The Telettra Espana SA affiliate of the Fiat SpA subsidiary has set up a specialised centre just outside Madrid to cope with the increase in its research and development activities. The company will dedicate $26.8m, spread between premises, technical methodology and training to this centre, which is currently carrying out various projects in areas such as mobile radio, radio and transmission systems, data transmission, urban and rural communications, HDTV coding systems, phone and data applications, supervision and control, viewdataterminals and long-distance electronic transfersystems. The centre, which has 350 staff will put $14m into HDTV jointly with RAI, a company which has already developed the mathematical formula and is trying to get it accepted. The system compresses the signal by eliminating anything that is redundant. The centre is also developing other products like low-power amplifying modules with chip transistors, and fibre optic reliable loop components. In each sector of the centre’s research a theoretical phase is followed by a practical laboratory phase. In its work, the centre uses thick film hybrid circuit technology, thin film and encapsulated processes, and surface mount assembly using computer-aided design, manufacture and engineering systems. The hardware resources are integrated on Ethernet and Token Ring local area networks, interconnected via gateways with external access via SNA, X25 and X400 links. The centre also participates in European Community projects such as Eureka and Esprit, and is also sponsored by the Centre for Technological Research in Industry and the Ministry of Industry’s General Board of Electronics in projects such as the high definition television coder and multichip microwave circuitry.
