Electronic Design articles from April 2009

Electronic Design archives from April 2009

Analog/mixed-signal design.(On the Web@electronicdesign.com)
April 9, 2009... ED Online 20792 Dave Van Ess, Cypress Semiconductor Build [Sinc.sup.K] Decimators There's a lot of talk in engineering publications these days about decimation filters, which are easy to construct when understood. This article...

From systems to silicon.(On the Web@electronicdesign.com)
April 9, 2009... ED Online 20828 Frank Schirrmeister, Synopsys Inc. Is System-Level Design About Discipline? We've all heard it, and it's said in many ways. Preparation is everything! System-level design is all about thinking early and...

Scope.(On the Web@electronicdesign.com)(Brief article)
April 9, 2009... ED Online 20795 Richard Gawel, Managing Editor Chevy Volt Put To The Test In GM's Windtunnel GM's Chevy Volt promises up to 40 miles of gasoline-free driving. The combination of lithium-ion battery technology and a cutting-edge...

Industry view.(On the Web@electronicdesign.com)(Brief article)
April 9, 2009... ED Online 20817 Ian Dunn, Mercury Computer Systems Take IP Networking To The Tactical Edge Many advantages can be reaped if IP networking can be taken to the tactical edge--where sensors collect valuable data. Why? Because IP...

Embedded world 2009.(On the Web@electronicdesign.com)(Brief article)
April 9, 2009... Paul Whytock, Editor in Chief, Electronic Design Europe Atmel tinyAvR Family Paul Whytock discusses the new family of 0.7-V tinyAvR microcontrollers with Andreas Eieland, product marketing manager with Atmel. To see this video and...

New products showcase.(On the Web@electronicdesign.com)
April 9, 2009... David Maliniak, EDA/Test Editor Tektronix DPO70000B And DSA70000B David Maliniak, EDA/Test Editor Tektronix's Chris Loberg shows off Tek's DPO70000B digital phosphor scopes and DSA70000B digital serial analyzers, both of which...

Engineering TV.(On the Web@electronicdesign.com)
April 9, 2009... Sharc Digital Signal Processing The fourth-generation Sharc floating-point digital signal processors from Analog Devices suit industrial, instrumentation, automotive audio, and home theater applications. Denis Labrecque of Analog Devices...

Who's paying top dollar for comm services nowadays?(Editorial)
April 9, 2009... I've always felt that telecommunications cost way too much. Cell phones, Internet access, cable TV, landline phones, and other services exact a heavy toll on the average family's budget. On the home front, providers have been sensitive to these...

What can you build with Ethernet, USB, and an Arm?(LabBench)
April 9, 2009... Tucked away in a couple of smaller booths at January's International Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas was a pair of companies with an interesting approach to network attached storage (NAS). One was PogoPlug. The other was Ctera. They have...

Changes To IEEE 1625 establish a high bar for battery design.(PowerDesign)
April 9, 2009... Several years ago, some laptop fires scared the public and prompted widespread recalls by some of the most reputable lithium-ion (Li-ion) cell manufacturers. The long-lasting repercussions in the battery industry ranged from cell supply...

Alliance launches open-source in-vehicle infotainment development platform.(Techview)
April 9, 2009... Leading automobile manufacturers and hardware and software suppliers have formed the Genivi Alliance, a nonprofit organization committed to driving the development and broad adoption of an open-source in-vehicle infotainment (IVI) reference...

Ultra-low-power Wi-Fi module targets industrial and sensor network applications.(Techview)
April 9, 2009... When you think of wireless sensor networks for remote monitoring and control, you probably think of ZigBee, Bluetooth, Crossbow, or some proprietary ISM-based (industrial, scientific, medical) radios. While such networks work fine, there is...

Energy scavenging offers endless power possibilities: with proper management, developers can power small systems for a lifetime using energy drawn from the application environment itself.(Cover Feature)
April 9, 2009... The universe is full of energy, and efforts to harvest that ambient energy are as old as the windmill and sailing ships. The convergence of three exponentially improving technologies, however, is creating striking new opportunities for ambient...

OLED displays bring much-needed light to the end of the economic tunnel: a growing number of opportunities in flexible, micro, TV, and transparent displays as well as high-effieicncy lighting is paving the way for many large niche applications.(Technology Report)
April 9, 2009... Organic light-emitting diode (OLED) technology continues to buck the industry's current economic struggles, carving out lucrative applications in numerous display and lighting applications. And indications show that active-matrix (AM) OLEDs...

Caught in the Ethernet: the venerable networking technology continues to reinvent itself, going from LANs to MANs and WANs.(Engineering Essentials)
April 9, 2009... Upon entering its fourth decade, you'd think Ethernet would show signs of age, being pushed aside for newer, state-of-the-art networking technologies. Well, ummm, no. Rather, Ethernet has evolved in step with changing requirements and...

Visual debugging hooks into your applications.(EmbeddedinED)
April 9, 2009... Text-based programming has led to a host of text-based debugging tools, from command-line interface debuggers to graphical integrated development environments (IDEs) that are still essentially text-based. Arrays and structures may be displayed...

InfiniBand interchange.(EmbeddedinED)
April 9, 2009... Mellanox is using its BridgeX InfiniBand chip as the centerpiece for a thrust into the enterprise computing space where large, networked storage is the norm. Technologies such as Fibre Channel and Ethernet-based iSCSI typically sit between the...

32-bit micro fits in 5.5 [mm.sup.2].(EmbeddedinED News)(Brief article)
April 9, 2009... Renesas fits its latest R32C/100 series 32-bit microcontroller into a 64-pin quad flat no-lead package (QFP), 80-pin QFP, and 100-pin, 5.5- by 5.5-mm land-grid array (LGA) package. The 50-MHz R32C/111 sips 600 [mu]A/MHz. it has up to 512 kbytes...

Micro has touch sense for all GPIO pins.(EmbeddedinED News)(STMicroelectronics' STM8S10x and STM8S20x )(Brief article)
April 9, 2009... The STMicroelectronics 8-bit, 16-MHz STM8S10x and 8-bit, 24-MHz STM8S20x support serial, [I.sup.2]C, and serial peripheral interface (SPI). They also include a 10-bit analog-to-digital converter (ADC) and dual watchdog timers. The touch sensor...

Cortex-M3 micro makes great gateway.(EmbeddedinED News)(Luminary Micro's LM3S9000 )(Brief article)
April 9, 2009... Luminary Micro's 130-nm, low-power LM3S9000 series features on-chip 10/100 Ethernet MAC/PHY with IEEE 1588 Precision Time Protocol (PTP) support, USB on-The-Go MAC/PHY, and CAN 2.0 (Controller Area Network), making it ideal as a gateway between...

All-in-one: capacitive touch, segmented display, low power.(EmbeddedinED News)(Microchip's PIC18F87J90 )(Brief article)
April 9, 2009... Microchip's 8-bit PIC18F87J90 incorporates a charge time measurement unit (CTMU) for capacitive touch sensing or precise time measurement plus direct drive LCD support. The LCD controller delivers software-programmable contrast support. These...

Atom Mini-ITX sports dual Gigabit Ethernet ports.(EmbeddedinED News)
April 9, 2009... The AIMB-210 from Advantech is a Mini-ITX motherboard that hosts a 1.6-GHz N270 Atom processor and a pair of Gigabit Ethernet ports, making it a great platform for gateways and firewalls. It also has six serial ports, eight USB 2.0 ports, and a...

Programming the CUDA architecture: a look at GPU computing: GPUs have quickly surpassed CPUs in terms of computation speed. Now programmers can use the CUDA architecture to help simplify their implementation.(DesignSolution)
April 9, 2009... Graphics processing units (GPUs) were originally designed to perform the highly parallel computations required for graphics rendering. But over the last couple of years, they've proven to be powerful computing workhorses across more than just...

Switching circuit increases number of USARTs available from MCU.(IdeasForDesign)
April 9, 2009... This design builds on a previously published Idea for Design ("Talk To Multiple Devices With One UART," Electronic Design, Nov. 15, 2007, p. 64; ED Online 17447). Our solution allows you to increase the number of USARTs (universal synchronous,...

Simple solution provides PWM signal fault protection.(IdeasForDesign)
April 9, 2009... This idea was created to solve a design problem we faced a few months ago. The circuit we were working on was used to steer an H-bridge that was controlled by a TMS320F2810 digital signal processor (DSP). During the final phase of the...

Simulated grounded inductor needs no external capacitors.(IdeasForDesign)
April 9, 2009... Inductors designed with active elements are very desirable to designers today because conventional spiral inductors are too big, too heavy, and too costly, and they require tuning. During the last few decades, various grounded inductors have...

What's all this "free amplifier" stuff, anyhow?(PeasePorridge)(Column)
April 9, 2009... One of my friends was working on a story. She observed correctly that an "ideal" op amp would have infinite gain and common-mode rejection ratio (CMRR)--and zero [I.sub.B] and [V.sub.OS]--and zero price. She conceded she would never get rich...

Design solution.(On the Web @electronicdesign.com)
April 23, 2009... ED Online 20935 Evaluate Power-Supply Noise Rejection In Low-Jitter PLL Clock Generators John Abcarius and Sharon Wang, Maxim Integrated Products Several measurement techniques can be used to combat the effects of power-supply...

Design solution.(On the Web @electronicdesign.com)
April 23, 2009... ED Online 20891 Fiber-Bragg Gratings: The Dispersion Compensation Technology For 40G And 100G Optical Transport Fredrik Sjostrom, Proximion Fiber Systems AB Fiber Bragg Grating technology bests conventional dispersion compensation...

Industry view.(On the Web @electronicdesign.com)
April 23, 2009... ED Online 20803 Break Out Of The Mold To Address Your Mixed-Signal Design Challenges Pete McCrorie, Cadence Design Systems Mixed-signal designs continue to get larger and more complex. Traditional physical implementation...

Sponsored editorial: focus on emerging technologies.(On the Web @electronicdesign.com)(Editorial)
April 23, 2009... ED Online 20911 Shrinking Cellular: The Freedom To Connect Any Device To The Network Symmetry Electronics The GE865-QUAD machine-to-machine (M2M) module from Telit Wireless Solutions measures 22 by 22 by 3 mm. According to the...

Embedded Systems Conference.(On the Web @electronicdesign.com)
April 23, 2009... Openmoko Wi-Fi Cell-Phone Platform Bill Wong, Embedded/Systems/Software Editor Openmoko demonstrated its open-source Wi-Fi cell-phone platform at the Embedded Systems Conference, held earlier this month in San Jose. Bill Wong discussed...

Engineering TV.(On the Web @electronicdesign.com)
April 23, 2009... Tesla Roadster Zak Edson of Tesla Motors and Engineering TV take a look at the Tesla Roadster's powertrain and battery system on a rolling chassis that was displayed at the 2009 NAIAS. With a 0- to 60-mph acceleration of 3.9 seconds and a...

Thin is in at the Embedded Systems Conference, at least for energy cells.(Editorial)(Conference news)
April 23, 2009... Whenever I'm at a conference, I'm frequently asked for my opinion about the "best of show." Since I know this question is coming, I try to be prepared with a really great product or technology. [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] At the recent...

Volunteers wanted for a fair affair and robots everywhere.(LabBench)
April 23, 2009... Student science and engineering competitions come to a boil in the spring. School programs often feed into regional events like the Mercer Science and Engineering Fair in Lawrenceville, N.J., which I help run (see the figure). In turn, our...

Supercool, superconducting digital switches extend SDR's reach.(Techview)
April 23, 2009... Software-defined radio (SDR) replaces traditional radio circuitry like mixers, filters, and demodulators with software that runs on a DSP or with FPGAs. The secret to its success is its ability to sample the radio signal quickly enough so the...

VCSEL driver and limiting amp ic match 10GE, 8G Fibre Channel apps.(Techview)
April 23, 2009... When designing multisource agreement (MSA) optical transceiver modules such as SFP and SFP+, you need a superior compact laser driver and a photo diode amplifier to provide the performance expected in 10-Gbit/s applications. Maxim Integrated...

Test suite eases transition to DDR3 memory architectures.(Techview)
April 23, 2009... The transition to the third generation of the dual-data-rate memory standard (DDR3) is well underway. Of course, migration to a new memory architecture isn't without its challenges, particularly when it comes to embedded or portable...

Wireless-enabled systems challenge analog/mixed-signal flows: with analog/RF design content rising, designers who have lived in the digital domain must learn to cope. Fortunately, design flows are evolving to make the integration easier.(Technology Report)
April 23, 2009... From its inception, the holy grail for the design automation industry has been in the analog realm. Digital logic, with its relatively straightforward structures and topologies, has long been the chief beneficiary of the EDA industry's efforts....

Mechatronics means motors: movement requires motors, and motors are now including smarter controllers to deliver better efficiency and performance.(Engineering Essentials)
April 23, 2009... Simple electric motors turn when you apply power. They have been used this way since their inception. Yet today, a microcontroller may be sitting between the motor and the switch, and motors can be found everywhere from white goods to hybrid...

Using high-speed latched comparators for simultaneous instant frequency measurement: an emerging solution called the monobit receiver makes it possible to sense simultaneous frequencies in real time.(DesignSolution)
April 23, 2009... Measuring key characteristics of high-speed pulses such as frequency, amplitude, and pulse width for simultaneous pulses that overlap in time has long been an issue in design. To solve that problem, engineers developed and refined the monobit...

Capacitor-powered electronics is at the core of green design.(IdeasForDesign)
April 23, 2009... The concept of using supercapacitors (also known as ultracapacitors, supercaps, etc.), and replacing the batteries in portable micropower applications, (1) is gaining momentum. In fact, it has become one of the more noticeable technical trends...

New math technique increases temperature accuracy over 20,000%.(IdeasForDesign)
April 23, 2009... Thermistors are extremely non-linear devices. Because of the limitations of the mathematical model used, the devices' ultimate accuracy is hardly ever fully realized due to the extra computational burden required to calculate the temperature...

Sensor signal converter outputs both npn and pnp signals.(IdeasForDesign)
April 23, 2009... Matching a sensor interface with a programmable logic converter or controller hardware that can accept only one type of input--npn or pnp--can be difficult. The last-stage modification circuit described here solves this problem. Designers can...

University researchers roll out first flexible display with touchscreen.(ElectronicDesignProducts)
April 23, 2009... Partnering with E Ink Corp. and DuPont Teijin Films, researchers at Arizona State University's Flexible Display Center (FDC) have created what they are dubbing the world's first active-matrix display on a flexible substrate with a touchscreen...

Test your high-power LED IQ.(ElectronicDesignProducts)
April 23, 2009... Loosely defined as LEDs with at least a 1-W capacity, high-power LEDs are a hot technology that's very much in the market spotlight. Since their emergence, they have found themselves in a diverse range of applications, and their many...

3-W power LED invades commercial markets.(DISPLAYS)
April 23, 2009... Sporting a compact footprint, a wide viewing angle, and an extended operating life, the ASMT-MT00 embarks as Avago Technologies' first 3-W Moonstone red, green, and blue LED for use in a range of solid-state architectural and commercial...

8.4-in. LCD monitor seeks demanding applications.(DISPLAYS)
April 23, 2009... For demanding applications in harsh environments, the Model TT-840 environmentally sealed LCD monitor provides an 8.4-inch, sunlight-readable LCD encapsulated in a rugged aluminum enclosure, sealed to IP68/NEMA 6P specifications. The LCD is...

OLED displays employ exotic design.(DISPLAYS)
April 23, 2009... Thought to be something very rare in the electronics industry, the AZOLED034A 3.4-in. and AZOLED043A 4.3-in. widescreen-format OLED displays feature a combination of a bare OLED panel and an integrated video decoder board. The decoder board...

2-W converters sport compact footprint.(POWER SOURCES)
April 23, 2009... Delivering a 2-W output, the LF200ES series dc-dc converters feature ultra-miniature surface-mount (SMT) cases with a 0.24-in. profile. Eight models in the series operate from 5- and 12-V dc inputs while providing single outputs of 5, 9, 12, or...

Inverters deliver efficiencies up to 96.8%.(POWER SOURCES)
April 23, 2009... Groomed for 3- to 4.2-kW photovoltaic (PV) installations, three additions to the Aurora family of renewable-energy inverters for North American installations promise to boost efficiencies by as much as 96.8%. The PVI-3.0, PVI-3.6, and PVI-4.2...

12-V converter withstands ISO7637-2/SAE J1455 transients.(POWER SOURCES)
April 23, 2009... Groomed for mobile applications, Tech9's latest series 12-V, 1-A dc-dc converters tolerate ISO7637-2 voltage transients, particularly in the load dump condition, as well as similar SAE J1455 conditions. Floating and non-floating models are...