EE-Evaluation Engineering articles from January 2002

EE-Evaluation Engineering archives from January 2002

Look Ma, no batteries. (Editorial).
January 1, 2002... For those of us using a cell phone in our daily routine, the most disruptive and sometimes forgotten task is making sure to frequently recharge it. Since talking consumes a lot of battery power, the time between recharge intervals may be...

Racal Instruments announces buyout. (In the News).
January 1, 2002... Racal Instruments Group Holdings has announced the management-led leveraged buyout of all global operations of Racal Instruments and Thales Instruments Ltd. from Thales of France. The agreement includes Racal Instruments' engineering,...

Electroglas starts Software division. (In the News).
January 1, 2002... Electroglas, a prober and inspection company, has formed EG Soft, a software division offering products to help semiconductor manufacturers improve throughput and yield. The product line is comprised of a Web-based software infrastructure and a...

Schlumberger sells E-beam business. (In the News).
January 1, 2002... Schlumberger Semiconductor Solutions has sold its electron-beam wafer-inspection business to Applied Materials. The business, known as the Schlumberger Yield Enhancement Systems Group, provides E-beam wafer inspection equipment used in defect...

Keithley and Anritsu create partnership. (In the News).
January 1, 2002... Keithley Instruments and Anritsu have developed a technology partnership to offer technical and marketing support for each other's products used in semiconductor parametric testing. The first product resulting from this affiliation is the Model...

Mobile IC tester operates at 550 MHz. (Product Briefing).
January 1, 2002... The Vanguard 550[TM] System validates, debugs, characterizes, and analyzes complex, high-performance logic ICs. It includes data modules at up to 1.1 Gb/s, clock modules at 550 MHz, and a timing module at 550 MHz for testing devices with...

Software maps design simulations. (Product Briefing).
January 1, 2002... The SmarTest Program Generator (SmarTest PG) for the 93000 SOC platform streamlines the design-to-test process and accesses the concurrent test capability within the tester. The software incorporates foundation technology provided by Test...

And the winners are. (Readers' Choice Awards).
January 1, 2002... When it comes to recognizing the best, we know exactly who to ask--you, our readers. And once again, you didn't disappoint us. We asked for your participation in EE's annual Readers' Choice Awards, and your response was gratifying. This...

Interfacing DA Hardware to Linux: Until recently, using Linux for data acquisition was complicated by the lack of drivers. Now, thanks to contributions from engineers around the world, help may be on the way. (Data Acquisition).
January 1, 2002... Linux is soaring in popularity as an operating system (OS) in both the commercial and technical environments. One thing lagging behind, though, is the availability of drivers for data acquisition and instrumentation cards and modules, where...

Jittt t t ter testing: Your new design worked well today, but what will be the effect of extreme jitter values that occur infrequently? (Oscilloscopes).
January 1, 2002... Jitter is defined as the unwanted variation in the timing of successive events. That statement's broad wording applies to a range of pulse-edge positions relative to a reference clock as well as variation among the widths of a series of pulses....

Jitter analysis software. (Oscilloscopes).
January 1, 2002... The M1[TM]/LabVIEW[TM] Virtual Instruments Software derives time vs. time jitter information from previously acquired voltage vs. time data files, simulations, or DSO data. The software uses the same transformation engine and analysis routines...

High-throughput TIA. (Oscilloscopes).
January 1, 2002... The Femto 2000 MultiSite Time and Waveform Analyzer measures jitter, period, pulsewidth, frequency, and rise/fall times at rates up to 1 M-Events/s across two to eight channels. Both single-ended and differential models are available with...

DSO with Jitter-test features. (Oscilloscopes).
January 1, 2002... The Infiniium Models 54845A and 54846A DSOs now provide cycle-to-cycle jitter measurements as standard on all cycles within a single acquisition. Parameters include width, duty cycle, fall and rise times, frequency, and period. For these...

Jitter analyzer. (Oscilloscopes).
January 1, 2002... The SIA-3000 Signal Integrity Analyzer has 200-fs time resolution and randomly samples data from two to 10 signal channels having up to 3-GHz clock rates or 4.5-Gb/s data rates. In addition to time-and frequency-domain signal presentation, the...

Multiple-view analyzers. (Oscilloscopes).
January 1, 2002... The 2-GHz bandwidth J-260 and the 1-GHz J-250 Jitter Analyzers provide time, statistical, and measurement views of signal jitter as well as numerical results. Specifications include a 16-GS/s sampling rate, memory as long as 32 MB, and...

Jitter analysis option. (Oscilloscopes).
January 1, 2002... The TDSJIT2 measurement package used with a DSO performs jitter analysis on contiguous cycles in a single multicycle record. This method eliminates trigger jitter as a source of error and provides real cycle-to-cycle jitter determination....

Reining in the cost of test: Curbing the cost of test is tough, but not impossible. Here is one solution; Combine multisite testing with concurrent testing. (Concurrent Test).
January 1, 2002... IC complexity continues to rise while the cost of silicon keeps dropping in accordance with Moore's Law. More ICs now are being implemented as system-on-a-chip (SOC), including communications ICs, graphics and chipset devices, and many...

Test labs/services buyers guide.
January 1, 2002... EE's 33rd annual Test Labs/Services Buyers Guide is a comprehensive, up-to-date listing of the companies that offer testing and consulting services to the electronics industry. The guide is arranged in two sections. First is a...

How good is your ground? Making sure all the equipment in your facility is connected to a good EMI ground means less production downtime and fewer troubleshooting problems. (Dealing with EMC).
January 1, 2002... As technological and process requirements change, the demands for the quality of grounding change, too. Simply complying with the safety standards and conventional ESD grounding standards no longer is enough. We need to examine ground from a...

Linear Amplifier. (Instrumentation).
January 1, 2002... The AV-110J-PS Linear Amplifier drives loads as low as 10 k[omega] with peak-to-peak voltages as high as 800 V. The maximum output is [+ or -]400 V and rise and fall times are 3.5 [micro]s. The frequency range is from 5 Hz to 50 kHz, and...

Device Programmer. (Instrumentation).
January 1, 2002... The Model 848 Device Programmer comes with a library of 2,500 devices and a 32-pin ZIF socket to eliminate an adapter for any DIP device up to 32 pins. It offers buffer features including erase, random data fill, fill block, copy block, move...

BSDL Verification tool. (Instrumentation).
January 1, 2002... The BSDL 512 Verifier provides 512 I/O channels that may be individually programmed as input, output, bidirectional, or tristate signals and are used to compare a BSDL file to the actual implementation of the IC in silicon. It supports 2.5-V...

Long-Memory Scope. (Instrumentation).
January 1, 2002... The Signal Explorer Series DL1720 is a two-channel, 1 -GS/s, 500-MHz bandwidth oscilloscope with a standard memory of up to 1 Mword/channel. A custom DSE chip extracts information from captured data that can be output in multiple fashions as...

I-GHz Oscilloscope. (Instrumentation).
January 1, 2002... The LT584 Waverunner-2[TM] Digital Oscilloscope features four channels, a 1-GHz bandwidth with a 2-GS/s sampling rate, and 250 kpoints of acquisition memory per channel. It comes standard with an 8.4" color TFT display, special trigger modes...

Picoammeter. (Instrumentation).
January 1, 2002... The Model 6485 Picoammeter measures DC currents in the range of 20 fA to 20 mA at up to 1,000 readings/s. Resolution is 5 1/2 digits, and a time-stamped 2,500-reading data buffer provides minimum, maximum, and standard deviation statistics. The...

Temperature Monitoring. (Data Acquisition).
January 1, 2002... The PCI-A112-16A-TM Series Temperature Monitoring Solutions for PCI bus computers are available in 16- and 32-channel versions and do not require programming. Sampling speeds are selectable from 50 times per channel/s to once per channel every...

CompactPCI Card. (Data Acquisition).
January 1, 2002... The cChicoPlus is a 3U CompactPCI card that autonomously streams data between a PC and the I/O. Features include a 64-MB/s data-streaming rate, two OMNIBUS I/O module sites, multiboard synchronization, a direct link to the company's DSP boards,...

Thermal Control Socket System. (ESS).
January 1, 2002... The Model 1560 Thermal Control Socket System integrates a miniature electrical cooler into the test-socket lid. This feature provides up to 60 W of cooling and controls device-package temperatures within a-15[degrees]C to 125[degrees]C range...

Laser Diode Test Systems. (Communications Test).
January 1, 2002... The L-I-V (Light-Current-Voltage) Test Systems for laser diode modules used in fiber-optics communications applications have been updated to include submicrosecond pulse testing and up to 5-A maximum CW testing. These systems also can qualify...

Cooler Controller. (Communications Test).
January 1, 2002... The TEC-8 is a GPIB-controlled, rack-mountable instrument providing bidirectional heating and cooling control for up to eight independent thermoelectric cooling elements. The temperature for each channel may be adjusted from -20[degrees]C to...

"Dito". (Comunications Test).
January 1, 2002... one-hand ESD simulator, AR, manufacturer of world-class products for RF testing, introduces "dito,": * Low-cost, portable electrostatic discharge (ESD) simulator * 16.5 kV air and 10 kV contact discharge * Ergonomic ligtweight...

Multichannel Error Detector. (Communications Test).
January 1, 2002... The MP1776A Multichannel Error Detector operates over the 100-MHz to 12.5-GHz frequency range to support measurements with a total bit rate up to 50 Gb/s. The detector has 8 MB memory per channel with a maximum programmable pattern of 32 MB...

VXI Power Meters. (Communications Test).
January 1, 2002... The Model 4730 Series of RF Power Meters includes a CW meter with dual-channel capability in a VXI configuration. The 4730 Series samples up to 200 readings/s. measures power from -70 dBm to 44 dBm, and covers the frequency range of 10 kHz to...