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BRUSSELS -- Technical experts from EU member states this week reviewed a draft environment assessment of the brominated flame retardant TBBPA.

The assessment is being carried out by the UK on behalf of the EU under the EU Existing Substances Regulation.

EL SEGUNDO, CA -- Market revenue for wireline VOIP equipment is expected to more than triple between 2004 and 2010 due to an explosion in the number of residential VoIP users during the next few years.

That's according to research firm iSuppli Corp., which forecasts the number of residential VoIP subscribers worldwide to rise to 197.2 million in 2010, from 4.8 million in 2004.

Worldwide VoIP equipment revenue will reach $24.5 billion in 2010, up more than 300% from $8.04 billion last year. This year, VoIP equipment revenue is expected to be $12.9 billion.

Residential is be the fastest-growing segment for equipment, iSuppli said. The firm forecasts revenue to rise to $10.6 billion in 2010, from $1.4 billion in 2004.

Japan and U.S./Canada account for 83% of the total residential wireline VoIP subscribers.

SANTA CLARA, CA -- Intel Corp. today announced plans to invest $345 million in capacity expansions at two of the company's wafer manufacturing sites in Colorado and Massachusetts. The investment will create several hundred jobs, the chipmaker said.

BANGALORE, INDIA -- Elcoteq Network Corp. became the second major EMS firm this week to announce plans for assembly operations in India, saying that it would invest $50 million to $100 million for a high-volume telecom site here.

NEW YORK -- In response to higher energy prices, Dow Chemical Co. said Thursday it would seek price increases across its entire portfolio of chemical and plastic products.

In a statement, the chemical maker cited high oil and natural gas prices, saying they pose a severe threat to the long-term health of the chemical industry in the U.S.

Rochester, NY – EMA Design Automation, a provider of electronic design automation (EDA) solutions, has added PTC InterComm to its design tools. The suite of electronic design communication and collaboration products reportedly enable product design teams to hold accurate, in-depth design reviews while streamlining the process. The tools are helpful with distributed design teams or companies with heterogeneous design environments.

“InterComm is an integral part of the design methodology we use to solve the RoHS problem,” said Manny Marcano, president of EMA Design Automation. “We enable the entire product team to review designs for compliance, rather than just the CAD tool users.”

InterComm uses the Internet to address the problem of sharing complex design data. Anyone can view EDA designs created in different environments, including schematic, PCB and BOM data. This eliminates the need to learn CAD software or create other forms of output. Viewers can query intelligent design data and add comments or red-line changes that can be sent back to the user electronically. Only the EDA user can change the actual design files.

The visibility is helpful for compliance review of existing designs. Adding RoHS compliance data to the design allows operations or manufacturing to check for non-compliant components. Likewise, changes made in manufacturing for compliance reasons can be quickly reviewed by the design team.