EE-Evaluation Engineering articles from January 2003

EE-Evaluation Engineering archives from January 2003

Saying goodbye to a friend. (Editorial).
January 1, 2003... My heart is heavy, as I write this tribute to someone I have known for many years, who left his personal and professional mark on this magazine and the people who worked with him at Nelson Publishing. Sadly, Jud Strock, technical editor, passed...

Nominations open for Joseph F. Keithley Award. (In the News).
January 1, 2003... Nominations are open until Jan. 31 for the first IEEE Joseph F. Keithley Award in Instrumentation and Measurement. The award, sponsored by Keithley Instruments in memory of the company's founder, is presented for outstanding contributions in...

Aeroflex acquires FastBit product line. (In the News).
January 1, 2003... Aeroflex has obtained substantially all of the assets of FastBit Technologies, including equipment, inventory, and intellectual property specific to the FB100A Bit Error Rate Test System, the FB2000A Frequency Tuneable Carrier-to-Noise Test...

DiagnoSYS purchases two Schlumberger Divisions. (In the News).
January 1, 2003... DiagnoSYS, a provider of test solutions and services ranging from board test to telecom protocol testers and AOI equipment, has acquired the Schlumberger Global Board and Protocol Test Divisions. The acquisition includes functional and IC board...

Corrigenda.
January 1, 2003... Reader's Resource. Some changes occurred in the PC-Based Test section (page 42) of the Reader's Resource in the December 2002 issue: Interactive Circuits and Systems The papers titled "Real-Time Generation of an OFDM" and...

Card available in two memory configurations. (Product Briefing).
January 1, 2003... The DT9841 Fulcrum(R) II Series Data Acquisition System combines the Texas Instruments' floating-point TM53206711 Digital Signal Processor with 24-b sigma-delta analog-to-digital (ADC) and digital-to-analog (DAC) converters on a 6U card. It...

RF Analyzer addresses wireless phone testing. (Product Briefing).
January 1, 2003... The Model 2800 RF Power Analyzer tests wireless phones, RFIC power amplifiers, and related RF devices designed to the AMPS, cdmaOne, North American digital cellular (TDMA), GSM, GPRS, EDGE, cdma2000 1X, cdma2000 3X, and WCDMA standards. It...

PXI chassis offers 3U and 6U slots. (Product Briefing).
January 1, 2003... The GX7100 is a 3U and 6U 14-slot chassis that accommodates a system controller and 13 PXI or CompactPCI instruments. The front-loading chassis features built-in hard and floppy disk drives and a CD-ROM or CD-RW drive, interfacing options, and...

Compaction technology reduces SOC test time. (Product Briefing).
January 1, 2003... VirtualScan [TM] uses a proprietary compaction technology to extend the life of existing ATE for large SOC designs by reducing test-data volume, test run time, and ATE reloads. With this software, a large number of short scan chains within the...

RF switch cards eliminate custom cables. (Product Briefing).
January 1, 2003... Three new high-isolation RF switch cards in the 4500 Series feature integrated TAC connector contacts to eliminate custom cable assemblies. Each card includes a Virginia Panel TAC connector and Signal Guard, a 600-MHz analog interface bus. ...

Semiconductor software provides teal-time analysis. (Product Briefing).
January 1, 2003... The TestVision Suite is semiconductor test-management software that incorporates real-time statistical process control. The main features of the suite are TestVision Studio, an analysis product, and TestVision Manager, a monitoring and sampling...

Readers Select the Best Products of 2002. (Readers' Choice Awards).
January 1, 2003... Recently, we challenged our readers with a difficult task: Choose the best products from an already excellent assortment published in EE-Evaluation Engineering in 2002. But you didn't let us down--and we thank you for participating in our ninth...

Probing for the truth: when waveforms look odd, the scope probe or its misuse may be the cause. (Oscilloscopes).
January 1, 2003... Proclamation Be it known that the Fifty Ohm Party (FOP) has mandated all voltage signals to have 50-[ohm] source impedances. Direct connections to test instruments are to be made via coax cables. Scope probes have become historical...

Convergent SOCs challenge mixed-signal test: as the consumer market for voice, audio, video, and data services evolves, the SOC test platform must unite a variety of leading-edge test capabilities. (IC ATE).
January 1, 2003... After talking about it for years, convergence in consumer electronics is one of the biggest trends in the high-tech world today. Voice, audio, video, and data services are coming together in a wide range of consumer applications, such as...

Up, up, and away with data acquisition: aeronautical data speed and volume challenge most acquisition systems. Maybe you need a custom solution. (Data Acquisition).
January 1, 2003... This year's sales-warrior award goes to Joe, who successfully met all 20 of his Atlanta Hartsfield connecting flights during two consecutive weeks of business travel. (Applause) You may not have Joe's hectic schedule, but anyone who travels...

Test Labs/Services Buyers Guide. (Service Guide - Company Guide).
January 1, 2003... EE's 34th 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...

An unconventional SMT gasket solution: in an unconventional move, a manufacturer chose an SMT gasket solution to address critical design and manufacturing factors. (Dealing with EMC).
January 1, 2003... Conventional EMI gaskets such as form-in-place gaskets provide adequate shielding performance and acceptable failure rates for many applications. But conventional gasketing approaches can fall short when high levels of shielding performance,...