EE-Evaluation Engineering articles from February 2003

EE-Evaluation Engineering archives from February 2003

Rewarding the brightest. (Editorial).
February 1, 2003... Winners in the Siemens Westinghouse Competition in Math, Science, and Technology recently were announced at an awards ceremony held at the American Association for the Advancement of Science in Washington, D.C. Honorees at the event, who also...

Agilent offers free tryout of test development software. (In the News).
February 1, 2003... Agilent Technologies offers a free 45-day trial of the Test and Measurement (T&M) Programmers Toolkit and the Agilent Developers Network (ADN) Professional. The toolkit extends Visual Studio .NET to the development of T&M applications, and ADN...

Racal exclusive distributor for Talon and C&H. (In the News).
February 1, 2003... Racal Instruments has assumed sales and delivery support for all products manufactured by Talon Instruments and C&H Technologies. Both agreements are worldwide in scope. Racal's offerings now include VXI, RXI, CPCI, VME, GPIB, and Ethernet...

Tech Wear acquires Angelica ESD Apparel. (In the News).
February 1, 2003... Tech Wear has obtained the ESD product line of Angelica Image Apparel. All sales of the Angelica ESD line will be handled through Tech Wear's headquarters in Carlsbad, CA. www.techwear.com

Corrigendum Reader's Resource. (In the News).
February 1, 2003... In the Reader's Resource in the December 2002 issue, the correct telephone number for the six items on page 46 and the two items on page 50 offered by The MathWorks is 508-647-7000.

System measures temperature and voltage. (Product Briefing).
February 1, 2003... The multifunction DaqTemp[TM] Series consists of a plug-and-play PCI board, a cable, and a screw terminal signal-conditioning pod used to perform temperature and voltage measurements. A built-in cold junction compensation provides thermocouple...

Arb incorporates pulse function and PWM. (Product Briefing).
February 1, 2003... The 33220A is a 20-MHz, 50-MS/s function/arbitrary waveform generator with variable-edge rate pulses and pulse width modulation (PWM). It uses direct digital synthesis techniques to create output signals with low distortion, including 14-b,...

Analyzer views multiple domains simultaneously. (Product Briefing).
February 1, 2003... The WCA200A Wireless Communications Analyzers combine vector signal analysis and spectrum analysis to accommodate development of 2.5G and 3G components and end-user equipment. The series is made up of the 3-GHz WCA23OA and the 8-GHz WCA28OA...

Reading the fine print in a DMM specification: sometimes, what's not stated in a specification can be as important as what is. (DMMs).
February 1, 2003... When it comes to digital multimeters (DMMs), you truly are spoiled for choice. There literally are hundreds of models. The problem is to find the best DMM to match your price and performance requirements. A good way to begin is by determining...

How to generate precise I/Q signals: the focus is on development of a practical multi-Arb PC-based I/Q source for wireless communications applications. (PC-Based Test).
February 1, 2003... Due to efficiency, quality, and cost, digital communications systems play a major role in telecommunications, especially wireless services. With most digital modulation schemes represented as in-phase (I) and quadrature (Q) modulation formats,...

PC-Based Test Buyers Guide. (PC-Based Test Buyers Guide).
February 1, 2003... EE's inaugural PC-Based Test Buyers Guide is a comprehensive, up-to-date listing of the companies that manufacture PC-based test products. The guide is arranged in two sections. First is a product/company cross-reference. The second...

Wanted: test engineers! Industry action is needed to bring advanced test-engineering curricula to fruition. (Manager's Forum).
February 1, 2003... Companies continually are challenged to manufacture products that are not just well designed but also commercially viable--a goal that is sometimes elusive. Testing of semiconductor devices, once considered little more than a necessary evil,...

An academic's perspective. (Manager's Forum).
February 1, 2003... The idea of creating a more in-depth test discipline is not a new one. We in the educational community have been talking about it for years, but progress has been slow. The reason is simple: The number of people who can cite employment in the...

Digital modulation test tools: instruments with attitude; testing new digital modulation techniques requires new tools. Make sure you have enough instrument for the job. (Wireless Test).
February 1, 2003... Diverse well describes the myriad digital modulation schemes used in modern voice and data communications. The alphabet soup of terminology extends well beyond the familiar QAM and GMSK fundamentals to specific communications protocols such as...

Where is DFT heading? The future of DFT focuses on two architectures vying for dominance. Decide for yourself which one will win. (Design for Test).
February 1, 2003... Design for test (DFT) has been around since the 1960s. The technology was developed to reduce the cost of creating a successful test for an IC. Scan design, fault models, and automatic test pattern generation (ATPG) algorithms were the thrust...

Happiness is a low-SAR cell phone: wherever you are today, you can be connected. But can you do so safely? (Dealing with EMC).
February 1, 2003... It's a brave person who expresses strong pro-cell-phone sentiments these days. Anecdotal stories abound that relate microwave radiation from cell phones and base stations to a variety of illnesses and anomalies. However, in spite of the growing...

Semiconductor test systems. (ATE).
February 1, 2003... The 4072B and the 4073B, new models in the 4070 Series Test Systems, feature an integrated high-speed capacitance meter embedded into each system's test head. The 4073B also provides ultra-low current measurements for laboratory or production...

Fine-pitch probe cards. (ATE).
February 1, 2003... Two extensions to the P4[TM] Photolithographic Pattern Plated Probe family of fine-pitch probe cards feature dual DUT and staggered designs. The dual-DUT card permits simultaneous, at-speed testing of two die. Dual-row staggered cards address...

VXI DMM cards. (Instrumentation).
February 1, 2003... Two VXI DMM cards have been developed for switching systems: the 3801 DMM/M-Module Carrier, a 6.5-digit card supporting a variety of source, measurement, and parametric LCR test functions and including a slot for Mezzanine Module...

Hipot testers. (Instrumentation).
February 1, 2003... The HypotULTRA[TM] III family of electrical safety compliance testing instruments consists of the 7620, a 5-kV AC hipot tester, and the 7650, a 5-kV AC and DC hipot tester with a built-in insulation resistance tester. Optional four-port and...

Digitizer cards. (Instrumentation).
February 1, 2003... The CompuScope 82GC is a new family of 2-GS/s waveform digitizer cards for the CompactPCl/PXI bus with onboard acquisition memory of up to 16 MS. It supports bus mastering to provide 80-MB/s data transfer from onboard memory to the host RAM....

Power analyzers. (Instrumentation).
February 1, 2003... The WT210 and WT230 Wideband Digital Power Analyzers perform measurements over a frequency range of DC and 0.5 Hz to 100 kHz with a basic accuracy of 0.1%. The WT210 is a single-phase analyzer with self-contained measurement ranges from 75 mW...

Arbitrary Waveform Generators. (Instrumentation).
February 1, 2003... The single-channel 8025 and the dual-channel 8026 Arbitrary Waveform Generators offer 14-b resolution, sampling rates up to 100 MS/s, and waveform sequencing with up to 4,096 segments. Beyond the nine standard waveforms, frequency modulation of...