We hope you all had a great holiday season and thank you for tuning in to our first 2007 edition of Nuvation’s CURRENT!  Nuvation gained a lot of great new clients and partner programs in 2006 and finished the year with record results.  We are particularly proud of the positive feedback from our clients and the repeat business you entrust to us. 

We are just starting the new year and already things are off to an incredibly great start.  In the past few weeks we have added several audio-video systems to our projects in development, a high-performance computing platform, a high-end telecom design, and some analog, digital board, and firmware projects as well.  January will be our biggest month in company history and we are looking forward to continued successes together throughout the year.

Nuvation has completed its strategic planning update for 2007 which includes IP products, tradeshows, design center expansions and hiring throughout the year.  We’re making some announcements at TI’s Developer Conference in Dallas March 7-9, and again at the International Security Conference-West in Las Vegas March 28-30.  The Embedded Systems Conference is April 1-5 in San Jose, and we’ll have a presence there as well (a good chance to see Nuvation BattleBots).  2007 also marks our 10th year anniversary, which we look forward to celebrating together in May.  Our Cinco de Mayo celebrations this year will be louder than ever!  Stay tuned.

In this issue of Nuvation’s CURRENT, we put some focus on USB 2.0.  With Microsoft Vista released, USB product designers are faced with compatibility issues between XP and Vista, and among the various versions of Vista.  One of our engineering gurus, Bernardo, gives an overview of what to expect from the recent Vista rollout as it relates to legacy and future USB products.  Bernardo burned the midnight oil and put together another article discussing ways to maximize USB data transfer speed from a hardware and firmware perspective. 

Our device spotlight shines on Xilinx’s new Virtex-5 device family.  FPGA design comprises a significant portion of our engineering staff and project work, and this new device family has a lot of exciting bells & whistles.  A couple of IP updates include a new DSP-option for Nuvation’s IP Camera Reference Design, and another very exciting update regarding our SATA IP Core for FPGAs. 

To meet our growth plans, Nuvation is looking for seasoned talent and gifted staff engineers to join our world-class design teams in San Jose and Waterloo.  With an opportunity to work on leading-edge products across a range of applications, from consumer electronics to communications, our people are always developing new skills.  Our environment here at Nuvation is dynamic & fast-paced, but we have a lot of fun along the way (experience with nerf guns, BattleBots and balcony BBQs not required, on the job training will be available).  If you know great engineers who may be looking for a new home, point them to our careers page for a list of opportunities currently available.

On a personal note, my wife Maureen and I are expecting our second child in March.  Megan, our first, is coming up on her second birthday and already shows a love and aptitude for anything electronic.  A bit too early to have her join the engineering team, but there are many proud moments, like when I found her with a multimeter studiously probing the DVD player. :) Hope all of you are enjoying great successes, personally and professionally, and we look forward to a great new year together.

Many Thanks,

Michael Worry
Nuvation CEO