EE-Evaluation Engineering articles from December 2005

EE-Evaluation Engineering archives from December 2005

The Seven Deadly Sins.(EDITORIAL)
December 1, 2005... There comes a time in your career when, for one reason or another, your present job just isn't what you envisioned as the perfect position for you to advance in the engineering profession. Your dissatisfaction could stem from a host of...

National Instruments acquires IOtech.(In The News)
December 1, 2005... National Instruments, a leader in virtual instrumentation, has acquired the operating assets of IOtech, a company that has been designing and manufacturing PC-based data acquisition and instrumentation products for more than 20 years. According...

EMC 2006 Symposium.(Dates)
December 1, 2005... The closing date is Jan. 13, 2006, for submitting preliminary manuscripts for presentation at the IEEE EMC 2006 Symposium. The electronic submissions must include an approximate 5,500-word manuscript with up to six diagrams, figures, or charts...

Advantest creates R&D center for SOC development.(In The News)
December 1, 2005... Advantest is creating a research and development center in Santa Clara, CA, to accelerate product development of the company's Openstar[TM]-compliant T2000 Open Architecture System-on-Chip (SOC) Test Platform. A joint United States-Japan...

Measurement Science Conference.(In The News)
December 1, 2005... The 2006 Measurement Science Conference will be held Feb. 27-March 3 at the Disneyland Hotel and Conference Center in Anaheim. The five-day schedule includes NIST seminars on Feb. 27-28, tutorial workshops on March 1, and the conference on...

Additions to DMM line increase speed by 50x.(Product Briefing)
December 1, 2005... The 34410A, 34411A, and 34405A, are new members of the Agilent family of digital multimeters/voltmeters that increase measurement speed by 50x over the 34401A. The 34410A and 34411A offer expanded connectivity with USB, LAN, and legacy GPIB and...

PXI digitizer supports 10-bit 4-GS/s sampling.(Product Briefing)
December 1, 2005... The dual-channel DC152 and single-channel DC122 are 10-b, 4-GS/s 3U digitizers with input bandwidths up to 3 GHz. They comply with the PXI and CompactPCI standards and are supported with AcqirisLive and AcqirisMAQS software and Windows, Linux,...

Function/arb offers 4 MBytes of memory.(Product Briefing)
December 1, 2005... The Model 2730 is a 50-MHz function/arbitrary waveform generator that incorporates the sweep and modulation capabilities of the direct digital synthesis (DDS) architecture. It replaces traditional function, pulse, and sweep generators while...

Tool addresses rapid high-volume diagnosis.(Product Briefing)
December 1, 2005... The YieldAssist[TM] Diagnostic Tool collects failure information directly from manufacturing test to identify failure causes to facilitate yield learning and eliminate lengthy manual analysis. It also provides a link back into the design...

DFT features evaluated before prototyping.(Product Briefing)
December 1, 2005... The DFT Analyzer validates the boundary scan design-for-test (DFT) features in a circuit board design before prototypes are assembled. It also determines the extent of a design's boundary scan test coverage and recommends changes to increase...

Generator produces 13.5-GHz stimulus capability.(Product Briefing)
December 1, 2005... The Agilent 81142A Serial Pulse Data Generator with pulse, data pattern, and PRBS generation up to 13.5 GHz enables physical-layer measurements for high-speed serial bus designs and supports scientists conducting fundamental lab research....

Testing medical devices: explore the extensive testing policies one manufacturer uses to ensure the safest and most effective products reach the medical market.(MEDICAL ELECTRONICS TEST)
December 1, 2005... In today's health-conscious culture, medical equipment is everywhere--on TV, in the movies, on the news, at schools, and at the workplace. While you may be seeing and hearing how it is used, have you ever considered the meticulous testing that...

Performance more than bits and megahertz: in today's battle for data fidelity, ENOB can provide a more complete picture of data acquisition system performance.(DATA ACQUISITION)
December 1, 2005... As A/D converters (ADCs) and data acquisition boards increase their bandwidth, more and more are including the spurious free dynamic range (SFDR) specification as an indicator of their fidelity. The converter is not the only source of spurious...

Identifying frame grabber core competencies: do you know where your frame grabber functionality is located?(FRAME GRABBERS)
December 1, 2005... Automated parts inspection is a good example of a machine vision application. In a typical case, the parts may be moving on a conveyor belt and have unknown orientation. The inspection system must capture a picture of each part and determine...

Compression solutions for test applications: innovative compression algorithms can improve today's high-speed data sampling.(PC-BASED TEST)
December 1, 2005... Compression algorithms have enabled many popular applications over the years. We cannot imagine sending e-mail attachments without ZIP lossless compression, downloading Internet audio without MP3 compression, or buying DVDs without MPEG...

Reflections on HALT and HASS: an industry expert shares some common sense about a very simple approach to product improvement and cost reduction.(HALT/HASS)
December 1, 2005... After reading several recent technical articles on highly accelerated life testing (HALT) and highly accelerated stress screening (HASS), I noted that there seemed to be many incorrect conceptions floating around. One article talked about HALT...

Improving the reliability of dry-reed relays: two simple tests can go a long way toward ensuring the reliability of today's reed relays.(RELAY TESTING)
December 1, 2005... The reliability of today's dry-reed relays can approach or exceed that of electronic components in many applications. As a result, the tests that predict whether these parts will fail prematurely must be very accurate. Two parametric tests...

Communications Test Buyers Guide.(A-X)(Buyers Guide)
December 1, 2005... EE's annual Communications Test Buyers Guide is a comprehensive, up-to-date listing of the companies that specialize in communications test, including ATM; audio; CDMA/TDMA; fiber-optics; ISDN; mobile radio; PCS and video test equipment; bus,...

Communications Test Buyers Guide.(A-Y)(Buyers Guide)
December 1, 2005... Company Guide Absolute Analysis CA 805-376-6048 www.absoluteanalysis.com Aeroflex NY 800-843-1553 www.aeroflex.com Agilent Technologies CA 800-452-4844 www.agilent.com Ameritec CA 626-915-5441...

An update on the C63 standards: a look into the standards under development by the many C63 subcommittees helps predict how the EMC industry could be affected.(EMC STANDARDS)
December 1, 2005... The C63 Electromagnetic Compatibility Committee reports headway in a wide range of topics, from the use of time-domain reflectometry (TDR) in evaluating test sites above 1 GHz to working with the FCC to rescue a stalled standard. To gain some...