Electronic Design articles from December 2003

Electronic Design archives from December 2003

New facility improves biometrics.(Electronics Technology At Work And At Play)(Brief Article)
December 4, 2003... Typically, biometric technology manufacturers market their devices toward a range of different applications. But when security and safety are on the line, a one-size-fits-all approach may not be effective enough. That's why the University of...

IEEE engineers earn national medals of science, technology.(Electronics Technology At Work And At Play)
December 4, 2003... On November 6, six members of IEEE traveled to the White House to meet President Bush and receive awards that salute their engineering accomplishments. These honors, the National Medals of Science and Technology, represent the nation's highest...

All the pieces fit for A/V-enabled cell phones: some technology watchers are still scratching their heads about Sprint's pre-Thanksgiving rollout of MobiTV, billed as the "world's first live streaming television content delivered to mobile phones," as part of the company's PCS Vision services.(Editorial)
December 4, 2003... Writes one puzzled "weblogger" on Gizmodo, a "gadgets" weblog at www.gizmodo.com, "I'm completely underwhelmed by the prospect of paying ten bucks a month to watch choppy, one frame per second video on a cell phone." The MobiTV service,...

What's all this fuzzy logic stuff, anyhow? (Part VI).(Pease Porridge)
December 4, 2003... Recently, I have been riding on various trains--BART in San Francisco, CalTrans trains, various people-movers in airports, plus the London Underground. I've even been on some ferry boats. At one time, claims were made that Fuzzy Logic could...

Leakage drives the need for different design styles: an increasing proportion of today's silicon products is destined for applications in the consumer marketplace. At the same time, more consumer products are becoming "untethered," relying on battery power and putting tougher constraints on chip designers to reduce the power consumption.(POV: point of view)
December 4, 2003... Recent financial results from a leading foundry showed a rapid jump in revenue proportion from 0.13-[micro]m technology (11% in Q1 to 17% in Q2). Main stream designs are starting to use 0.13-[micro]m geometry. Leakage problems in these...

Century of flight: manned and unmanned aviation.(Aeronautics)
December 4, 2003... It was cold and windy on Dec. 17, 1903 on the dunes of Kitty Hawk, N.C. In a scant 12-second flight, Wilbur and Orville Wright achieved a dream with the first powered heavier-than-air aircraft, marking the start of the aviation and aerospace...

Late papers at IEDM describe double-strained silicon, MRAMs, and low-leakage transistors.(Conference Preview)
December 4, 2003... SEVERAL LATE PAPERS at next week's IEEE Electron Devices Meeting at the Hilton Washington and Towers in Washington, D.C., describe up-to-the-minute innovations from key industry leaders. Researchers from Intel show off a strained silicon...

Tiny analog switches are the seeds of invention.(Analog & Power)(Brief Article)
December 4, 2003... Three analog-switch ICs from Fairchild Semiconductor come with an unusual warning: Keep away from poppy-seed bagels. Housed in 1.45- by 1.2-mm MicroPak packages, the FSA4157, FSA4156, and FSA1157 could easily get lost among any stray poppy-seed...

Multiphase controllers embrace single-cycle current balancing.(Analog & Power)(Brief Article)
December 4, 2003... The TPS4009x family of multiphase synchronous buck controllers from Texas instruments implements stepdown power converters that deliver 40 to 120 A. The controllers also use TI's technique for single-cycle current balancing, which is accurate...

The Austin Lynx II series.(Power-Supply News)(Brief Article)
December 4, 2003... THE AUSTIN LYNX II SERIES of nonisolated, surface-mount dc-dc converters is pin-compatible with the Austin Lynx series while offering a wider input-voltage range and flexible output-voltage sequencing. The series includes the 16-A SuperLynx II,...

Designers can customize a 35-W high-voltage DC-DC converter.(Power-Supply News)(Brief Article)
December 4, 2003... Designers CAN CUSTOMIZE A 35-W HIGH-VOLTAGE DC-DC CONVERTER from Beta Dyne. This 2- by 2- by 0.5-in. device provides Isolated output voltages ranging from 48 V ([+ or -] 24 V) up to 450 V ([+ or -] 225 V). It has a 2:1 input-voltage range with...

Chip merges power-management functions for handhelds.(Analog & Power)(Brief Article)
December 4, 2003... THE DA9031 POWER-MANAGEMENT CONTROLLER IC targets multimedia applications in PDAs and wireless handsets based on Intel's Bulverde processor. Packaged in a 196-pin ball-grid array (BGA), it features a myriad of voltage regulators; LED,...

First 100% CMOS chip set unveiled for digital satellite radio.(Communications)(Brief Article)
December 4, 2003... Digital satellite radio, one of the fastest growing consumer electronics products in years, is near the top of the list of most requested options for new cars and trucks. Available through subscription, XM Radio and Sirius Satellite Radio both...

Device maps a simpler route to AGC amplifier design.(Communications)(Brief Article)
December 4, 2003... MANY OF TODAY'S HIGH-FREQUENCY DESIGNS, such as HDTV tuners, cable modems, and voice-over-Internet-protocol receivers, require automatic gain control (AGC). Creating an AGC amplifier with sufficient gain, gain range, and noise performance is a...

Video decoder chips let portable or wired systems handle all formats.(Communications)(Brief Article)
December 4, 2003... A PAIR OF VIDEO SIGNAL DECODERS simplify the task of converting NTSC, PAL, and SECAM video signals into digital component video for both portable (mobile phones, PDAs, etc.) and wired systems (set-top boxes, digital televisions, etc.)--the...

Hot spots make WLANs the hottest spot in wireless.(Communications)
December 4, 2003... THE ADDITION OF WIRELESS LINKS IN ENTERPRISE LOCAL-AREA NETWORKS (LANs) continues to ramp up as organizations look to expand their network without rewiring while providing mobility to in-house LAN users. But what's really driving the growth of...

Software-customizable scopes take analysis to another level.(Components & Test)(Brief Article)
December 4, 2003... The My Infiniium software enables engineers to customize Agilent Infiniium series 54830 and 54850 oscilloscopes, as well as perform advanced on-site laboratory analysis of analog and mixed-signal designs. Users can extract relationship data...

Boundary-scan gateway IC facilities multiboard testing.(Components & Test)(Brief Article)
December 4, 2003... The PTC (parallel test and configuration) IC, a gateway device for IEEE 1149.1 testing and configuration of multiboard systems, has finally arrived. Designed for "blade" pc boards, which plug into a multislot or multicabled backplane, this...

20-MHz CMOS IC oscillator says goodbye to external components.(Components & Test)(Brief Article)
December 4, 2003... All-silicon-based clock-oscillator ICs have always been available for applications that don't require high levels of precision. Yet these devices don't meet the tight tolerance requirements many applications require. As a result, designers...

Clock generators support multiple MIPS-family processors.(Digitial)(Brief Article)
December 4, 2003... With spread-spectrum support, a clock-generator pair from PMC-Sierra supplies flexible timing and low emitted RF radiation for the company's RM5000, 7000, and 9000 lines of MIPS processors. These generators operate from 50 to 200 MHz and...

CPU companion chips add FRAM storage and peripheral support.(Digitial)(Brief Article)
December 4, 2003... BY COMBINING NONVOLATILE STORAGE AND LOGIC FUNCTIONS, a family of ferroelectric-based processor companion chips makes multifunction support a reality for embedded processors. Ramtron's FM3104, 3116, 3164, and 31256 include 4, 16, 64, or 256...

DDR SDRAM DIMM interpace targets FPGAs.(Digitial)(Brief Article)
December 4, 2003... THE INDUSTRY'S FIRST 400-Mbit/s double-data-rate (DDR) SDRAM dual-inline memory module (DIMM) interface for FPGAs was proved on Altera's Stratix and Stratix GX FPGA families. Tested using DDR400 SDRAM DIMMs from Micron Corp., the interface...

Scalable verification supports DFV flows.(EDA)
December 4, 2003... In today's verification methodologies, catching and fixing design bugs is often like trying to close the barn door after the horse has bolted. Most bugs are introduced very early in the design cycle, but they aren't caught until the final...

Analog/mixed-signal optimization tools get up to 10 x speed bump.(EDA)
December 4, 2003... The latest versions of Analog Design Automation's optimization tools for analog, mixed-signal, and custom ICs are five to 10 times faster than previous versions. The speed gain is due to improved algorithms and more streamlined processes for...

ASIC prototyping support.(EDA Update)(Brief Article)
December 4, 2003... ASIC PROTOTYPING SUPPORT has been built into Hier Design's PlanAhead hierarchical floorplanning and analysis software. The tool, which automates the design and integration of IP blocks within FPGAs, has been shown to help designers more quickly...

Mixed HDL/C-language design for FPGAs.(EDA Update)(Brief Article)
December 4, 2003... MIXED HDL/C-LANGUAGE DESIGN FOR FPGAs recently debuted, courtesy of Aldec Inc. and Celoxica Ltd. The Active-HDL+C integrated FPGA design environment combines Aldec's Active-HDL design entry and mixed-HDL simulation technology with Celoxica's DK...

Finding open-core-protocol-compliant intellectual property.(EDA Update)(Brief Article)
December 4, 2003... FINDING OPEN-CORE-PROTOCOL-COMPLIANT INTELLECTUAL PROPERTY (IP) is now easy thanks to an online library at the OCP-IP Web site, The initial list contains over 200 pieces of IP. and more will be added soon. Companies represented include 3rdeye...

Physical synthesis for NEC's ISSP architecture.(EDA Update)(Brief Article)
December 4, 2003... PHYSICAL SYNTHESIS FOR NEC'S ISSP ARCHITECTURE is part of an expanded development and marketing deal between NEC and Synplicity Inc. The two will work to develop the Amplify ISSP Physical Optimizer, a physical synthesis tool for NEC's Instant...

Storage accelerator raids desktop systems: supporting wire-speed stripped-parity RAID for reads and writes, the SyncRAID controller delivers higher write performance than RAID 5 along with better reliability.(Leapfrog: first look)
December 4, 2003... A controller that delivers write throughputs and reliability levels beyond RAID 5 capabilities-sounds lofty, bur the TD6405 SyncRAID controller achieves just such a goal. Developed by NetCell, it implements a low-cost RAID like subsystem for...

Search engines take on larger forwarding tables: thanks to ternary CAM and algorithmic-based architectures, a pair of network search engines can handle larger searches.(Leapfrog: first look)
December 4, 2003... Implementation of high-speed packet-search subsystems has become critical in equipment like routers and laver 2/3 switches. Requirements to perform policy lookups, namely access control list (ACL) and quality-of-service (QoS), require...

A new frontier for EDA: closing the loop, EDA tools have begun to flow information from design to manufacturing and back again. In the process, design-for-test enters the front end of the design cycle.(Technology Report)(Cover Story)
December 4, 2003... Historically, testability is an afterthought in the design process. But heightening complexity of chip designs, and especially SoCs, forces testability (and manufacturability) to take a more central position. It's no longer enough for test...

DO-178B: fail-safe aviation.(Special editorial feature: embedded in Electronic Design)
December 4, 2003... I've never written applications for airplanes, but I do try to write applications that degrade gracefully. It's not too hard a task when it comes to microcontrollers, where control over all of the code is relatively common. At the other...

Linux gets interrupted: new 2.6 kernel brings standard Linux to embedded systems.(Microcontroller Series)
December 4, 2003... Linux no longer requires a customized kernel for real-time support, but extensions are still needed for hard real-time support. Also, uClinux was merged into the new release, so the 2.6 kernel now covers all systems from low-end, MMU-less MCUs...

8/16-bit TCP/IP gets wireless ethernet support.(News Clips)(Brief Article)
December 4, 2003... 8/16-Bit TCP/IP Gets Wireless Ethernet Support The CMX-MicroNet TCP/IP stack now has 802.11b support with the addition of the Wireless Ethernet Add-On Option for CMX-MicroNet. It supports 64-and 128-bit WEP (Wired Equivalent Privacy) modes and...

16-bit MCU modules make the most of migration.(News Clips)(Brief Article)
December 4, 2003... 16-Bit MCU Modules Make The Most Of Migration A pair of compact modules (3.25 by 2.3 in.) integrated with Motorola's MC9S12E64/128 is based on the 16-bit HC12. Developed by Technological Arts, the MCU supports [I.sup.2]C; three SCIs; SPI; a...

CompactPCI packs Pentium M.(News Clips)(Brief Article)
December 4, 2003... CompactPCI Packs Pentium M The conduction-cooled, 3U CP306 runs a 1.6-GHz Pentium M. It includes a Gigabit and Fast Ethernet, four USB 2.0 ports, and four COM channels. Memory maxes out at 512 Mbytes of SDRAM. The CP306 goes for $3300. ...

Low-Power 16-bit MCU is in the CAN 2.0.(News Clips)(Brief Article)
December 4, 2003... Low-Power 16-Bit MCU Is In The CAN 2.0 The 24-MHz H8S/2615F with 64 kbytes of flash targets automotive body controls with a low-EMI chip. The six-channel timer pulse unit is optimized for dc motor applications, three SCI ports, and 16 10-bit...

Low-power SBC doubles features.(News)(Brief Article)
December 4, 2003... It's take two for the PowerNode3. That's two 1-GHz PowerPC G4 7457 processors with 2 Mbytes of RAM each. It has PCI Mezzanine Card (PMC) slots along with two for Gigabit Ethernet. Three 4x high-speed links connect to the PO backplane for PICMG...

Embedded Linux front end is divisive.(News)(Brief Article)
December 4, 2003... Qtopia 1.7 is Trolltech's latest release of its Linux-based application platform for embedded and handheld devices. Its updated architecture provides a better division between GUI and non-GUI application interfaces, allowing developers to pick...

Simple data capture via USB.(News)(Brief Article)
December 4, 2003... The Personal Measurement Device from Measurement Computing, dubbed the PMD-1208LS, plugs into a PC's USB port to provide provide eight analog inputs, two analog outputs, 16 bits of digital I/0, and a 32-bit counter. It supports National...

Kit links PCI-X.(News)(Brief Article)
December 4, 2003... Avnet's PCI-X 64/133 design kit streamlines PCI-X interface development. The kit is based on a Xilinx Virtex-II FPGA and the LogiCORE PCI-X IP Core. It includes the Jungo WinDriver Driver Development Tool for PCI devices. Pricing starts at...

74-Gbyte SATA drive targets enterprise.(News)(Brief Article)
December 4, 2003... As Serial ATA (SATA) drives become more common in enterprise environments, Western Digital's 10,000-rpm WD Raptor meets the challenge with a 74-Gbyte capacity. The Ultra/150 Command Queuing (Ultra/150 CQ) technology boosts performance up to...

Analog simulation tools aid digital-control-circuit designers.(Design view: electronic design automation)
December 4, 2003... Although analog and digital controllers may appear vastly different, their principles of operation are usually quite similar. Therefore, popular analog tools like Spice can still be used to benefit common digital proportional integral...

Two triggers have flexible time intervals and pulse widths.(Design briefs: innovative designs from readers)
December 4, 2003... Generating two independent pulse triggers separated by a certain time delay can be handy in half-bridge drivers and thyristor-commutated lamp flashers. Time delay is set to avoid overlapping of the power switches' ON states or to minimize the...

Analog voting circuit is more flexible than its digital version.(Design Briefs)
December 4, 2003... Majority voting systems are used to protect critical plants and processes. Such systems find applications in chemical, power, nuclear, and aerospace industries. Here, multiple sensors monitor a critical parameter, and the readings of, say, two...

Flash-based motherboard basis for Thin Client PC.(... Embedded)(Brief Article)
December 4, 2003... * Built around VIA's Mini-ITX board, the Thin Client includes a 533-MHz VIA Eden ESP 5000, x86-compatible processor. Two onboard integrated-development-environment interfaces are connected to Compact Flash slots. The system features two SDRAM...

DSP key to Video Security toolkit.(... Embedded)(Brief Article)
December 4, 2003... * Simplifying development of video security systems is the bailiwick of the Video Security over IP (VSIP) Tool Kit. It's built around a TMS320DM6xx DSP and an Altera Cyclone FPGA. Support is available for both analog and digital cameras. The...

Compact RTOS meets TigerSharc.(... Embedded)(Brief Article)
December 4, 2003... * Using as little as 10 kbytes, the OSEck for Analog Devices' TigerSharc ADSP-TS201 delivers a high-performance and high-reliability platform. The fully preemptible real-time kernel has built-in error handling. Its Link Handler provides a...

Rack-mount system hosts PC/104.(... Embedded)(Brief Article)
December 4, 2003... * The Relio S Series 2U rack-mount system offers PC/104 expansion capabilities. It sports a Celeron processor with up to 1 Gbyte of RAM and three PC/104 expansion sites. Standard expansion units include backpanel plate, a PC/104 interface...

BSP supports VxWorks PPC SBC.(... Embedded)(Brief Article)
December 4, 2003... * The SVME/DMV-182 board-support package (BSP) supports the dual 1.3-GHz Motorola MPC7455/7557 PowerPC-based SVME/DMV-182 single-board computer. The VxWorks BSP supports Altivec technology up to 1 Gbyte of double-data-rate SDRAM. It includes...

Embedded graphics package supports X11 and Qt.(... Embedded)(Brief Article)
December 4, 2003... * SNAP Graphics for Linux runs atop X11 or Qt graphic subsystems. It accelerates 2D applications and supports Plug-N-Play as well as all versions of Xfree86 from 4.0.2 to 4.3.0. It's available under GPL or as a proprietary license. ED Online...

Low-power PowerPC SBC supports dual Gbit-Ethernet, PMC slots.(... Embedded)(Brief Article)
December 4, 2003... * The air-cooled PowerCore CPU-695s draw a little over 13 W to drive an 800-MHz PowerPC 750FX processor. The board supports up to 4 Gbytes of double-data-rate SDRAM. It has dual Gigabit Ethernet ports and two PCI mezzanine card (PMC) slots....

RTOS ties video processor to apps.(... Embedded)(Brief Article)
December 4, 2003... * Development for the VC01 multimedia processor from Alphamosaic Ltd. is easier with the Nucleus real-time operating system (RTOS). The VC01 incorporates Alphamosaic's VideoCore technology. This is supported by Nucleus, which simplifies the...

1- to 16-kbit serial EEPROMs now come in tiny SOT-23 packages.(... Digital ICs/DSP)(Brief Article)
December 4, 2003... * One of the smallest packages to date, a six-lead SOT-23 that occupies just 8.26 [mm.sup.2], houses a family of 8- and 16 bit three-wire (Microwire) serial EEPROMs that provides designers with 1 to 16 kbits of storage. Implemented with the...

Flash-memory controllers deliver data at rates of up to 16 Mbytes/s.(... Digital ICs/DSP)(Brief Article)
December 4, 2003... * The SM2XX Compact Flash (CF), Multimedia Card (MMC), and Secure Digital (SD) card flash controllers offer sustained performance of 10 Mbytes/s for data transfers and 8 Mbytes/s for write operations. The SM320 USB 2.0 flash disk controllers...

DSP controllers deliver 100 MIPS to take on demanding applications.(... Digital ICs/DSP)(Brief Article)
December 4, 2003... * A control-optimized series of DSPs will provide a throughput of 100 MIPS for less than $5 in volume. The TMS320F2801, TMS320F2806, and TMS320F2808 offer performance levels more than 150% higher than other flash-based controllers. They provide...

Neuron processors double memory and still trim power by 33%.(... Digital ICs/DSP)(Brief Article)
December 4, 2003... * A pair of 3.3V Neuron chips for the LonWorks family delivers up to twice the memory of previous 5-V pin-compatible alternatives yet reduces power consumption by 33%. The CY7C53120L8 and 53150L enable sensors and actuators to be networked and...

Motherboard chip provides dual memory channels and 800-MHz FSB.(... Digital ICs/DSP)(Brief Article)
December 4, 2003... * Designers of Intel Pentium 4 systems can now get a dual-channel DRAM architecture and full support for 800-MHz front-side buses with a new motherboard chip set. With samples available now, the SiS655FX uses an extremely flexible dual-channel...

Search Engine Managers run up to 400 million searches/s.(... Digital ICs/DSP)(Brief Article)
December 4, 2003... * The HyCognito search engines include soft-core and embedded-array-based versions of the company's Search Engine Managers (SEMs). The blocks can run up to 400 million searches per second. By combining the SEMs with industry-standard DRAMs, the...

Fiber-optic backlighting panels integrate membrane switch pads.(Packaging/Interconnects)(Brief Article)
December 4, 2003... * New fiber optic backlighting panels for membrane switch applications feature conductive pads designed into the panel that integrate a switch into the fiber optic backlight for use in keypads, keyboards, and membrane switches, Using as few as...

Low-cost flexible circuit substrate supplies high performance levels.(Packaging/Interconnects)(Brief Article)
December 4, 2003... * Low cost high-performance flexible substrate materials are now available. Solderable up to 300[degrees]C, they come with 1 oz of copper (and other custom thicknesses) on nonpolyimide proprietary 3-mil thick flexible substrates. For...

Packaging/interconnects.(... Embedded)(Brief Article)
December 4, 2003... 3.0 at 1 kHz with a dielectric loss of less than 0.01 and insulation strength of 1000 V dc (3-mil thickness). The non silicone materials withstand chemical etching and treatments and maintain flexibility down to -40[degrees]C. Moisture...

Adapter for MLF/QFN IC packages provides quick prototyping.(... Embedded)(Brief Article)
December 4, 2003... * Design engineers using 0.5-mm pitch 48-position MLF/QFN packaged ICs will be interested in the PA-MLF48A-P-Z-02 adapter, which provides high-performance quick prototyping. It comes with a clam-shell ZIF socket for easy access to all signals...

Electrical connectors suit hazardous environments.(... Embedded)(Brief Article)
December 4, 2003... * The Star-Line EX series electrical connectors meet ATEX update testing for use in hazardous environments, as defined by the National Electrical Code (NEC), Article 505. The Zone 1 rated connectors eliminate hard wiring to terminal blocks in...

Expanded cooling fan line ranges in size from 60 to 92 mm.(... Embedded)(Brief Article)
December 4, 2003... * The Panther low speed cooling fans range in form factor from 60 to 92 ram. They operate by converting a conventional low-frequency signal to a high-frequency signal. By operating at switching levels above 20 kHz, they produce a soft...

Tradeoffs abound in FPGA design: understanding device types and design flows is key to getting the most out of FPGAs.(Basics of Design)
December 4, 2003... Field-programmable gate arrays (FPGAs) arrived in 1984 as an alternative to programmable logic devices (PLDs) and ASICs. As their name implies, FPGAs offer the significant benefit of being readily programmable. Unlike their forebearers in the...

Unique supercomputer studies ocean currents.(TechScope: electronics technology at work and at play)(NASA Ames esearch Center )(Brief Article)
December 18, 2003... IMAGINE THE COMPUTING POWER of 512 processors working in tandem. That's the resource now available at the NASA Ames Research Center in Moffett Field, Calif. Based on the Linux operating system, this facility's 512-processor SGI Altix...

Keyless entry doesn't even need your hands.(TechScope: electronics technology at work and at play)
December 18, 2003... Nobody likes fumbling for car keys while carrying an armload of groceries. Even a pushbutton clicker can be inconvenient when it's buried in a pocket or purse. Yet the hands-free VML S system from ELA Innovation spares drivers these annoyances...

Study skids with SAFE Dragsled.(TechScope: electronics technology at work and at play)(Massload Technologies Sample Accumulator for Friction Evaluation Dragsled)(Brief Article)
December 18, 2003... Skids occur in all kinds of hazardous situations, from cars on icy roads to loading trucks on greasy floors. Designers have to account for skid potential in their vehicles, but testing requires them to fill tires halfway with concrete and pull...

A gift of hobby electronics inspires future engineers.(Editorial)
December 18, 2003... I got an e-mail recently from Forrest Mims, author of most of Radio Shack's electronics project books--over 7.5 million served! Despite those bestseller-like figures, Mims reports that the hobby electronics market is so slow that Radio Shack...

Bob's mailbox.(Pease Porridge)(Letter to the Editor)
December 18, 2003... Dear Bob: Bob Widlar was a good friend. He was one of the few people I've known with a photographic memory. I was employed at National throughout the '70s, where we were designing a chip that would use an on-chip-substrate reverse-bias...

Getting miniaturization (aka MEMS) accepted by OEMs.(POV: Point of View)(Editorial)(Industry Overview)
December 18, 2003... Pity the poor MEMS developers, pushing what the industry sees as an emerging technology. "We can give you miniature micro-machined components, with the benefits of lower power, lower cost. and reduced real estate," they say. "All you have to do...

A complex task: real and imaginary robots honored.(Robotics)(at School of Computer Science at Carnegie Mellon)
December 18, 2003... The School of Computer Science at Carnegie Mellon University, one of the premier robotics research centers, recently established the Robot Hall of Fame to honor landmark achievements in robotics technology and the increasing contributions of...

PC OEMs reshaping consumer electronics mark.(Computers)(Industry Overview)
December 18, 2003... Since their inception, PCs have been a disruptive product, sweeping away the old order and ushering in revolutionary changes in information technology (IT). But now, PC OEMs have their sights set on an area beyond IT, toward consumer...

3-Gbit/s mux/demux takes on next-gen SAS systems.(Communications)(PMC-Sierra QuadSMX 3G)(Brief Article)
December 18, 2003... Who would've thought serial would dominate the bus world? Parallel buses just couldn't keep up at distances over a few inches. Serial has won, and it's pushing into disk storage. This is possible with chips like PMC-Sierra's QuadSMX 3G,...

SIGTRAN gateway enables SS7 signaling over IP networks.(Communications)(Artesyn Communications SpiderWareSG 2.0 )(Brief Article)
December 18, 2003... As VolP becomes more widespread, the call-signaling problem worsens. With conventional phone calls, most carders use the SS7 signal method and equipment. SS7 is the ITU's global standard that defines procedures and protocols by which elements...

VoIP gateway resides on a single chip.(Communications)(Texas Instruments TNETV1060 )(Brief Article)
December 18, 2003... VoIP telephony is coming soon to your cable or DSL line. To help, Texas Instruments' TNETV1060 system-on-a-chip (SoC) VolP gateway solution addresses the requirements of residential and small-office/home-office (SOHO) gateways. The chip...

Packages shrink for next generation products.
December 18, 2003... The packaging of electronic devices is an evolving art driven by the requirements of smaller, lighter, portable, battery-powered products, such as cell phones, PDAs, notebook computers, CD-ROM players, and so forth. With space at a premium to...

Handheld spectrum analyzer elevates range and sensitivity.(Components & Test)
December 18, 2003... The MS2711D Spectrum Master handheld spectrum analyzer comes with a built-in LCD screen. The 4.9-lb instrument improves sweep speed, and its built-in pre-amp increases its sensitivity and dynamic range. With a--135-dBm noise floor and a 100-kHz...

Pressure-mapping system simplifies LCD/flat-panel development.(Components & Test)(Sensor Products Tactilus)(Brief Article)
December 18, 2003... THE TACTILUS ELECTRONIC TACTILE-FORCE AND PRESSURE-INDICATING SENSING SYSTEM helps designers develop and test LCDs and flat-panel displays. Produced by Sensor Products, it handles any application where pressure lies between 0.007 kg/[cm.sup.2]...

Serial data analyzers upgraded to trigger on 2.7-Gbit/s bit streams.(Components & Test)(LeCroy SDA6000A, SDA5000A, and SDA3000A )(Brief Article)
December 18, 2003... The SDA6000A, SDA5000A, and SDA3000A serial data analyzers (SDAs) now trigger on bit streams with data rates up to 2.7 Gbits/s. These LeCroy units feature 6-GHz signal-capture bandwidth for 2.5-Gbit/s data rates, 5-GHz signal-capture bandwidth...

Modular FPGA architecture spawns multiple silicon optimizations.(Digital)(from Xilinx Inc.)(Brief Article)
December 18, 2003... Though FPGA designers have tried to keep FPGAs as generic as possible, Xilinx feels it's time to craft FPGAs that are more in tune to specific market segments. To do this, its next-generation Virtex FPGAs use a highly modularized architecture...

ISSCC preview.(Digital)
December 18, 2003... It's time to put in for your travel budget to attend the 2004 IEEE International Solid-State Circuits Conference, Feb. 15-19 at the San Francisco Marriott Hotel. Next year's ISSCC will be one of the largest to date, with 204 papers, three...

Budget-priced DSPs deliver studio-quality audio.(Digital)(Analog Devices ADSP-21365, ADSP-21266, ADSP-21267 and ADSP-21365/64 )(Brief Article)
December 18, 2003... OFFERING ENOUGH PROCESSING throughput to deliver studio-quality audio at consumer prices, four enhanced SHARC DSPs from Analog Devices integrate more peripheral support than previous devices. To support the processor, the company has developed...