Electronic Design articles from October 2008

Electronic Design archives from October 2008

After all these years, ideas for design get the royal treatment: you'll find it all right here--commentary from legends, insights from our editors, and most importantly, great designs from you, our readers.(Editorial)
October 2, 2008... One of the most popular sections of Electronic Design in both print and on the Web over the years has been Ideas for Design (IFDs). We'd like to celebrate this department by dedicating this entire issue to IFDs, including insightful commentary...

What's all this analog engineering stuff, anyhow? Don't get dismayed by the rise of digital technologies. Analog engineers are still critical members of any design team.(PEASE PORRIDGE)
October 2, 2008... For many years, aficionados of digital circuits and computers have bragged that their rapid advances will leave all analog circuits lying in the dust. The analog business is shrinking, at least compared to the success of digital computers....

Take your next design from statecharts to code: they aren't just pretty pictures. These simple flow digarams can help you convert your ideas into programs.(STATE CHARTS)
October 2, 2008... Start [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] SOME BACKGROUND Also known as state diagrams, statecharts can be found on napkins and coding screens as designers turn ideas into application code. They're simple to use and understand, as they're just...

FPGAs add a flexible dimension to digital design: savvy engineers can use ASICs, CPLDs, and FPGAs to convert their ideas into programs.(DESIGN TOOLS)
October 2, 2008... Logic design at the gate or module level for discrete implementations has effectively gone away, with the exception of buffers and analog designs. The move to micros has turned much of today's system design into large chips and software. Custom...

Who actually designs reference designs? These GEMS sure come in handy when you're sitting at your bench and scratching your head. But who came up with them in the first place?(FROM THE EDITORS)
October 2, 2008... It's fair to say there are really two kinds of reference designs. One is developed by chip companies that want a permanent foothold in an original device manufacturer's high-volume platform in a consumer market. The other is produced by a chip...

Reference designs play a dual role: sometimes, designers take the design and modify it, and other times they use it to the letter. It all depends on market demands.(ROLE OF REFERENCE DESIGNS)
October 2, 2008... At one time, reference designs were simply helpful guides to the finer details of designing a part into a board. Those days are long gone. The complexity of today's devices, in addition to the fast pace of many markets, has forced some...

Tools make motion-control design a snap: motion control may seem like a mechanical problem, but new software moves it further into the digital realm.(DESIGN TOOLS)
October 2, 2008... One of the most challenging and wide-spanning areas of design work involves motors and motion control. Choosing the right motor and related control circuitry is one thing. Getting it all to fit into the end product and work accurately is...

For checking software without hardware, FPGAs are the answer: today's FPGAs have the muscle to take on your ASIC/SoC prototyping chores.(DESIGN TOOLS)
October 2, 2008... An age-old truism in the system design realm is that the software is always ready to be checked out before first ASIC silicon is in hand. This leaves the members of the design team with an equally age-old conundrum: How are they to verify their...

The IFD culture--an interview with hall of famer Bob Dobkin: electronic design's Analog/Power Editor Don Tuite sits down with Linear's legendary CTO to chat about his ideas for design over the years.(DESIGN GURUS)(Interview)
October 2, 2008... Linear Technology's Chief Technology Officer Robert Dobkin has been contributing Ideas for Design (IFDs) since his youth. He's still enthusiastic about them. "I remember one I wrote when I was a kid. It was a current source that you could pulse...

A look back at 40 years of ideas for design: though many facets of design execution have changed significantly over time, numerous core ideas for design remain timeless.(DESIGN GURUS)
October 2, 2008... After Electronic Design asked me to contribute something to this special issue, all kinds of possibilities ran through my mind. After all, it had been 40 years since my first ED article, which was itself an Idea for Design (IFD), "Gated...

Use IFDs to develop and showcase your design concepts: beyond getting to see your name in print, technical articles also help spread your ideas out into the industry.(DESIGN GURUS)
October 2, 2008... Electronic Design published my first Idea for Design, "AC-DC Converter Runs Off One Power Supply" (April 16, 1992, p. 93), more than 16 years ago (Fig. 1). It set a theme that I have continued to employ ever since--using the nifty venue of IFDs...

Then, now, and beyond--system design in the 21st century: back in the day, power was cheap and memory was expensive. My, how times have changed.(DESIGN GURUS)
October 2, 2008... I remember the day it arrived. All of our design engineers gathered around the lab bench waiting for our technician to unpack the box. As it was slowly lifted from the protective cardboard packing and set on the bench, we all looked on in...

Bidirectional H-bridge dc-motor motion controller.(CLASSIC IFDS)
October 2, 2008... IN APPLICATIONS REQUIRING ABSOLUTE accuracy in the speed control of dc servo motors, there's no substitute for the traditional tachometer-based feedback loop. But for somewhat less demanding situations, adequate accuracy often can be achieved...

Easily convert decimal numbers to their binary and BCD formats.(CLASSIC IFDS)
October 2, 2008... HERE'S A C/C++ PROGRAM that converts decimal numbers ranging from 0 to 99,999 to binary and binary coded decimal (BCD) formats. Using a simple algorithm in conjunction with pointer arithmetic and bitwise shifting increases the conversion speed...

Single op-amp peak detector features signal accumulation.(CLASSIC IFDS)
October 2, 2008... FIGURE 1 DEMONSTRATES A one-way switched-capacitor gain stage circuit, performing a voltage gain of [A.sub.O] = C1/C2 only during the decreasing trail of the input signal [V.sub.I] (with [V.sub.J] = 0). During the positive signal variations,...

Use Excel to develop a Traceability Matrix.(CLASSIC IFDS)
October 2, 2008... IN LARGE PROJECTS, A single contractual document often known as the Contract End Item (CEI) governs the final product design. Each requirement of the contract is individually numbered to allow for performance verification of the end item....

Filter trims ultra-precision voltage reference 1/F noise: use this bootstrapped filter design when trying to minimize the pink noise coming from your voltage reference.(DESIGN SOLUTION)
October 2, 2008... VOLTAGE REFERENCES GENERATE WIDEBAND noise spectrums. For most semiconductor devices, this spectrum usually has a wideband "white noise" component with relatively constant power density versus frequency, and a "pink noise" or "1/f noise"...

Triple-output LED driver works with common-anode LED strings.(IDEAS FOR DESIGN)
October 2, 2008... SOME MULTI-STRING LED MODULES come with a common-anode configuration. The common-anode connection reduces the number of wires between the LED module and its driver from 2N to N+1, where N is the number of LED strings in the module. In this...

"Ultimate" continuity tester hides many tricks up its sleeve.(IDEAS FOR DESIGN)
October 2, 2008... I WAS REMINDED RECENTLY of a tester I designed years ago. At the time, I wanted to build "The Ultimate Continuity Tester," and I established a wish list of all the features I required: * A "real continuity" tester. Too many multi-meters and...

Inexpensive high-speed amplifiers can create flexible clock buffers.(IDEAS FOR DESIGN)
October 2, 2008... IN CONSUMER ELECTRONICS APPLICATIONS, which tend to be lower in frequency and less demanding than typical clock-buffering applications, inexpensive high-speed op amps (~100-MHz bandwidth) can offer an attractive option in place of traditional...

Add coordinated overcurrent, overvoltage protection to POE equipment.(IDEAS FOR DESIGN)
October 2, 2008... POWER OVER ETHERNET (POE) enabled devices and their electronic components are designed for operation within specified current and voltage ratings. If these ratings are exceeded due to short-circuit or voltage transients, components may sustain...

Perform coarse and fine correction with less costly dual DCPs.(IDEAS FOR DESIGN)(digitally controlled potentiometers)
October 2, 2008... DIGITALLY CONTROLLED POTENTIOMETERS (DCPs) find uses in a wide variety of systems for setting bias currents, variable reference voltages, and calibration settings. In industrial control and automation applications, high accuracy is a must. DCPs...

"Take-back-half" convergence algorithm stabilizes microhydro turbine controller.(IDEAS FOR DESIGN)
October 2, 2008... THE SOARING COSTS OF fossil fuels, combined with environmental concerns like climate change, are driving the increased interest in renewable ("green") energy. No energy source is "greener" than hydroelectric power, particularly small...

One powerful day.(what's happening @ electronicdesign.com)
October 9, 2008... The Electronic Design Group will bring the latest in power design directly to you on Wednesday, Oct. 15 with One Powerful Day, a free online conference full of top speakers via Web conferencing. Pick and choose the sessions that benefit you the...

Industry view.(what's happening @ electronicdesign.com)
October 9, 2008... ED Online 19794: Establishing A New Frontier In Embedded Multicore Programming David Stewart, CriticalBlue Over the last few years, the electronics industry has seen a varied range of exotic new multicore processor architectures-54 at...

Techview.(what's happening @ electronicdesign.com)(Brief article)
October 9, 2008... ED Online 19805: Low-Cost Oscilloscope Offers High-Priced Features Louis E. Frenzel, Communications/Test Editor The WaveAce oscilloscopes from LeCroy make the competition in the low-cost scope market look so "yesteryear." These devices...

New products showcase.(what's happening @ electronicdesign.com)
October 9, 2008... The "Unclonable" Chip Vivek Khandelwal, director of marketing at Verayo, discusses the "unclonable" Vera X512H RFID chip with Group Editorial Director Mark David. Based on physical unclonable functions, the device offers a type of...

Designed in.(what's happening @ electronicdesign.com)(Brief article)
October 9, 2008... ED Online 19694: Luminary MCUs Run RFID Reader Secura Key has chosen Luminary Micro's Stellaris Microcontrollers for its new mid-range RFID reader, the e-Tag. The company also will use the Stellaris MCUs in a new line of access-control...

THX display certifications.(WWW.ENGINEERINGTV.COM)
October 9, 2008... Mark Tuffy, director of interactive media at THX, discusses the company's HD display certification, which sets a single, technology-agnostic benchmark for display performance. The program has two goals: first, to drive quality in manufacturing,...

GaN-based power device signals next-gen power conversion.(editorial)
October 9, 2008... International Rectifier Corp. has successfully developed a GaN-based (gallium-nitride) power-device technology platform. It's expected to provide improvements in two key application-specific figures of merit, on resistance and gate charge, of...

Will getting closer to flash be cheaper? Faster? Better?(the lab bench)
October 9, 2008... Solid-state disk drives are all the rage, with two flavors for embedded solutions: hard-disk form-factor devices and USB devices. There's also a complement of flash cards, from Compact Flash to Sony's Memory Stick, but they tend to be single...

FPGAs get behind the wheel of in-cabin automotive systems.(point of view)
October 9, 2008... Programmable logic devices (PLDs) are gaining favor in the automotive in-cabin systems market due to their inherent flexibility and ability to be modified at the point of manufacturing--and ultimately at the point of sale. Targeting automotive...

Ultrasound AFEs: get more specialized, easier to design with.(techview)
October 9, 2008... An emerging business philosophy in semiconductor design says that the way to prosper in the new global marketplace is to use your engineering skills to design your customers' products for them--or at least the "hard parts." One corollary...

Online poll.(techview)
October 9, 2008... GM unveiled the production-ready version of its electric Volt sedan. How will it do in the marketplace? It will do very well. The public is now demanding better mileage. 51% It will do okay but struggle against other hybrids and...

Data-logger trio handles heat, pressure, and budgets.(techview)
October 9, 2008... Targeting temperature and pressure data-logging applications across a wide range of industries, Omega Engineering offers a number of cost-effective solutions. Whether in the field or in house, these instruments pair comprehensive feature sets...

Synopsys takes the analog/mixed-signal plunge.(techview)
October 9, 2008... Recognizing an opportunity to capture the hearts and minds of the expanding analog/mixed-signal (A/M-S) design community, Synopsys has launched the Galaxy Custom Designer, which takes the Galaxy design platform into the realm of full-custom...

Millimeter-wave MMIC power amp operates from 18 to 33 GHz.(techview)
October 9, 2008... Getting high output power and excellent linearity in a millimeter-wave amplifier is no easy trick. But Avago has done it with its AMMC/P-6333 (see the figure). This high-performance driver amplifier offers high gain and power with excellent...

Sensor offers Web-based monitoring.(techview)
October 9, 2008... Remote monitoring of temperature and other physical environmental characteristics just got easier with Newport Electronics' wiSeries wireless sensors. This radio complies with IEEE's 802.15.4 standard and transmits on one of 16 channels in the...

SEMIICs drive auto safety and control innovation: to meet safety and energy mandates, as well as add value to their cars, automakers rely on a vast array of semiconductor chips to create safer, more intelligent, and more efficient automobiles.(feature)(Cover story)
October 9, 2008... In the never-ending battle to add more end-user value, the focus among automotive component and car manufacturers has turned to improving safety and control for vehicles. Driver assistance, collision prediction and avoidance, lane-departure...

Strong forecasts bolster automotive safety and control IC market.(feature)
October 9, 2008... The market outlook for automotive safety and control ICs is rosy, according to several market research firms--particularly for sensors and microcontroller units (MCUs). For example, Frost & Sullivan says global revenues for meeting mandated...

IPTV makes channel surfing more like web surfing: Internet Protocol TV looks to put a sizable dent into cable TV's domination over the television-delivery marketplace.(technology report)
October 9, 2008... How do you watch television? Nearly 70% of us get our TV via one of the major cable providers. Satellite has carved out a good niche and grabs more than 20% of that market. If it's strictly over the air, then hold your hand up as one of the 15%...

OLEDs put on quite a display: though the technology is in its infancy, OLEDs are quickly making their way into displays of all sizes in portable products, TVs large and small, and energy-efficient white-light sources.(engineering essentials)
October 9, 2008... Of all the leading display technologies, none has generated more excitement as the display technology of the future than organic light-emitting diodes (OLEDs). OLEDs possess all of the positive attributes of any current display technology with...

Believe it or not, OLEDs extend back to the early 1950s.(OLED Origins)
October 9, 2008... Researchers at the Universite de Nancy in France produced electroluminescence in organic materials by applying a high-voltage ac potential to crystalline thin films of acridine orange and quinacrine. Dow Chemical Co. followed in the 1960s by...

3D imaging: you've just got to see it.(embedded in ed)
October 9, 2008... We're used to seeing in 3D. Computer imaging has taken a while to catch up. Several developments are coming together, from multicore processors to high-resolution cameras to fast refresh displays, to make 3D imaging happen. ...

Kit combines RTOS and IDE.(NEWS)
October 9, 2008... Looking to deliver the best of breed, IAR Systems, Micrium, and NXP Semicondcutors have put together their respective integrated development environment (IDE), real-time operating system (RTOS), and microcontroller in a single package. NXP's...

Implement your DLP ideas.(NEWS)
October 9, 2008... Texas Instruments' Discovery 4000 Starter Kit lets developers create applications based on TI's digital light processing (DLP) system. Kits start at $4999 for a 1024-by-768, 0.55-in. digital micromirror device (DMD). The kit includes a board...

DIMMs do more DRAM.(embedded in ed)
October 9, 2008... DRAM chip density continues to climb. But the hunger for more memory seems insatiable, especially with virtual systems running on multicore processors. One way to get more memory in a system is to support more memory sockets, though this...

DSC lets coprocessor handle real-time analog.(embedded in ed)
October 9, 2008... Texas Instruments' C2000 digital signal controller (DSC) gets a major boost with the Control Law Accelerator (CLA). This 32-bit floating-point controller speeds up the processing, often by a factor of five, of analog chores such as motor...

MCU packs in massive nvSRAM.(NEWS)(nonvolatile SRAM )
October 9, 2008... Recording data on flash has limitations, so Cypress Semiconductor turned to nonvolatile SRAM (nvSRAM) with its latest PSoC family of 8-bit configurable microcontrollers. The PSoC NV can offer up to 256 kbytes of nvSRAM plus 2 kybtes of...

MCU goes green trying to do nothing.(NEWS)
October 9, 2008... The trick to conserving power is to do nothing--or next to nothing. Most low-power microcontrollers utilize this approach in some fashion. Freescale's MPC8563E incorporates a number of features to optimize power consumption in a network...

Use ZigBee for cost-effective WPAN sensing and control solutions: a proactive, logical, and well-organized design evaluation with a solid reference design helps simplify WPAN design and development.(design solution)
October 9, 2008... Wireless personal-area networks (WPANs) are exceptionally useful for sensing, monitoring, and control applications. Cost-effective WPANs have the unique potential to implement wireless connectivity in many end products where this functionality...

Simple threshold switch for an LED indicator.(ideas for design)
October 9, 2008... I needed a simple LED indicator showing that a particular voltage level had been reached--specifically, that a capacitor had charged to a particular potential. I was convinced that there must be a way that a programmable zener diode, such as...

Six mosfets, four pins create two-input combo NAND/NOR gate.(ideas for design)
October 9, 2008... This CMOS two-input combination NAND/NOR gate is a three-input, four-pin logic gate. A p-channel enhancement-type MOSFET (Q1) and an n-channel enhancement-type MOSFET (Q4) form one complementary connection. Q2 and Q6 form a second complementary...

What's all this space heater stuff, anyhow?(pease porridge)
October 9, 2008... I keep hearing people say that the cost of energy is forcing them to choose between paying for gas to get to work, or buying food, or heating the house, or paying the mortgage... So they scrimp as much as they can and then lose their house to...

Editor's view.(Editorial)
October 23, 2008... ED Online 19714: Visions Of The Future (Part 2): Look East, Electronics Industry, Look East [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] David Maliniak, EDA Editor Just when you think the party's over for the electronics industry, along comes another...

Mark David's roadmap.
October 23, 2008... ED Online 19842: Riding Shotgun In Tesla's Roadster [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] Mark David, Group Editorial Director Getting to take a test ride in a Tesla Roadster is a thrill enough. But getting Contributing Editor Bob Pease out for a...

Lab bench online.(ultra-mobile PCs )(Brief article)
October 23, 2008... ED Online 19795: A Trip With A Co-Pilot [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] Bill Wong, Embedded/Systems/Software Editor Finding decent software for ultra-mobile PCs (UMPCs) or mobile Internet devices (MIDs) is a challenge, even though these...

New products showcase.
October 23, 2008... Corey Chao, low-power processors marketing manager at Texas Instruments, discusses the new C6745 and C6747 DSPs and the OMAP-L137 applications processor with Editor in Chief Joe Desposito. Also, EDA Editor David Maliniak speaks with Chris...

Designed in.
October 23, 2008... ED Online 19864: Samsung Adds InstaPort Technology To DTVs [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] The next generation of digital televisions (DTVs) from Samsung will include the InstaPort port-switching technology from Silicon Image Inc. InstaPort,...

LG90 HGTV 1,000,000:1 contrast ratio.(ENGINEERING TV)(Brief article)
October 23, 2008... The LG90 from LG provides for the ultra-high 1,000,000:1 high contrast and LEDs that provide whiter whites and richer blacks with the added benefit of increased energy efficiency. LED backlighting also results in more natural color...

In troubled economic times, our Salary Survey provides reassurance.(editorial)
October 23, 2008... I just finished listening to a webinar by Shawn DuBravac, economist and certified financial analyst (CFA) with the Consumer Electronics Association (CEA), entitled "Economy in Crisis: How We Got Here, Where Do We Go and What Does It Mean for...

Open-source software is stealing your business.(the lab bench)
October 23, 2008... Hey. It got your attention. Actually, I think the opposite is occurring. Open-source software has changed the landscape for embedded software development. Major projects such as Linux, Apache, Firefox, and Eclipse are now utilized in a range of...

The dangers of counterfeit battery packs: answers to reader questions.(power design)(Interview)
October 23, 2008... The continuing growth of portable handheld devices has spawned a healthy selection of aftermarket battery pack suppliers. Yet aftermarket vendors may resort to activities that compromise the end-user experience or safety to make the battery...

Improved nano materials extend Li-Ion battery life five-fold.(techview)
October 23, 2008... Imagine using your laptop, non-stop, flying from New York to Los Angeles and back on a single battery charge. Or, picture using your digital camera or mobile phone for days on end without recharging. QuantumSphere has just filed a patent for a...

Online poll.(techview)
October 23, 2008... Considering the challenges facing the nation, which presidential candidate has a better technological platform? Barack Obama 42% John McCain 33% Neither 22% Undecided 4% [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED]

10-Gbit/s DPI breaks 1-W per Gbit/s barrier.(techview)
October 23, 2008... With the ever-increasing flow of data across the Internet and through our wireless carriers, there's a growing need to be more aware of what type of data is being sent so it can be expedited, eliminated, or otherwise addressed. This requires...

Unique synthesized clock IC produces less than 100-fs jitter.(techview)
October 23, 2008... Jitter is the bane of all designers of buses and communications products where speeds exceed the 1-Gbit/s rate. Multigig's latest clock ICs can give you more jitter headroom in your design (see the figure). Designated the QuietClock family,...

Network processor delivers 1 Gbit/s at very low power.(techview)
October 23, 2008... The 1-Gbit/s ML7240 network processor from OKI Electric Industry Co. targets network equipment like home and small office/home office (SOHO) routers and Voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP) gateway equipment. Its main claim to fame is its very...

Compact COM Express packs Core 2 punch.(techview)
October 23, 2008... Kontron's ETXexpress-PC comes in a compact COM Express format. It houses a 2.26-GHz, 45-nm Intel Core 2 processor in a fanless design and supports up to 8 Gbytes of DDR3 SDRAM (see the figure). The low-voltage 1.86-GHz version uses less than 10...

What's in your paycheck? Raises continue to outpace inflation, bringing average pay to $106,271. Yet engineers aren't happy with their compensation packages, according to the 2008 Electronic Design salary survey.(feature)
October 23, 2008... In this issue, the editors of Electronic Design once again present the results of our annual salary and opinion survey. Nearly 3000 of you answered our wide-ranging questions and shared your insights. Based on that research, this report...

Multicore matters with mechatronic models: complex mechatronic simulation is key to application development, because a device in hand isn't always an option.(technology report)
October 23, 2008... Whether it's single microcontrollers handling motor control or an automobile assembly line containing multiple robots, you can be sure mechatronics is in the mix. Simulating such complex systems allows developers to build without having the...

Robots at play.(technology report)
October 23, 2008... Robotics is one area where mechatronics is required and simulation is the norm. Often, multiple robots will take part in an event like RoboCup, where you might see Aldebaran Robotics' Nao, a small humanoid robot. [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] ...

Why is mechatronics hard?(technology report)
October 23, 2008... Mechanical + electronics = mechatronics. Simple. Yes? Actually, mechatronics covers a lot of ground and means different things to different designers, ranging from basic motor control of a single device (Fig. 1) to all the control systems...

Cooling techniques attack MPU processing heat: higher on-chip power dissipation and power density accompany increasing micropower performance, which takes a toll on system reliability. In response, designers must ensure adequate cooling.(engineering essentials)
October 23, 2008... The continuing evolution toward higher-performance microprocessor units (MPUs) has revolutionized the design of computers large and small. This evolution has generally followed Moore's law--the semiconductor industry doubles transistor density...

Build a touch-sensor solution for wet environments: a water-tolerant design offers a higher level of safety in white-goods applications, and it's cost-effective to boot.(design solution)
October 23, 2008... Capacitive touch sensors have made homes in scores of MP3 players and mobile phones. Of course, the mobile arena is no longer the only bastion for these devices. Today, sensor technology has literally exploded, expanding into many other product...

"Greener" rectifier loses the diodes, adds power MOSFETs, efficiency.(ideas for design)
October 23, 2008... A major cause of losses in a conventional power supply using a 50/60-Hz transformer is the bridge rectifier. This article shows how to build a "greener" rectifier, substantially reducing losses by eliminating the diodes in the bridge rectifier...

In-circuit programming switch simplifies operation of programmable devices.(ideas for design)
October 23, 2008... Many devices require programming through a serial bus, such as [I.sup.2]C. The programming can be done during final test, after the circuit board has been assembled. In many cases, the pins used for programming can then be utilized for...

Fasteners take 30[degrees] turn to secure cabinets and contents.(in electronic design)
October 23, 2008... It's generally seen as the least glamorous part of the design cycle. Developers of heavy-duty data-center, industrial, commercial, and other critical equipment that resides in large cabinets and enclosures face the challenge of ensuring that...

Unique cabinet solutions fortify small to medium-size data centers.(in electronic design)
October 23, 2008... The control of data communications for smaller entities and businesses continues to shift further away from external management to internal efforts. From hospitals and medical centers to schools and universities, from hotels and restaurants to...

Interface converts load cell outputs to USB.(POWER SOURCES)
October 23, 2008... Working seamlessly with conventional resistive load cells, the DI-1000 digital load cell interface converts the millivolt output from a load cell into a PC-friendly digital USB output. Users can plug their load cell into one end of the...

ATX PC power supply delivers 500 W.(POWER SOURCES)(Tumbler Technologies + Trumpower's TMPC-500)(Brief article)
October 23, 2008... The TMPC-500 emerges as the first medically approved 500-W ATX PC power supply available. It provides a 90- to 265-V ac universal input and active power factor correction (PFC) for worldwide use without changing input settings. Specifications...

40/60-W PCB supplies meet Class B EMI.(POWER SOURCES)
October 23, 2008... Additions to the ZPSA series PCB-mountable (printed-circuit board) ac-dc power supplies include the single-output 40-W ZPSA40 and 60-W ZPSA60 in an industry-standard footprint measuring 2 by 4 by 1.07 in. Both components meet the conducted and...

60-W ac-dc supplies meet military specs for EMI.(POWER SOURCES)
October 23, 2008... Providing electromagnetic interference (EMI) performance to MIL-STD 461E/F standards, the MCM series convection-cooled ac-dc power supplies are sealed against dust and water, and their metal cases provide fixing holes for mounting on an...

Toggle switches prevent accidental actuation.(SWITCHES)
October 23, 2008... To ensure against unintentional activation, the S series toggle switches employ a locking lever. The medium-capacity toggle switches are available in single- and double-pole models, both with two or three maintained positions. They are also...