Electronic Design articles from November 2006

Electronic Design archives from November 2006

Thanks to active safety systems, you won't buy it if you don't brake.(Editorial)
November 6, 2006... I should have fastened my seatbelt. Our Cadillac, the world's first car with an auto-braking system, used GPS and wireless signals to determine its need to auto-brake and avoid hitting the car slamming to a stop in front of us! ...

Bob's mailbox.(Letter to the editor)
November 6, 2006... Hi Bob! I have been reading and enjoying your stuff for many years! In this case (see "What's All This C-R Stuff, Anyhow?" Sept. 1, 2006, p. 18), I would say that capacitance has varied, not with frequency, but instead with applied potential....

HDDs hit the the road as standard features in tomorrow's cars.(hard disk drives)
November 6, 2006... Over the past few years, automobile manufacturers and aftermarket suppliers have debated whether hard-disk drives (HDDs) belong in cars. Skeptics say that putting technology with rotating parts into an even larger body of rotating parts has the...

Radical transistor concept bounces into being.
November 6, 2006... Quentin Diduck thinks it's time for a revolution in transistor technology. In fact, the graduate student at the University of Rochester claims the new ballistic deflection transistor (BDT) he's working on is as different from a conventional...

Teen's mind control blasts Space Invaders.(Washington University School of Medicine have developed a system users play a video game using their thoughts alone)(Brief article)
November 6, 2006... No joystick required. Researchers at the Washington University School of Medicine have developed a system that lets users play a video game using their thoughts alone. This achievement could lead to the development of biomedical devices that...

Navigation controller practically drives itself.(Fujitsu Microelectronics America's high-end graphic display controller "Fujitsu MB86297")
November 6, 2006... Fujitsu is now the proud parent of the MB86297, a high-end graphic display controller (GDC) for navigation systems. Designed for the latest generation of automotive multimedia systems, it delivers high-performance graphics at speeds five times...

Model your system to scale to expose potential issues.
November 6, 2006... Based on stories I've heard from fellow engineers and my own experiences, we easily could have avoided quite a few problems by building a model of the system to scale. Take connectors. If you've ever been on a team engineering a system, chances...

Microsoft signs off on two all-solid-state drives.(contracts with Samsung Electronics Company Ltd.)(Brief article)
November 6, 2006... Microsoft has officially qualified two of Samsung Electronics' flash-based solid-state-disk (SSD) drives as fully Windows compatible. The 16- and 32-Gbyte drives come in a 1.8-in. profile and offer 57-Mbyte/s read speeds and 32-Mbyte/s write...

PC-board router brings smarts, speed, and skill to the party.(printed circuit boards)
November 6, 2006... As anyone who's routed a pc board knows, a successful routing job combines intuition, speed, and good old-fashioned design chops. EDA vendors and pc-board-tool homebrewers alike have sought to build all of the above into automatic routing...

A hardware-assisted verification system for the masses arrives on desktops.(Cadence Design Systems, Xtreme Server systems)(Brief article)
November 6, 2006... With an eye toward much broader deployment of hardware-assisted verification than was ever before possible, Cadence's Incisive Design Team Xtreme III series of accelerator/emulators simplifies the ability to move to and from simulation and...

Have your LAN cake and eat it too.
November 6, 2006... You need all the advantages you can get when you're designing and building a wireless local-area network (WLAN). You want maximum range, the widest coverage, optimized throughput, low cost, low power consumption, the greatest reliability, and...

Putting new technology in perspective: Ethernet and the 8-bit MCU; The PIC18F97J60 fits a 10BaseT Ethernet controller MAC and PHY into a 64-pin package.(Microcontrollers)(Product/service evaluation)
November 6, 2006... Microcontrollers control and monitor a wide range of applications while maintaining a minimal footprint, often a single chip. The PIC18F97J60 family from Microchip performs these functions--and handles Ethernet networking, too. The chip is...

Putting new technology in perspective: processor's precise pulse targets power PWM; This novel approach for generating high-speed timing avoids going gigahertz.(Texas Instruments Inc.'s digital signal processors)(pulse width modulation)
November 6, 2006... Timing is everything in dc-dc conversion. A high-resolution, 16-channel pulse-width-modulation (HRPWM) module from Texas Instruments can control the edge position to a 150-ps accuracy. This is a neat trick for the 100-MHz TMS320F28044, since it...

What's on the dashboard tonight? Besieged by demands for more infotainment in the car, engineers must get creative on how to best process, manage, and distribute this content.
November 6, 2006... When peering through the front passenger window of the latest model cars, you've got to wonder if you're staring at the dashboard or some conceptual, high-end home-entertainment center. Now, as the clamor grows to enrich the infotainment...

RapidIO gives DSP "farmers" something to crow about: there may be several ways to connect DSPs for greater signal processing. But only Serial RapidIO provides a simple method with predictable latency at high speeds.(TECHNOLOGY REPORT: SERIAL RAPIDIO)
November 6, 2006... Are you about to start a new design with massive signal-processing requirements, such as a media gateway or the latest MRI device? If so, consider using a DSP farm connected via the Serial RapidIO (sRIO) protocol, or just go out and buy a DSP...

AMCs and MicroTCA tackle big jobs.(advanced mezzanine cards, Micro Telecommunications Computing Architecture)
November 6, 2006... It's time for MicroTCA to grow, at least in volume. The PCI Industrial Computer Manufacturers Group (PICMG) approved the standard for the MicroTCA architecture this summer, and the availability of advanced mezzanine cards (AMCs) is...

32-bit MCU sports dual bus, USB, and battery-backed-up SRAM.
November 6, 2006... It seems everyone is changing their name these days. Philips Semiconductor is now NXP Semiconductors. NXP's LPC2300 and LPC2400 micro-controllers bring 32-bit ARM7 performance with 2 kbytes of SRAM and a real-time clock with battery backup. The...

8-pin, 8-bit MCU targets tiny tasks.
November 6, 2006... Freescale's 16-MHz MC9S08QD2 and MC9S08QD4 forego communication interfaces in lieu of a four-channel, 10-bit analog-to-digital converter. The chips have a 16-bit timer and an additional dual-channel, 16-bit timer that can handle synchronized...

Using the right tools: embedded scripting and other ideas.(embedded systems)
November 6, 2006... Ask embedded programmers what tools they use, and you'll usually find a common thread: C/C++, an integrated development environment (IDE) or their favorite editor/debugger, and a standard library or platform like Microsoft .NET. These...

Automotive 8-bit MCU likes LIN.
November 6, 2006... The ST7L3 from STMicroelectronics cuts costs and board space in local interconnect network (LIN) control applications in automotive environments. The ST7L3 supports hardware multiply and has a master/slave LIN interface and a serial peripheral...

Portable PC targets rugged environments.
November 6, 2006... The SwitchBack-PC from Black Diamond Advanced Technology is a ruggedized version of the ultramobile PC (UMPC). It can run Windows XP Tablet PC and Linux. It also can be enhanced with a range of peripherals, such as a fingerprint reader,...

Dual license covers compact J2ME database.
November 6, 2006... The new version of McObject's Perst Lite is available under the GNU General Public License (GPL) for open-source projects and as a commercial license for closed-source projects. The tiny database targets Java 2 Platform Micro Edition (J2ME)...

RTOS gets revamped.(Microsoft Windows CE 6.0, real time operating system)(Brief article)
November 6, 2006... Windows CE 6 is a marked improvement for Microsoft's smallest operating system, which has big aspirations. It can now manage up to 32k processes, each with an address space of 2 Gbytes. That's probably a bit much for a cell phone, but this...

VMM delivers virtual protection.
November 6, 2006... VirtualLogix, formally Jaluna, has renamed and repartitioned its virtual machine manager (VMM) software--now available as VLX for Digital Multimedia, VLX for Mobile Handsets, and VLX for Network Infrastructure. This is a new version of the VLX...

Researchers in the Microelectronics Technologies.
November 6, 2006... Researchers in the Microelectronics Technologies division at Rohm and Hass Electronic Materials have successfully optimized copper plating additives, enabling customers to "dial in" specific amounts of dopants into ultra-pure copper films. The...

New lead- and cadmium-free photovoltaic materials.
November 6, 2006... New lead- and cadmium-free photovoltaic materials from Ferro Electronic Material Systems will deliver better performance in solar cell applications using silicon wafers less than 180 [micro]m thick. By comparison, current-generation "thin"...

Gap Pad 5000S35 from the Berquist Co.
November 6, 2006... Gap Pad 5000S35 from the Berquist Co. is a fiberglass-reinforced filler and polymer featuring a high thermal conductivity. The material exhibits extremely soft characteristics (S-class) while maintaining elasticity and conformability. The...

Designing with class D amplifier ICs.(integrated circuits)
November 6, 2006... The switching amplifier, or class D amplifier, has risen quickly to prominence in consumer audio applications, from MP3 devices including mobile phone handsets to game consoles, LCD TVs, and home cinema. The ace in the deck for class D is its...

Ensure a fixed bias current for gain blocks.(Brief article)
November 6, 2006... RF gain blocks (amplifiers) are popular because they offer wide bandwidth, low noise, and ease of use. They're designed to operate with a fixed value of supply current because variations in supply current cause variations in the gain,...

Auto-resetting circuit protects auxiliary outputs against shorts.
November 6, 2006... Many products require an auxiliary dc output to power external devices or subsystems. If such subsystems are to be hot-connected, the auxiliary output must be protected against short circuits. Schemes using fuses are slow and will cause the...

As audio on demand hits its stride, video on demand isn't far behind.(Editorial)
November 16, 2006... When it comes to music, I'm old school. I buy most of my tunes on CD, and I even spin vinyl sometimes. While iPods are handy, a really good system should rumble your entrails. Still, I love the infinite variety of Internet radio and...

What's all this Si[O.sub.2] stuff, anyhow?(Silicon dioxide in the planar process)
November 16, 2006... The first time I noticed this, I was camping up in the Sierras. Some people will even read the fine print on a ketchup bottle if there's nothing better to read. But we didn't have any ketchup bottles. So I was reading the information on an...

Try FPGAs for high-performance DTV.(field programmable gate arrays, digital television)(Interactive video systems)
November 16, 2006... Thanks to MPEG-2 compression, most major markets have accepted digital television (DTV). But stay tuned. H.264-AVC (MPEG-4 Part 10) and Microsoft's VCI compression standards promise even more dramatic advances for both standard and...

Order your nanotubes straight up.(Timothy Fisher and Timothy Sands has developed a method for vertically growing individual carbon nanotubes)
November 16, 2006... Like an architect who designs skyscrapers, Timothy Fisher spends a lot of time thinking about building upward. But for Fisher, an associate mechanical engineering professor at Purdue University, "building upward" requires only a tiny amount of...

Turn leftovers into electricity.(restaurants table scraps into electricity with technology from the University of California, Davis)(Brief article)
November 16, 2006... Forget about doggie bags. Several of San Francisco's finest restaurants will be turning table scraps into electricity with technology from the University of California, Davis. Using an anaerobic phased solids digester, the Biogas Energy Project...

Latest EDA tools reveal analog design's changing world.(electronic design automation)
November 16, 2006... There is indeed a shortage of analog designers. But it's less a shortage of circuit wizards like Bob Pease than a dearth of well-seasoned engineers who could create user-friendly mixed-signal designs on a piece of silicon (see "Is There A...

2.5/10-Gbit Ethernet switches slip into GPON systems.(Gigabit passive optical networks)
November 16, 2006... Gigabit passive optical networks (GPONs) are a growing niche in delivering broadband services to homes and small businesses. Yet their growth has created a need for more and better switch chips to build scalable networking equipment that can...

Security processors satisfy next-generation networking, wireless apps.(Brief article)
November 16, 2006... Networking and wireless applications, which are getting faster, need standalone security processors and new security algorithms that offer improved protection schemes and higher efficiency. Cavium Networks' Nitrox PX series of security...

Equivalence checker formally verifies bug-free RTL clock gating.(Real time clocks)
November 16, 2006... Clock-gating techniques for power management are coming into greater favor among RTL designers. Often, designers will instantiate clock gating as a means of conserving power by turning off the clocks to quiescent sections of the system. ...

RTL-to-GDSII flow encompasses embedded memory test and repair.(register transfer level, graphic data system)(Brief article)
November 16, 2006... Embedded memories are consuming a growing portion of overall die area. Thus, designers of systems-on-a-chip (SoCs) for embedded systems should consider a design flow that guides users through the process of designing testable and repairable...

Analyzer/exerciser takes PCIe 2.0 systems to the edge.
November 16, 2006... The PCI Express (PCIe) serial interface standard is replacing the older PCI and PCI-X parallel interfaces in computers and other high-speed equipment. Widely used in servers, storage systems, telecommunications equipment, and graphics in...

Speedy AWG meets digital data, RF test-signal generation challenges.(Tektronix's AWG7000 series, semiconductor test equipment)(arbitrary waveform generator)
November 16, 2006... The quest for higher speed, wider bandwidths, and higher operational frequencies never ends. Just when you think the maximum has been reached, a new component, technology, or standard comes along to break the barrier. But Tektronix's AWG7000...

Fire your security guards! Use smart real-time vision sensors instead.
November 16, 2006... Well, maybe your security guards are safe for now. But thanks to the latest innovation from CSEM Microelectronics--a real-time miniature vision sensor that adapts to varying light conditions to provide automated responses--they won't get in...

Pre-verified IP blocks make designing MIPS-based SoCs a "snap".
November 16, 2006... MIPS recently announced SoC-it, a new platform for building systems-on-a-chip (SoCs) by "snapping together" pre-verified IP (MIPS-Verified) and a MIPS core. Based on core (kernel) and peripheral IP blocks, the platform includes development and...

Design tip: use secure embedded nonvolatile memory to protect valuable firmware.(Brief article)
November 16, 2006... With advances in system-on-a-chip (SoC) technology, increasing amounts of intellectual property (IP) are residing in embedded software. Very often, software IP in the form of firmware gives chip vendors a competitive edge, resulting in a very...

UML and C no longer oil and water.(Universal Modeling Language)
November 16, 2006... Many UML 2.0 products have been able to generate code for languages like Ada, C, C++, and Java from UML (Universal Modeling Language) models. Typically, though, the C developer was expected to learn UML. Legacy code would be maintained, but the...

Low-cost development kits include C compilers.
November 16, 2006... Microchip's PICkit 2 Debug Express includes everything you need to start developing applications for the 44-pin PIC16F917 8-bit microcontroller. The kit comes with the MPLab integrated development environment (IDE) with assembler support plus a...

Tiny RTOS takes low cost per developer route.
November 16, 2006... IAR Systems is now moving into the low-end real-time operating system (RTOS) business with a product that complements its partners like Micrium and its uC/OS-II. IAR's PowerPac is designed for developers who need the basics. Its small, 2-kbyte...

Putting new technology in perspective: white power LED lights the way with a 160-lumen output; Based on SiC wafer technology with an InGaN layer, this benchmark-setting device matches the output and efficacy levels of fluorescent lamps.(Leapfrog: FIRST LOOK)
November 16, 2006... A new white-light LED sports a 160-lumen luminous flux output level at a 700-mA dc forward current and 61-lumen/W efficacy level (white color temperature of 5000 K to 10,000 K). And that's about 33% brighter than its nearest competitor, says...

Tuning in to digital TV: multiple standards and offerings make for a bumpy road ahead when it comes to across-the-board adoption.(ENGINEERING FEATURE: DIGITAL TV)(Cover story)
November 16, 2006... Let's get one thing straight: Digital TV is not synonymous with high-definition digital TV (HDTV). It's much more than that. Digital TV encompasses not only HD, but satellite TV, cable TV, Internet Protocol TV (IPTV), and mobile TV as well. So,...

March of the Multibus MCUs: optimizing microcontroller performance in today's applications means balancing throughput rather than increasing clock speed.
November 16, 2006... High-end microcontrollers often use large, complex crossbar switches and other technologies to maximize throughput and performance. Low-end microcontrollers typically feature a simple bus structure. But as performance increases, so does the...

Digital current-mode control challenges analog counterparts: switch-mode power supplies can use digital current-mode techniques for protection against peak currents, magnetic field "ratcheting," and input-voltage variations.
November 16, 2006... Digital control of switch-mode power supplies (SMPSs) is becoming practical thanks to the evolution of low-cost, high-performance devices with peripherals designed for power-conversion applications. Also, current-mode control is challenging...

Key design aspects of CMOS image sensors revealed.(complementary metal oxide semiconductors)(Brief article)
November 16, 2006... What's going on inside the latest cameras has a lot to say about the state of the art in digital imagers. This report offers tear-down analyses of CMOS image sensors (CISs) in mobile phones and professional digital single-lens reflex cameras...

Process-independent linear voltage gain.(Canon's 704F 6-Mpixel CMOS image sensor)(Brief article)
November 16, 2006... Canon's 704F 6-Mpixel CMOS image sensor illustrates an approach to process-independent linear voltage gain. The IC is built on a process with three metal layers and one poly layer. It incorporates the sensor array and the analog front end (AFE)...

Extending dynamic range by double integration.(Micron Technology Inc.'s CMOS image sensor)(Brief article)
November 16, 2006... One of the most common techniques in improving the dynamic range of a CIS is multiple sampling during integration time. In an unusual scheme, the AFE in Micron's MT9D011 CIS device takes two samples of the photo signal during the integration...

Current consumption on chopper-type comparators.(Sony's IMX011 2.1-Mpixel CMOS image sensor)(Brief article)
November 16, 2006... Chopper-type comparators have become common in the ADC AFE, especially for high-resolution CISs. One of its main drawbacks, though, is current consumption. The common solution is to reduce the width-to-length ratio of the amplifiers, but this...

Drive large 7-segment LED displays using only 1 or 2 MCU pins.(light emitting diodes, microcontroller units)
November 16, 2006... Many options exist to drive seven-segment LED displays, but most are limited to low output currents. The approach described here uses one 74ALS374 or 74AS374 octal latch, wired as a shift register, per digit. The 74ALS374/74LS374 can handle an...

LabVIEW 8.20-20th anniversary edition.
November 16, 2006... National Instrument LabVIEW 8.20 continues to make common task easier with Express technologies and wizards that automate much of your programming work. Take advantage of powerful features for developing measurement applications and open...

PICmicro[R] development system.
November 16, 2006... CliarView[TM] Marhias is a full-featured ICE with a highly productive Development and Debugging environment for the PICmicro. Mathias fully emulates the selected device including all peripherals. See why Engineers choose Techtools. ...

New! 80 channels, 1 MS/s NI M Series data acquisition.
November 16, 2006... The newest addition to the high-speed M Series data acquisition family, the NI 6255 extends the DAQ standard with 80, 16-bit analog input channels sampling at a maximum 1.25 MS/s. The NI 6255 is optimized for superior accuracy at fast sampling...

High performance sockets & adapters.
November 16, 2006... Includes GHz bandwidth sockets for BGA and QFN, only slightly larger than IC with integral heatsink for medium power and optional heatsinking to over 100 watts. Up to 500k insertions. Adapters for prototype, test, and more. Quick turn volume...

Make accurate RF power measurements in the field or the R & D lab.
November 16, 2006... Whether you're making measurements in the lab or in the field, get laboratory accuracy in a package that fits in the palm of your hand with Keithley's Model 3500 RF Power Meter. Its sensor and display are housed in the same compact enclosure,...

ISI Lead Free Interposers for DDR2 BGAs.
November 16, 2006... 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...

PXI Express: as the PXI standard extends and embraces PCI Express, test and measurement will never be the same.
November 16, 2006... PXI Express is prepared to move test and measurement into the next decade. It builds on the PXI standard, offering higher performance and backward compatibility. As PXI was based on the PCI bus, PXI Express is built on the PCI Express...