Electronic Design articles from December 2005

Electronic Design archives from December 2005

One "powerful" online database.(findpowerproducts)
December 1, 2005... Electronic Design's new FindPowerProducts.com free online database provides technical information on a wide range of power-management products. Comprehensive and searchable, the database greatly speeds the selection of products that meet your...

"Sound off".(WHAT'S HAPPENING @ Keeping the EE community connected)(Letter to the Editor)
December 1, 2005... "I am 40 years old and have an MSEE. I am so thrilled with this career that I have chosen that I am trying to get back in the military. I would rather have people shooting at me than work in this profession anymore. The U.S. is now going to...

Packing the PowerPC.(EiED Online)
December 1, 2005... PowerPC microcontrollers deliver high performance but draw little power, making them an ideal choice for embedded applications. Embedded/Systems/ Software Editor Bill Wong checks out AMCC's EP440C development kit, which encompasses a variety of...

Free eBook: a black-box approach to ADCs.(WHAT'S UP?)
December 1, 2005... Analog-to-digital converter (ADC) tutorials often focus on circuit details and their impact on performance. Instead, this eBook takes a black-box approach. It concentrates on the common characteristics of al] ADCs and what they imply for the...

Check it out!!(WHAT'S HAPPENING @ Keeping the EE community connected)
December 1, 2005... Embedded in Electronic Design (EiED) Online is your source for technical insight and hands-on reviews. Check out the archive of columns from Embedded/ Systems/Software Editor Bill Wong at www.elecdesign.com/eiedonline.

Polling.(WHAT'S HAPPENING @ Keeping the EE community connected)(Brief Article)
December 1, 2005... How often do you use Wi-Fi services in public places? Frequently 11% Occasionally 13% Seldom 22% Never 54% Express yourself through our new poll: Does the U.S. government spend enough money on...

What's cool.(WHAT'S HAPPENING @ Keeping the EE community connected)
December 1, 2005... From The Top 20 Articles on ED Online: 1 Single-Chip FM Transmitter Extends Home Entertainment Systems ED Online 4913 2 Inside iPod ED Online 9500 3 The Outsourcing Revolution: Why It Makes Sense And How To Do...

Best of the best: kudos you deserve.(OVERVIEW)(Editorial)
December 1, 2005... It's about time you got the recognition you deserve] You feel you're working longer hours on more complex projects, with tighter deadlines--while getting less respect. At Electronic Design, our goal is to help you keep up with your demanding...

What's all this AMT stuff, anyhow? (Part 1).(PEASE PORRIDGE)(Column)
December 1, 2005... The IRS recently "invited" me to fill out a form that puts fear in the hearts of strong men--Form 6251 for the Alternative Minimum Tax (AMT). I was "invited" to find out if this form would show any more tax liability. Hey, I paid my taxes back...

Reverse outsourcing may be best news of the year.(ANALOG)(Column)
December 1, 2005... This year's most engaging news came from a briefing by Julian Hayes of Wolfson Microelectronics, Edinburgh, Scotland, in September. Walking through the company's plant, I saw a flat-screen TV disassembled on an engineer's bench. Wolfson was...

More memory, digital logic deliver knockout products.(DIGITAL)
December 1, 2005... Now that a billion-plus transistors can fit onto one processor chip, the race to push CPU clock rates has reached a point of diminishing returns due to increasing power consumption. All is not lost, though. By turning to parallelism, CPU...

PMBus: digital power control protocol.(POWER)
December 1, 2005... Probably the best 2005 development in power is the new PMBus (Power Management Bus) open standard specification. It defines a digital communications protocol for controlling power conversion and management devices. Taking part in this...

Frequently asked questions: low-power FPGAs.(POWER DESIGN FAQs)
December 1, 2005... How do the various field-programmable gate-array (FPGA) technologies rank with respect to standby power consumption? The three mainstream FPGA approaches significantly vary in static and standby power consumption due to the differences in...

In a flat year for EDA, DFM shines the brightest.(EDA)
December 1, 2005... It hasn't been a banner year for the EDA industry. For one, growth is flat throughout the industry. The state of EDA technology is a major concern among many designers. Even though leading IDM and merchant foundries are taping out 65-nm test...

T&M puts signal integrity in the cross hairs.(TEST & MEASUREMENT)
December 1, 2005... This year, signal-integrity issues stepped front and center in the test and measurement arena--not that SI is a new problem for designers. But with the proliferation of communications standards, especially serial data formats at rates that are...

The best of embedded 2005: software and hardware.(EMBEDDED)
December 1, 2005... Software Eclipse Without a doubt, the open-source Eclipse version 3 has made a thunderous impact on the embedded development scene. It's rather surprising for a not-for-profit product that's making lots of money for vendors and...

An inexpensive GSM/GPRS phone-on-a-chip.(WIRELESS)
December 1, 2005... It was inevitable. Someone was going to put most of the circuitry for a cell phone onto one chip. Giants like Texas Instruments and Infineon have come close to doing it. But Silicon Laboratories grabbed the ring, integrating the most ceil-phone...

Analog and digital inch closer thanks to sensors.(SENSORS)
December 1, 2005... This year has seen all kinds of impressive sensor advances, whether they involve the applications they serve, the processes that make them, or even their packaging. Combined with wireless technology, sensors have become powerful tools. What...

2005 year in review.
December 1, 2005... 1 JANUARY Jan. 1--Some may call 2005 the year of the natural disaster, but it was on Dec. 26, 2004 when a 9.15-magnitude earthquake (now known as the Sumatra-Andaman earthquake) rocked the Indian Ocean floor. It created the Boxing Day...

Current quarterly: your first look at new analog and mixed signal ICs from analog devices.(Buyers Guide)
December 1, 2005... Fall/Winter 2005 AD7760/AD7762/AD7763--New High Speed 24-Bit ADCs Improve Accuracy While Simplifying Front End Signal Conditioning For those industrial and instrumentation applications that demand both high speed ac and accurate dc...

Far IR promotes safer nighttime driving.(Automotive)
December 1, 2005... Driving at night can be a challenge, even for the best drivers. Statistics show that nighttime driving is two to three times riskier than daytime driving for drivers, passengers, and pedestrians. But as the driver's distance vision increases,...

RAZR V3 cuts to the front of the cell-phone line.(Communications)
December 1, 2005... With so many competing electronic products, it's difficult to choose the best. Besides, what should the criteria be? Visual design, technical performance, financial impact, or something else entirely? Or how about all of the above? ...

Bevy of computer parts adds up to a banner year.(Computers)
December 1, 2005... The sum can be more than the parts when they're designed to work together. This is definitely the case with a gamer's desktop PC. Desktop systems are moving to more compact form factors, thanks to laptop technologies. Integration of...

Let us entertain you with innovative products.(Consumer)
December 1, 2005... Entertainment makes up the largest sector of the consumer electronics market. Its broad array of products ranges from pocket-sized digital music players to 102-in. diagonal flat-panel displays for high-definition TV. But in a year full of...

MEMS helps slash food-processing analysis costs.(Industrial)
December 1, 2005... Food and beverage content analysis is an important segment within the industrial-processing arena. Spectrometer instruments mounted on the production line perform this often expensive and cumbersome step for safety, and grading purposes. But...

Changing the face of blood-pressure monitoring.(Medical)
December 1, 2005... The word "tensymetry" has no definition in Webster's Dictionary, but it's well known in the medical world. Developed by Tensys Medical Systems, tensymetry is a technology that uses a proprietary combination of biomechanical, electrical, and...

Build your own PC board: a designer's dream: LPKF's ProtoMat S62 desktop milling machine exceeds designers' expectations with its mini learning curve coupled with low cost and fast turnaround.(LEAPFROG: FIRST LOOK)
December 1, 2005... Electronic Design engineers cast their votes on the most popular Leapfrog article of this year and... insert drum roll here... the winner is LPKF Laser and Electronics' low-cost, S62 circuit-board plotter (Fig. 1). Not only is the article...

Readers' choice: efficient emergency-light controller: LEDs, a couple of AA cells, and a smart design light the way to future products.(DESIGN BRIEFS: Innovation Designs from Readers)
December 1, 2005... Ken Yang was working at Maxim when he submitted this Design Brief. (He's since moved to the power group at a network equipment company.) The circuit turns on emergency lighting (in the form of a string of white LEDs) and turns them off again...

Voltage-controlled voltage source uses two op amps.(BEST DESIGN BRIEFS: Runners-up)
December 1, 2005... One challenge in circuit design is building a good current source, especially when the toad is variable or the current must be controlled with a voltage source. This idea, which uses a simple, low-cost voltage-controlled current source with two...

High-power LED driver accepts wide input-voltage range.(BEST DESIGN BRIEFS: Runners-up)(Brief Article)
December 1, 2005... The advent of high-power LEDs that can replace incandescent bulbs has produced a need for circuits that efficiently match the LEDs to available power sources (batteries, car electrical systems, etc.). The circuits should also be able to...

Handy circuit converts RS-232 to an 8-bit discrete output.(BEST DESIGN BRIEFS: Runners-up)
December 1, 2005... This simple serial RS-232-to-discrete-output application and driver, based on Texas Instruments' 74LV8153, requires only a minimum of parts. The single-wire, RS-232 bit-compatible 74LV8153 supports an internal clock, auto-baud function, and...

Delta's new Delphi Series 350W H48SN half brick DC-DC power converter.(PRODUCT ALERT)
December 1, 2005... Delta Electronics introduces the H48SN into their Delphi Series of Board Mounted DC-DC power converters. The H48SN is an isolated, 48V input, single 28V output, 350W, industry-standard half brick footprint and pinout module. The H48SN converter...

Attention design engineers.(PRODUCT ALERT)
December 1, 2005... Win $5,000 in our Wireless Design Contest! Our device server technology is used to network equipment so it can be accessed and managed over wireless networks. What could you engineer or enhance with one of our WiPort 802.11 wireless device...

New +105[degrees]C Organic Semiconductor Solid Aluminium Electrolytic Capacitors.(PRODUCT ALERT)
December 1, 2005... New AFX radial-leaded Organic Semiconductor Solid Aluminum Electrolytic Capacitors offer high performance from -55[degrees]C to +105[degrees]C. Especially well suited for compact high-frequency switching power supplies and other demanding...

Long range wireless RS-232 via Bluetooth.(PRODUCT ALERT)
December 1, 2005... LEMOS/INITIUM have developed a reliable easy to install, low cost, long range Bluetooth wireless serial communication link for the industrial, medical, commercial and consumer markets. The Promi-SD Class 1 allows long range of up to 1,200...

ISI Lead Free Interposers for DDR2 BGAs.(PRODUCT ALERT)
December 1, 2005... ISI Lead Free Interposers allow OEMs to use standard eutectic (leaded) SMT assembly processes, even when BGAs are only available in lead-free packaging. DDR2 memory chips are one common application, although ISI supplies interposers for a...

EPIC Celeron/Pentium III computer board with GUI and dual Eethernet.(PRODUCT ALERT)
December 1, 2005... The new SBC4685 from Micro/sys, with an Ultra-Low Voltage Celeron core, provides a powerful, multimedia controller in a 4.5" x 6.5" EPIC-standard footprint. The color VGA interface supports TTL and LVDS flat panels, and CRTs. The AC97 audio...

Keithley instruments has published interactive test & measurement troubleshooting.(PRODUCT ALERT)
December 1, 2005... Guide: How to Avoid Common Measurement Errors. The CD lets users explore the symptoms and causes of errors associated with low voltage, low current, low resistance, high resistance, and voltage from a high resistance source measurements....

Magnetics[R] Kool Mu[R] blocks ideal for custom configurations.(PRODUCT ALERT)
December 1, 2005... Magnetics Kool Mu blocks offer designers the ability to create custom designs for a variety of applications including high power inductors and universal power supplies. Providing the same low core losses and stable performance at high...

Parting shots.(Editorial)
December 1, 2005... 2005 was a busy year for Electronic Design readers, regardless of whether you work for an international corporation or your own company. Julian Hayes (top), vice president of consumer product marketing at Wolfson Microelectronics, gets to work...

One "Powerful" online database.(find power products)
December 15, 2005... Electronic Design's new Find Power Products.com free online database provides technical information on a wide range of power-management products. Comprehensive and searchable, the database greatly speeds the selection of products that meet your...

"Sound off".(WHAT'S HAPPENING @ elecdesign.com: Keeping the EE community connected)(Letter to the Editor)
December 15, 2005... "Does the Prius make economic sense? Maybe, maybe not, although if gas prices get high enough it clearly will. However, I bought mine for a somewhat different purpose. I decided the beautiful 200-V battery and efficient generator could provide...

What's your take on VoIP phone service?(Polling)(Brief Article)
December 15, 2005... 21% I've already adopted it 38% I'm thinking about using it 14% Tried it and didn't like it 27% Not interested Express yourself through our new poll. To vote, go to www.elecdesign.com.

RoboNexus and ARM conferences.(EiED Online)(Brief Article)
December 15, 2005... Embedded/Systems/Software Editor Bill Wong takes a trip out west to the ARM Developers Conference and Robonexus. Read about the product debuts at this year's ARM event, including the Cortex-A8 ARM architecture. This was the second year for...

What's cool.(WHAT'S HAPPENING @ elecdesign.com: Keeping the EE community connected)
December 15, 2005... 1 Tiny Programmable Oscillator Operates From 5 kHz To 20 MHz ED Online 3790 2 SoC Designers: Learn The What, Why, And How Of Transactions ED Online 10570 3 Speed-Merchant UWB Ushers In Wireless Video ED Online 11412 4 Water-Level...

Check it out!!(WHAT'S HAPPENING @ elecdesign.com: Keeping the EE community connected)
December 15, 2005... Electronic Design's online bookstore showcases select books that address important design and career topics. Read our overviews and purchase the titles that fit your needs, www.elecdesign.com/bookstore

Free eBook: a black-box approach to ADCs.(WHAT'S UP?)
December 15, 2005... Analog-to-digital converter (ADC) tutorials often focus on circuit details and their impact on performance. In contrast, this eBook takes a black-box approach. It concentrates on the common characteristics of all ADCs and what they imply for...

Putting the mind at ease with heart-smart devices.(EDITORIAL)(Editorial)
December 15, 2005... Whether it's an iPod for the teens or a 40-in. plasma HDTV for Dad, consumer electronics are the in-demand "toys" on this year's holiday wish list. But this issue's Success Story (p. 38) covers the design of one consumer device, the Heart-Start...

What's all this AMT stuff, anyhow? (Part 2).(PEASE PORRIDGE)(Column)
December 15, 2005... As I said in my last column, I don't mind filling in my tax forms. * I can usually look at the 1040 forms and figure what is happening. If I am normally in a 33% bracket, I can tell that the tax is really at a marginal (incremental) rate of...

Digital techniques ready to power electronic systems.(POV: POINT OF VIEW)
December 15, 2005... Digital power-supply control has certainly captured the attention of the power electronics industry during the last 18 months. It has gone from papers presented in those "catch-all" sessions at power conferences to having its own sessions and...

Digital photography sharpens focus on technology.(TechView)(Product/Service Evaluation)
December 15, 2005... Cell phones with cameras with cell phones? Wireless technology has already become a product differentiator in digital photography. Kodak introduced its Wi-Fi-equipped Easyshare One last January at the International Consumer Electronics Show in...

Will iPod nano's display problem spill over to video version?(Tech View)
December 15, 2005... The successful launch of Apple's iPod nano MP3 player in September was marred by complaints regarding its display. Shortly after its introduction, some users noted cracks in the screen. Apple said this flaw was limited to 0.1% of all units...

Motor-monitor/vibration-analysis chips have it all.(TechView: ANALOG & POWER)
December 15, 2005... In designing wireless sensor network (WSN) machine monitoring and vibration analysis, the physical size of the sensor end-point modules must be minimized. To meet that goal, Quickfilter offers a monolithic four-channel alternative to using a...

Processors offer MPEG4 encoding/decoding.(TechView: DIGITAL)
December 15, 2005... Speculation about the first products based on Texas Instruments' DaVinci DSP platform has come to an end with the introduction of two highly integrated digital video processors. The TMS320DM6446 performs full MPEG-4 video encode and decode,...

Low-cost HBA offers high performance.(TechView: COMMUNICATIONS)
December 15, 2005... The iSNAP 2110 host bus adapter (HBA) from Silverback Systems affordably brings a new level of performance to storage-area net works (SANs). While Fibre Channel still reigns over SAN connectivity, the Ethernet-based serial version of the...

Hot RISC processor enables consumer voice over cable.(TechView: COMMUNICATIONS)
December 15, 2005... With Voice over Internet Protocol (VolP) becoming more popular, cable operators are looking for a low-cost way to provide it to existing customers. Broadcom's BCM3368 voiceover-cable modem system-on-a-chip lets set-top-box vendors incorporate...

PC-board design/simulation suite melds with LabView.(TechView: EDA)
December 15, 2005... In the Series 9 edition of the Electronics Workbench Multisim, Ultiboard, and UItiroute PCB tools, National Instruments has achieved a synergy between its LabView graphical development environment and the world of the electronic hardware...

Open current-source model unifies timing, noise and power.(TechView: EDA)
December 15, 2005... As IC designers migrate to 90-nm processes and look ahead to 65 nm, it's more critical than ever to supply implementation flows with accurate physical models. Timing, noise, and power effects at these geometries are heavily interdependent and...

16-bit architecture grows to 1 Mbyte.(TechView: EMBEDDED)
December 15, 2005... The boys in Dallas may hate to hear it, but Texas Instruments has a 20-bit microcontroller. Actually, TI's 16-bit MSP430X architecture incorporates a bank of registers that can be manipulated as 20-bit pointers or 16-bit data registers (see the...

Hard-Core journaling file system.(TechView: EMBEDDED)
December 15, 2005... Journaling file systems (JFS) provide robust storage. Green Hills Software's Partitioning JFS (PJFS) moves journaling into the embedded space. It works with the Green Hills Integrity real-time operating system. As a result, partitions can take...

Channel emulator handles multipath testing.(TechView: TEST & MEASUREMENT)
December 15, 2005... Multipath can be a big problem in traditional single-input/single-output (SISO) Wi-Fi systems. One answer is to come up with a multiple-input/multiple-output (MIMO) standard that takes advantage of multipath to boost performance. The...

Protocol analyzer targets UWB radio.(TechView: TEST & MEASUREMENT)
December 15, 2005... The UWBTracer protocol analyzer from LeCroy targets radio traffic based on the WiMedia Alliance's Ultra-Wideband (UWB) common radio platform and the USB-IF standards' Certified Wireless USB (WUSB) (see the figure). It can capture and decode...

PMBus controller takes a state-machine approach: ease of use, flexibility, and efficiency blend together in this power manager and converter package.(LEAPFROG: FIRST LOOK: PUTTING NEW TECHNOLOGY IN PERSPECTIVE)
December 15, 2005... Recent announcements of several PMBus-based ICs for digital control of distributed power makes one fact clear: There are two different approaches to controller architecture. On the one hand, controllers are based on high-resolution, high-speed...

A new approach to streamlining the application of advanced technologies.(ADVERTORIAL)(Advertisement)
December 15, 2005... Today's increasing silicon complexity drives engineers to continually leverage the latest advances in electronic design. However, no company can afford to have its design teams consuming time and effort adopting individual technologies....

A prescription-less portable defibrillator: the HeartStart low-cost automated external defibrillator for home use breaks new ground in consumer health electronics.(SUCCESS STORY)(Cover Story)
December 15, 2005... Clever design, close attention to human safety issues, and a top man-machine interface make the Philips HeartStart portable home defibrillator one of the hottest medical electronics devices on the market. Although other companies make portable...

Timing analysis rounds the corner to statistics: timing-signoff flows, overburdened by corner-based analysis, evolve to encompass statistical methods.(TECHNOLOGY REPORT: TIMING ANALYSIS)
December 15, 2005... In a perfect world, fabrication of silicon ICs would be a perfectly predictable process. Not only would every chip be absolutely identical, but there would be no variations from wafer to wafer, or lot to lot. In such a paradise, all chips would...

Use forward voltage drop to measure junction temperature.(DESIGN VIEW Test)
December 15, 2005... Semiconductor junctions--from the millions of transistors used in ICs to the large-area compound junctions that make high-brightness LEDs possible-can all suffer early failure due to increased heat. This becomes a larger issue when feature size...

Component specifier: interconnects & packaging.(NEW PRODUCTS: THE LATEST NOTABLE COMPONENTS AT A GLANCE)(Directory)(Buyers Guide)
December 15, 2005... COMPONENT SPECIFIER INTERCONNECTS & PACKAGING TYPE/Model Features BACKPLANE E-Series is an upgrade to the company's GbX CONNECTORS backplane connectors; features crosstalk as low GbX E-Series ...

Low-cost battery monitor checks battery-operated microprocessor.(Power Ideas For Design)
December 15, 2005... A recent project required an inexpensive microprocessor that could be battery operated and indicate if the batteries were low. I chose Microchip's PIC16LF84A for the microprocessor because it was simple to program and could operate between 2.0...

Good one-shot is based on an LVDS receiver.(DESIGN BRIEFS: Innovative Designs from Readers)
December 15, 2005... In the days of large split supplies, it was relatively easy to make a good monostable multivibrator. Even 5-V single supplies posed only a moderate challenge. Making a good one-shot to run on 3.3 V is more difficult, though. The variation of...

Portable battery power: high performance analog solutions from Linear Technology.(Advertisement)
December 15, 2005... Miniature 4[mm.sup.2] Low-Noise Charge-Pump Doubler Operates from Li-Ion, NiMH and Alkaline Cells Power management ICs today operate from a variety of input supply sources, ranging from Lithium-Ion, alkaline and Nickel batteries to USB....

Industry standard PMT supplies.(PRODUCT ALERT)
December 15, 2005... The P Series of DC/DC converters is capawatts. Stocked industry standard pinouts and enclosures allow for easy replacement of older, less efficient products. These models have proportional inputs from 4-12Vdc. All models include 5000Vdc...

New CSP test and burn-in socket from Aries accomodates devices from 41 MM2 to 55 M[M.sup.2].(PRODUCT ALERT)
December 15, 2005... Aries Electronics has introduced a test and burn-in socket that accommodates device packages from 41 mm2 up to 55 mm2 in applications up to 1 GHz. The new size, which features a standard molded socket format, is ideal for the test and burn-in...

Long range wireless RS-232 via Bluetooth.(PRODUCT ALERT)
December 15, 2005... LEMOS/INITIUM have developed a reliable easy to install, low cost, long range Bluetooth wireless serial communication link for the industrial, medical, commercial and consumer markets. The Promi-SD Class 1 allows long range of up to 1,200...

Digi-key-your single-source solution.(PRODUCT ALERT)
December 15, 2005... Our latest catalog features: * 1,680 pages * 22,166 new products * 320+ leading manufacturers * 95-percent or better in-stock rate for catalog items Order your free copy today at www.digikey.com or call ...

EPIC Celeron/Pentium III computer board with GUI and dual Ethernet.(PRODUCT ALERT)
December 15, 2005... The new SBC4685 from Micro/sys, with an Ultra-Low Voltage Celeron core, provides a powerful, multimedia controller in a 4.5" x 6.5" EPIC-standard footprint. The color VGA interface supports TTL and LVDS flat panels, and CRTs. The AC97 audio...

Power IC model library for PSpice.(PRODUCT ALERT)
December 15, 2005... This PSpice[R] library incorporates over 150 time-domain simulation models for power electronic designs and gives designers capabilities previously unavailable for these popular parts the ability to plug in a model, representative of the actual...

Attention design engineers.(PRODUCT ALERT)
December 15, 2005... Win $5,000 in our Wireless Design Contest! Our device server technology is used to network equipment so it can be accessed and managed over wireless networks. What could you engineer or enhance with one of our WiPort 802.11 wireless device...