Electronic Design articles from September 2007

Electronic Design archives from September 2007

Going on vacation? Don't forget your battery charger.(Editorial)
September 1, 2007... I just returned from a two-week family vacation driving through Italy and Greece, exploring the roots of Western civilization. While I was on the road, I realized how power-addicted we Westerners have become, as each night's rest stop included...

Bob's mailbox.(PeasePorridge)
September 1, 2007... Bob: Several years ago, an acquaintance bought a very expensive "high-end" audio system. The speakers were huge. The amplifiers were 350-W "mono blocks" using eight 6550s in a push-pull parallel configuration. The wires were about $100 per...

Industry giants want to weaken our patent system.(PointOfView)
September 1, 2007... If you're a seasoned or aspiring inventor, you should be concerned about the current attack that large patent-intensive corporations are making on our venerable patent system, which has effectively protected the intellectual property of...

Nanowires get bent out of shape for new technology.(TechView)
September 1, 2007... While most electronics research has its twists and turns, a project currently under way at the Georgia Institute of Technology offers more than its share of new angles. That's because the research is entirely focused on bending things. ...

On the other hand, it's myoelectric.(Digital)(Freescale Semiconductor's Black Widow $10,000 Design Challenge)
September 1, 2007... Healthcare solutions need affordable as well as effective. That's what a team of engineering students from ITESO graduate school at the Universidad Jesuita de Guadalajara in Guadalajara, Mexico, decided when they entered their latest project in...

Tri-axis inertial-measurement units combine performance and low cost.(Analog & Power)
September 1, 2007... Previously, selecting high-precision rate and acceleration sensors with six degrees of freedom involved painful cost/performance tradeoffs and elaborate implementation and calibration processes. Now, Analog Devices' ADIS16355 inertial...

WiMAX chip sets address exploding broadband wireless market.(Wireless)
September 1, 2007... WiMAX no longer means endless hype or a wireless broadband dream. Services are rolling out from companies like Clearwire and Sprint Nextel. [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] This means a growing number of WiMAX subscribers and the rising demand...

Graph-based test-synthesis tool creates verification plans.(EDA)(Brief article)
September 1, 2007... The complexity of today's system-on-a-chip designs creates serious verification challenges in various respects. It's increasingly difficult to write an effective and comprehensive verification plan. Developing a set of test vectors is itself an...

ARM7 makes a move to multicore: with its multicore/multiprocessor support, ARM7 can now handle cache coherency.(LeapFrog)
September 1, 2007... ARM's new symmetric multiprocessing (SMP) multicore architecture has found a home in the popular ARM7 architecture. SMP is similar to the architecture found with ARM's higher-end cores. [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] However, the new...

Simulate multicore systems before silicon: Virtutech's Simics will bring Freescale's new architecture to life before the hardware is in your hands.(LeapFrog)
September 1, 2007... It's still a bit early to start expounding on Freescale's new multicore Power architecture-based communications platform (see the figure). But with the help of Virtutech's Simics development platform, Freescale developers can access functional...

Auto infotainment: get the show on the road: no longer just a niche market, the surging consumer appetite for more electronics gadgetry and services in the car has automakers and their IC suppliers scrambling to keep pace.(EngineeringFeature)
September 1, 2007... These days, drivers and passengers want--and tend to expect--all of the technological comforts of home out on the road. But consumer demand for traditional in-vehicle infotainment systems like CD players is giving way to products that support...

It's Z-One vs. PMBus in digital power management: a court decision could determine the future of the competing architectures as well as that of digital power-supply management.(TechnologyReport)
September 1, 2007... Sure, designers of embedded computer systems know digital techniques. But they may not be intimately familiar with the digital management of the power supplies used by their systems. Two methods reign when it comes to implementing digital power...

Avoid the bird flu with proper FPGA migration: prepare in advance for FPGA-to-ASIC migration, or you may wind up flying in the wrong direction.(EngineeringESSENTIALS)
September 1, 2007... Once upon a time, designers could throw FPGA migration over the fence and wash their hands of it. Sure, they may have worked out a few details like optimal pinout along the way. But chances are they didn't lose any sleep over the process....

The true cost of free FPGA IP.(EngineeringESSENTIALS)(Field-programmable gate array)
September 1, 2007... There's no question that FPGAs make the ideal platform for prototyping most digital systems. In some cases, FPGAs are available at a price point that makes sense in production volumes. On top of that, FPGA vendors have made significant strides...

The benefits--and hazards--of scan compression.(DesignView)
September 1, 2007... IC designers now have a powerful weapon in the struggle against test costs: commercially available solutions that provide fast and means to implement scan compression on-chip. By reducing the data needed thoroughly test digital circuits,...

Text execution cost and test time reduction.(Highlights)
September 1, 2007... Assume that a design with F scan flops has C scan chains of equal depth, each connected to a pair of dedicated scan I/O pins. Then without scan compression, the chain depth is F/C and we can approximate the cost [C.sub.T] of testing each...

Growth in die size.(Highlights)
September 1, 2007... As the compression ratio increases, more patterns are needed to maintain the same high fault coverage. Pattern inflation from compression is always present to some degree, although the use of multiple clock domains in today's systems-on-a-chip...

Current transducer runs on single 5-V supply.(ComponentView)(Brief article)
September 1, 2007... The HMS current transducer from LEM S.A. integrates a primary conductor into a surface-mount package measuring only 0.630 by 0.531 by 0.472 in. The device operates from a single 5-V supply. Four standard versions cover nominal ac, dc, pulsed,...

Sensors.
September 1, 2007... Kavlico's P4100 board-mount pressure sensor features a quick-disconnect fitting that eliminates the cost of redundant air hose adapters, fittings, and reducers. Designers can specify a variety of port sizes, including 5/32, 3/16, and 1/4 in.,...

Control multiple stepper motors through a PC's USB port.(INNOVATIVE DESIGNS FROM READERS)
September 1, 2007... The USB's many advantages have led designers to come up with a wide range of applications for the bus. For example, the figure shows a USB-based controller for four stepper motors built using inexpensive off-the-shelf components. The circuit...

Analog switch connects one [I.sup.2]C bus master to multiple SFP modules.(IdeasForDesign)(Brief article)
September 1, 2007... Telecom and data-communications equipment commonly use small-formfactor pluggable (SFP) modules for the physical-layer interface. Also common in these systems is an [I.SUP.2]C bus for the management data input/output (MDIO) interface. But when...

Engineering the wireless future from RFID to 4G.
September 13, 2007... Welcome to Electronic Design's third annual Wireless Everywhere issue. This edition comes at a time when 3G cellular is in full swing and other technologies such as Ultra-Wideband (UWB) and near-field communications (NFC) are beginning to...

What's all this gGod sStuff, anyhow?
September 13, 2007... There's an old story about an American visiting Ireland. As he was imbibing a beer at a tavern, one of the locals asked him, "Now, are ye a Catholic or a Protestant?" The American replied astutely, "Neither. I'm an atheist." Then the canny...

Reviving Tesla's wireless power initiatives.(INDUSTRY)(Nikola Tesla)
September 13, 2007... While scientists at the turn of the 20th century were experimenting with the wireless transmission of information, like radio, Croatian-born inventor Nikola Tesla had a grander vision (Fig. 1). He imagined the wireless transmission of power--to...

Chip set simplifies low-frequency design.(ANALOG & POWER)
September 13, 2007... The collapse of the I-35 bridge in Minneapolis on August 1 was a catastrophe. But it should provoke a greater effort to monitor the movement and stresses of buildings, bridges, and rail tracks using strain gauges, piezo sensors, and other...

8-bit,2.2-Gsample/s ADC offers 6.9 ENOB at 1600 MHz.(ANALOG & POWER)(effective number of bits)
September 13, 2007... Sometimes it can lighten your day to find a chip that seems to be intended to be its own worst enemy, even if it really isn't. The data sheet for Maxim Integrated Products' MAX109 8-bit, 2.2-Gsample/s analog-to-digital converter (ADC) lists...

Apollo would approve of this aelf-powered wireless sensor.(DIGITAL)(EnOcean Inc.)
September 13, 2007... The Sun God has been frowning on humanity for quite some time now as we continue to make little use of his gift that keeps giv-ing--solar energy. But EnOcean Inc. gives him a reason to smile with its EVA120C wireless sensor kit, which relies on...

Charge your gadgets without plugging them in.(DIGITAL)(Fulton Innovation Inc.)
September 13, 2007... We've all been there, forgetting to plug the cell phone, MP3 player, or other portable electronics into the recharger at night, leaving it a useless lump the next day. Part of the problem is the system itself, depending on a direct, wired link...

NAND flash memory.(design FAQs)
September 13, 2007... FREQUENTLY ASKED QUESTIONS What is NAND flash memory? NAND flash is a type of nonvolatile memory that is accessed like a mass storage device (e.g., a hard drive). A form of electronically erasable programmable readonly memory (EEPROM),...

Remote controls go from IR to RF.(WIRELESS)(infrared)(radiofrequency)
September 13, 2007... An essential piece of our everyday technology is about to change. At its Technology Forum in June, Freescale Semiconductor announced its EC-net entertainment control platform, which will dispose of the typical infrared (IR) remote control that...

60-GHz CMOS transmitter stimulates millimeter-wave developments.(WIRELESS)(complementary metal oxide semiconductor)
September 13, 2007... How would you develop a wireless product for the 60-GHz band--yes, 60 GHz? That's millimeter-wave territory. Services exist up there now, but building 60-GHz mm-wave gear isn't an everyday design challenge. Yet as we run out of spectrum space...

VCXOs transmit more data.(WIRELESS)(voltage-controlled crystal oscillators)(Brief article)
September 13, 2007... Noise-reducing DSM technology and a proprietary low-noise architecture give the XpressO voltage-controlled crystal oscillators (VCXOs) from Fox Electronics low levels of jitter and high performance that allow more information to be transmitted...

WiMAX products and services roll out.(design FAQs)
September 13, 2007... FREQUENTLY ASKED QUESTIONS What is WiMAX? WiMAX means Worldwide Interoperability for Microwave Access. Also known as 802.16, it is an IEEE broadband wireless standard designed for high-speed wireless broadband access as an alternative...

RF development tool fits on a USB stick.(LEAPFROG)
September 13, 2007... The eZ430 USB-based development series gains a tiny RF-based module. If you don't need the complexity that ZigBee or Bluetooth offers, but wireless capability is still a design requirement, then check out Texas Instruments' eZ430-RF2500...

Tires put pressure on RF: Freescale's wireless MPXY8300 sits on your car's air valves and sends data to the soon-to-be-required tire pressure monitoring system.(LEAPFROG)
September 13, 2007... Tire pressure monitoring systems (TPMS) soon will be required on most vehicles. Designed to meet J these upcoming standards, Freescale Semiconductor's MPXY8300 can fit in each tire (Fig 1). Typically, the chip and its battery would be mour ed...

UWB seizes the USB terrain ... and that's just the start: Ultra-Wideband is changing the way we connect peripherals and home-entertainment equipment.(ENGINEERING FEATURE)
September 13, 2007... I would be worried if I were a USB cable manufacturer. The beginning of the end is here--maybe not a complete end, but one that would make me rethink my product strategy. Ultra-Wideband (UWB) short-range wireless technology is now widely...

3G takes charge but 4G looms large: 3G finally percolates the cell-phone arena with UMTS, cdma2000, and TD-SCDMA, but companies gear up for 4G products.(TECHNOLOGY REPORT)
September 13, 2007... Sure, almost everyone is inextricably tied to a cell phone these days. But how much do we know about these phones? What technology drives them? And what can we expect in the future? Once you get past the alphabet soup of acronyms, the landscape...

Perspective from the past.(TECHNOLOGY REPORT)
September 13, 2007... The first generation (1G) of cell phones appeared in the mid-1980s. Known as the Advanced Mobile Phone System (AMPS) in the U.S., these phones used FM in 30-kHz bands and a frequency-division-duplexing scheme in the 800- to 900-MHz range. The...

Surging markets drive new wireless technologies.(TECHNOLOGY REPORT)
September 13, 2007... The exponential growth of wireless devices and services shows no signs of abating. In particular, demand for data-intensive services will continue their dramatic rise as carriers invest in enabling networks to handle more data. As a result,...

Do-it-yourself wireless design: untether monitoring and control in the design of short-range wireless links. It just may lead to some unexpected applications.(ENGINEERING ESSENTIALS)
September 13, 2007... Not a wireless engineer? Got a C in your college class on Maxwell's equations? And you want to add wireless functionality to your next project? Don't worry about it-it's easier than you think. [GRAPH OMITTED] Wireless can be a great...

Wireless wide open?(EMBEDDED)
September 13, 2007... It was bound to happen. Hacking into Apple's iPhone via its Web browser shouldn't surprise developers (see "Security Firm: iPhone Can Be Hacked" at www.elec-tronicdesign.com, ED Online 16177). The iPhone is based on Apple's OS X operating...

Wireless news.(EMBEDDED)
September 13, 2007... Phones Go Open Source Cell phones have been closed devices since their inception, but things are changing as standard platforms emerge. Open-Moko's Neo 1973 is a stylish device with a 266-MHz ARM-based Samsung S3C2410 sys-tem-on-a-chip...

Software-defined radio platform gets tiny.(EMBEDDED)
September 13, 2007... Gumstix and PrismTech are partnering to bring software-defined radio (SDR) to the tiny (80 by 20 mm) Gumstix platform. The PrismTech Spectra OE SCA-compli-ant software runs on the XScale microcontroller on top of Linux. The software includes an...

ZigBee Kits everywhere.(EMBEDDED)
September 13, 2007... ZigBee and 802.15.4 are hot these days, even though the bandwidth tops out at 250 kbits/s. Chips are available from a variety of sources. Yet many developers will use modules to simplify designs and eliminate the Federal Communications...

3U CompactPCI SBC handles harsh environments.(Embedded News)
September 13, 2007... Concurrent Technologies' rugged, low-power, 3U CompactPCI TP 302/320 single-board computer (SBC) supports the 1.4-GHz Intel Pentium M processor LV 738. It uses the Intel 855GME GMCH chip set and supports up to 1 Gbyte of soldered 333-MHz DDR...

ARM6 goes hyper.(Embedded News)(Trango Virtual Processors)(Brief article)
September 13, 2007... Trango Virtual Processors is delivering its virtual-machine manager (VMM) hypervisor for the ARM6 platform. The VMM supports up to 256 virtual machines (VMs) on ARM1136J(F)-STM, ARM1156T2(F)- STM, and ARM1176JZ(F)-STM CPU cores. The VMs include...

Real-Time Java gets data distribution services.(Embedded News)
September 13, 2007... Real-Time Innovations' Real-Time Specification for Java Extensions Kit for RTI Data Distribution Service and Sun Java Real Time System brings the Object Management Group's Data Distribution Service to Java developers. It allows distributed and...

Threads make the move to open source.(Embedded News)(intel's new Thread Building Blocks 2.0)(Brief article)
September 13, 2007... The release of Intel's Thread Building Blocks 2.0 (TBB) coincides with the company's announcement to take it open source. Both are significant announcements. TBB is designed to make efficient use of multiple processing cores in a...

Module puts its finger on the pulse of security.(Embedded News)
September 13, 2007... Biometrics continue to be an important security solution, with fingerprint recognition among the most common implementations (see "Biometrics Wields A Double-Edged Sword" at www.electronicdesign. com, ED Online 10605). Atmel and ODI Security...

Simplify video se-interlacing and reformatting.(DESIGN SOLUTION)
September 13, 2007... Most common video signals require preprocessing before encoding by video-compression codecs, which requires data to be in 420 planar format to achieve higher processing performance. For example, broadcast standards such as NTSC and PAL may need...

Full-wave signal rectifier uses just one transistor.(CLASSIC IDEAS FOR DESIGN)
September 13, 2007... My favorite Ideas for Design are the timeless ideas that start with some well- known idiosyncrasy of a common component and develop it into a clever use in an application. The trick in this IFD is that the transistor is biased so that at the...

Adjust 555-based generator's duty cycle without affecting frequency.(IDEAS FOR DESIGN)
September 13, 2007... A free-running generator built on the standard configuration of the 555 timer can't provide a duty cycle of exactly 50%. That's a well-known fact. Fortunately, there are several ways to get around this problem. The best is to place an extra...

High Performance Sockets & Adapters.(Catalog Literature)
September 13, 2007... 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...

New series of low-cost PC/104 digital boards provides 48 isolated digital inputs.(Product Alerts)
September 13, 2007... ACCES I/O Products Inc., is pleased to release its newest series of PC/104 isolated digital I/O boards, the 104-IDI-48 Series. These 48-channel PC/104 utility boards feature 48 individually optically isolated digital inputs. The boards are...

Keithley's new full featured 61/2-digit DMM for only $795.(Product Alerts)
September 13, 2007... Get Keithley's new Model 2100 61/2-Digit USB Digital Multimeter at its special introductory price of $795 plus 30-day no risk evaluation. This full featured DMM can simplify and improve your most critical measurements and is ideal for a wide...

40 GHz Bandwidth QFN Socket.(Product Alerts)
September 13, 2007... New high performance QFN socket for 0.4mm pitch QFN 40 pin IC's. The DG-QFN40C-01 socket is designed for a 5X5mm package size and operates at bandwidths up to 40 GHz with less than 1dB of insertion loss and 100,000 insertions. Socket is...

A bag full of components graces most electronic designs.(Editorial)(Electronioc degign's new section EEPN )(Editorial)
September 27, 2007... As an EE, you might remember your first encounter with the components needed to build an electronic circuit or device. For me, it was an AM radio kit my uncle gave me. I still remember looking at the bag of resistors, capacitors, and other...

Bob's mailbox.(Pease Porridge)
September 27, 2007... Many people wrote in about "What's All This Canyon Turn Stuff, Anyhow?" (Aug. 16, 2007, p. 16.) Some suggested the pilot should do a Chandelle, an Immelman, a Wingover, or a Hammerhead Stall. Tony Schrock suggested...

Short-reach 10GBaseT cuts power consumption in the data center.(Point Of View)
September 27, 2007... As IT managers deploy new applications in the data center, bandwidth demand is outstripping capacity. Applications such as video streaming and the relentless demand for storage are pushing IT networking infrastructures beyond their limits. At...

DARPA chooses urban challenge semifinalists.(TechView)
September 27, 2007... We're down to the semifinals, and the robots are ready. The Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) has selected the 36 teams that will move on to the next round of the 2007 Urban Challenge, scheduled for October 26-31 at the former...

Direct-conversion 2.4-GHz transceiver chips epitomize design reuse.(Analog & Power)
September 27, 2007... Apair of 2.4-GHz transceivers from Maxim Integrated Products exemplifies state-of-theart design reuse in RF ICs. These zero-IF, RF transceiver chips both provide an RF-to-baseband receive path, baseband-to-RF transmit path, voltage-controlled...

40-Gbit optical active cable reaches 300 m.(Communications)(Luxtera's Blazar fiber-optic cables)
September 27, 2007... In addition to power consumption, of course, interconnects represent one of the biggest problems facing data centers today. Massive bundles of wire cables transport data between servers and other equipment. Most of this wiring is Cat5e or Cat6...

USB audio controller chip speeds skype VoIP products to market.(Communications)
September 27, 2007... One of the fastest growing Internet services is digital telephony. Better known as voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP), it lets users make phone calls over the Internet rather than through their usual telephone company connection. With...

Can robots replace immigrant workers on farms?(Digital)
September 27, 2007... The folks on capitol Hill and in the White House seem determined, one way or another, to reform immigration. The likely outcome will be tighter border control and fewer immigrant workers. This leaves farmers with a rather ugly dilemma: leave...

DFM-aware yield-driven router boosts yields as it speeds closure.(EDA)
September 27, 2007... Manufacturability is paramount as IC designers move to process nodes below 90 nm. It's bad enough that tool runtimes are significantly longer and timing closure becomes much more challenging. But then designbased yield limiters, or "gotchas,"...

Digital interface analysis kicks up spice a notch.(EDA)
September 27, 2007... Spice has long been a favored tool for pc-board signal-integrity signoff, but it's always possible to improve on a good thing. To that end, Synopsys and SiSoft have integrated the former's HSpice simulator with the latter's Quantum-SI tool. The...

Tool facilitates Hard-IP quality risk assessments; collaboration puts collected info online.(EDA)
September 27, 2007... As the first deliverable in its planned suite of IP-ecosystem tools, the Fabless Semiconductor Association (FSA) has released version 3.0 of its Hard Intellectual Property (IP) Quality Risk Assessment Tool. The tool collects information about...

10G Ethernet PCI Express adapters go virtual: Intel's latest quad-port Ethernet adapters support I/O virtualization.(Leap Frog)
September 27, 2007... Ethernet continues to reign atop the list of high-speed interconnects, even as it moves into the 10-Gbit/s space (see "High-Speed Serial Technology Drives Board Interconnects" at www.electronicdesign.com, ED Online 15348). Combine this with the...

Objectifying the golden ear: you can believe your ears. The question lies in how much you can depend on analytical measurements.(Engineering Feature)
September 27, 2007... If you're designing the analog portions of audio systems, it helps to know two things: what your listeners expect, and how you're going to objectively demonstrate that you're delivering on those expectations. Yet it's difficult to relate...

Industry ready to sign on to statistical timing signoff: while corner-based signoff methodologies still reign supreme, an infrastructure to support statistical static timing analysis is beginning to take shape.(Technology Report)
September 27, 2007... Until recently, statistical static timing analysis (SSTA) had been the darling of EDA-centric technical conferences and symposia for several years. At those conferences, SSTA was touted as "The Answer" to the most vexing problem facing the...

Shrewd thermal management helps defeat the heat: optimization of thermal controls will significantly enhance electronic system reliability.(Engineering ESSENTIALS)
September 27, 2007... Despite great strides made by electronic system designers in developing products that perform sophisticated tasks, engineers may encounter performance-limiting factors beyond electronic circuitry--like thermal management. Even if good design...

Enhance signal-quality analysis on high-speed serial channels.(Design View)(bit-error-rate (BER) testing)
September 27, 2007... Getting error-free data across a highspeed serial interface can be a challenge, whether that interface is a Gigabit Ethernet physical layer connecting a client to a router, or a low-voltage differential signaling port sending high-definition...

Highlights.(Design View)
September 27, 2007... Eye diagrams The advantage of eye diagrams over the BER test is the indication of the source of problems and paths for improvement. Eye diagrams are produced by sampling random data streams and then superimposing the samples in every...

Embed a generator to do a comm test.(INNOVATIVE DESIGNS FROM READERS)
September 27, 2007... Most Ideas for Design arise from the need for a very special circuit that isn't available as a standard off-the-shelf IC or from the need for a way to test a circuit or application. I thought this IFD was a good one related to testing a...

High-Power white LED driver runs battery-operated portable lighting.(INNOVATIVE DESIGNS FROM READERS)
September 27, 2007... Many people consider white LEDs to be the future of lighting. Strung together, several LEDs can replace an incandescent lamp or a compact fluorescent lamp. High-power white LEDs need a dc voltage of about 3.6 V at a current of about 350 mA to...

Hardware-based LED blinking control eliminates software overhead.
September 27, 2007... LEDs are often used on man-machine interfaces (MMIs) or device front panels to illuminate switches or backlight text information so that the user knows what the device is supposed to be doing at the time. Occasionally, the designer wants these...

Components & assemblies: we're picking up where EEPN left off; if you're looking for the latest new products and more, like design tips and insider information, you've come to the right place.(eepn in Electronic Design)
September 27, 2007... Some Electronic Design readers may be familiar with EE Product News, or EEPN, which covered products that design engineers might specify for their designs. Each month in print and daily online, plus a weekly email newsletter, the publication...

Plug-in PCB terminal blocks feature rising clamps.(INTERCONNECTS)
September 27, 2007... Carrying UL, cUL, CE, VDE, and IMQ approvals, the CTB93xx plug-in pc-board (PCB) terminal blocks are available in pitches of 3.5, 3.81, 5, 5.08, 7.5, and 7.62 mm and use high-quality rising clamp wire connections with captured fixing screws and...

TFT LCD provides wide aspect ratio.(INTERCONNECTS)(Liquid crystal displays from OSD Displays)(Brief article)
September 27, 2007... The OSD043TN14 TFT LCD offers viewers a wide aspect of 4.3 in. diagonal at a 320-by-RGB-by-272 (WQVGA) resolution and integrates a touchpanel, consolidated flex interface, and brightness enhancements to compensate for the additional touchpanel....

Circular cable systems offer power and high-density versions.(INTERCONNECTS)(Samtec Inc.)(Brief article)
September 27, 2007... The RoHS-compliant AccliMate series circular cable systems come in two versions, power and high-density, both of which feature IP68 sealing. For power applications, the SCP1/SCR1 series double-ended cable plugs and receptacles employ 22 AWG...

Terminal blocks handle 125 A.(INTERCONNECTS)(Brief article)
September 27, 2007... Available in modular and side-stackable configurations with a current rating of 125 A, the series MH130-1505 (side stackable) and the MH120-016M4 (modular) printed-circuit terminal blocks suit power-supply, backplane, industrial control, motor...

Low-profile FPC ZIF connector targets diminutive CE products.(INTERCONNECTS)
September 27, 2007... Designed for use in mobile phones, digital still and video cameras, and display applications, the YLL series of 0.3-mm pitch, low-profile FPC ZIF connectors includes two versions--the D-Series with down-side contacts and the U-Series with...

Screw-less terminal block eases field servicing.(INTERCONNECTS)(Electrical insulators from Blockmaster )(Brief article)
September 27, 2007... Requiring no tools, the Series DGSBID screwless, insulation-displacement terminal block provides various installation options for design and field-service applications. Entry options include pokehome entry for stripped wire or insulation...

Thermocouple-to-wireless connector/converter debuts.(INTERCONNECTS)
September 27, 2007... The UWTC seriess features compact, standalone, battery-powered, wireless thermocouple connectors that transmit linear, cold-junction compensated measurements back to a USB-powered receiver. Each connector is programmable in the field to work as...