But the question still remains open in our opinion. Are we going to see a forest behind the trees? The Y2K bug was a perfect example of bad engineering practice. At the dawn of a new century, engineers are not getting as much respect as before. Engineers are treated as assembly workers turning out under-designed and under-simulated projects just to meet low budgets and aggressive schedules. These schedules are driven by top company executives in order to secure their market share and introduce new products at any cost. We strongly believe that company executives should be responsible for releasing poorly designed products into the market. This is not to say that the rest of the population rejects these kinds of design practices. The typical consumer demands new product introduction by choosing everything new compared to old and tested equipment or appliances. This kind of attitude opens up the doors of the market to all kinds of mediocre products, a classic example is the PC. One can buy a normal PC from a respected manufacturer or pay a little less and end up with the trouble of owning a no name PC. Another classic and overlooked problem is PC software. We all use software and our expectations are very low these days. We have gotten used to wasting hours of our time on software products that have only a few bugs and crash our computers only once in a while. Can't we see how low our expectations have dropped? Most space agencies would not even dream about putting the latest and greatest chips on their satellites, for the simple reason that full simulation of these chips could take several years. Environmental groups are fighting pollution with corporations, but those corporations are not the source of the problem, but only a reflection of it. They focus more on consumers, who are willing to pay low prices for low quality products, instead of telling them that these products are just another source of pollution and may pose a greater threat (Y2K). Think of how much energy, man hours, materials, and other resources that have been wasted on products that have only a fraction of the lifetime achievable by current technology and use a hundred year old design. We are not saying that there are not any bright engineers or educated consumers. We think that the Y2K problem is a very serious wakeup call for us all. We have been given a second chance and we cannot allow anybody to fail this time.

Happy Millennium Everyone,
Vardan Antonyan
President and CEO

In this section you will find links to our previous news releases.