EDN articles from August 2007

EDN archives from August 2007

How the SNRs of delta-sigma converters differ.(Viewpoint essay)
August 2, 2007... By Bonnie Baker When I was a child, my parents bought me a 1-in.-diameter box turtle. I was so excited! To protect the turtle, I was going to put it in my block wagon. This wagon had slots to insert square, triangular, and round pegs. When...

Single-chip radios pose perplexities for SOC architects.
August 2, 2007... Ron Wilson Executive Editor Integrating wireless capability into an SOC requires careful attention to partitioning and architectural decisions that often have no clear-cut answers. Wireless links are becoming ubiquitous in electronic...

Simple and effective inrush-current limiter stops surges.(use of negative-thermal-coefficient thermistor)
August 2, 2007... Gregory Mirsky, Juno Lighting Group, ModuLight Division, Des Plaines, IL Offline power supplies that drive loads of 200W and more require inrush-current limiters. Unrestricted inrush currents can reach hundreds of amperes, which may damage...

Inverting sample-and-hold amplifier requires no external resistors.
August 2, 2007... Marián A tofka, Slovak University of Technology, Bratislava, Slovakia Many applications require a sampling circuit whose output is inverted with regard to the respective sample of an input signal. A simple approach is a cascade of a...

Single IC forms inexpensive inductance tester.
August 2, 2007... Luca Bruno, ITIS Hensemberger Monza, Lissone, Italy This Design Idea shows how to build a reliable, low-cost, and simple inductance tester. The basis for the tester is a Pierce buffered CMOS oscillator (Figure 1 ). Instead of using the...

Research confirms suspicions and reveals surprises.(project 'Mind of the Engineer')(Editorial)(Survey)
August 2, 2007... By Maury Wright, Editorial Director Here at EDN , we carry out several major research projects every year. We use the research to make decisions about what we cover and how we provide information to you-the reader and Web-site visitor....

A digital picture frame is worth 1000 words.
August 2, 2007... Warren Webb, Technical Editor The explosive growth of digital cameras has created a problem: What do you do with all those photos? To deal with this problem, many camera owners are adopting a DPF (digital picture frame) to sequentially...

Applying solenoids: Flying blind is not recommended.
August 2, 2007... By Timothy G Morrill, Raytheon Co Solenoids-especially in applications that require them to rapidly energize and de-energize-require an understanding of their operational subtleties and your control-circuit options. Driving a dc...

FPGA board suits streaming-communications applications.
August 2, 2007... Edited By Fran Granville Targeting high-performance streaming-system applications, such as telecommunications-protocol analysis, software-defined radio, and real-time-video processing, Embedded Systems Design recently announced the...

ChipVision's Orinoco II generates RTL for low-power design.
August 2, 2007... Edited By Fran Granville Privately held EDA company ChipVision has extended the features of its Orinoco ESL (electronic-system-level) IC-architecture-estimation tool so that it now has both design- and power-estimation capabilities....

Motion-control card targets PCI, PC-104, and CAN bus.(Prodigy motion-control cards from Performance Motion Devices)(Brief article)
August 2, 2007... Edited By Fran Granville The new Prodigy motion-control cards from Performance Motion Devices can drive as many as four brushless, stepper, and dc motors. The cards allow for user-selected profiles, including electronic gearing of...

Integrated Hall-effect sensors shrink position sensors and motor drivers.
August 2, 2007... Edited By Fran Granville Fine-pitch-detection applications incorporating encoder-ring magnets require precise alignment of their location sensors. With that requirement in mind, Allegro Microsystems recently introduced the A3423...

Test tool for new automotive bus hides inside scope.
August 2, 2007... Edited By Fran Granville LeCroy Corp has added an integrated oscilloscope-based test tool for the new 10-Mbps FlexRay automotive bus to its broad array of automotive- and embedded-system test and debugging tools. The new tool, which also...

Linear introduces surface-mount low-dropout regulator.
August 2, 2007... Edited By Fran Granville The new LT3080 adjustable linear regulator from Linear Technology Corp has only a 1-mV offset between the voltage on the adjust pin and the output voltage, meaning that only 10 mV of PCB...

VSIA President Kathy Werner on closing down an industry consortium.
August 2, 2007... By Ron Wilson Industry consortia are mostly, like diamonds, forever. Kathy Werner is president of the VSIA (Virtual Socket Interface Alliance), an industry consortium devoted to streamlining the selection and transport of semiconductor...

Scope.(IEEE Custom Integrated Circuits Conference)(trouble with engineering education)(India facing shortage of engineers)
August 2, 2007... Edited by Ron Wilson Looking Ahead: To Conference Season With the beginning of September, the August doldrums officially end and the conference season starts up again at full speed. High on the list for chip designers should be the...

Scope.
August 16, 2007... Edited by Ron Wilson Looking Ahead To the Power Architecture Developer Conference Much of the activity in technical conferences has shifted from industrywide events to users' group gatherings focusing on particular architectures....

Solid-state physics convinces customers.
August 16, 2007... by Martin Delateur, Consultant I was working as a product engineer in the discrete division of a major semiconductor company in the early 1980s when the Big Three automotive companies-General Motors, Ford, and Chrysler-started to add many...

Recognizing gestures.
August 16, 2007... by Robert Cravotta, Technical Editor Blurring the line between humans and machines The most basic and simplest gesture is pointing, and it is an effective method for most people to communicate with each other, even in the presence of...

Printed electronics: ink on the brink.
August 16, 2007... by Warren Webb, Technical Editor With new ink technology in hand, designers are investigating high-speed presses to print millions of throwaway electronic components at a fraction of the cost of silicon-based circuitry. Printed...

Circuit compensates system offset of a load-cell-based balance.
August 16, 2007... Luca Bruno, ITIS Hensemberger, Monza, Italy Edited by Charles H Small and Fran Granville It's a challenge to interface a resistive bridge sensor with an ADC receiving its power from a 5V single-supply power source. Some applications...

Voltage doubler uses inherent features of push-pull dc/dc converter.
August 16, 2007... Ajoy Raman, Aeronautical Development Establishment, Bangalore, India Edited by Charles H Small and Fran Granville This Design Idea presents a minimal-parts-count, wide-range voltage doubler using the inherent voltage-doubling...

Voltage timer monitors line-connected ac loads.
August 16, 2007... Michael Petersen, Maxim Integrated Products, Sunnyvale, CA Edited by Charles H Small and Fran Granville A simple circuit monitors the elapsed time over which a line-connected ac load energizes (Figure 1 ). You can then access the...

Cascaded converter boosts LED-drive capability.
August 16, 2007... Grant Smith, National Semiconductor, Phoenix, AZ Edited by Charles H Small and Fran Granville Powering 20 to 30 white LEDs from three alkaline cells presents an interesting problem for the conventional boost converter. The required...

Dual transistor improves current-sense circuit.
August 16, 2007... Robert Zawislak, PE, Consultant, Palatine, IL Edited by Charles H Small and Fran Granville In multiple-output power supplies in which a single supply powers circuitry of vastly different current draws, two perplexing steps are sensing...

*Mind of the Engineer* yields range of responses.
August 16, 2007... by Maury Wright, Editorial Director In my last column, I highlighted some of the results of our 'Mind of the Engineer' research (Reference 1 ). Most of that column comprised answers to aided-response-multiple-choice-questions. But EDN...

Add flex to your flow.(design flow)
August 16, 2007... by Andrew Potemski, Synopsys Professional Services Setting Up a Versatile Flow and Environment Improves Design Productivity. To handle numerous technical challenges associated with advanced process nodes, chip designers must have a...

Reading skills for IC design.
August 16, 2007... by Pallab Chatterjee, Contributing Technical Editor There has been great progress in the worldwide education system to increase both the number of people who can read and their level of reading comprehension. Technology and semiconductors...

Digital downconverter expands transceiver bandwidth.
August 16, 2007... by Warren Webb With signal-intelligence, radar, and communications-systems applications in mind, Pentek recently released the Model 7140-420 dual digital transceiver with an integral FPGA-based digital downconverter and interpolation...

MEMS-based resistor divider sets ohmic resistance and TCR.
August 16, 2007... by Margery Conner Temperature-sensitive circuits, such as those in analog instrumentation, optical networks, or power supplies, usually require temperature compensation. For those applications, Microbridge has added electronic temperature...

Apache announces product for IC-to-package power and EMI analysis.
August 16, 2007... by Michael Santarini Expanding on its RedHawk and Sidewinder IC-power-analysis tools and its Sahara-PTE on-chip thermal-analysis tools, Apache Design now is entering the system-analysis market with Sentinel, a new product that addresses...

45-nm, multicore microarchitecture targets communications platforms.
August 16, 2007... by Robert Cravotta Freescale structured its next-generation multicore platform on a scalable on-chip fabric that supports concurrent, nonblocking connectivity for as many as 32 heterogeneous processor cores. The platform features...

Plug-in hybrid vehicles can greatly impact emissions and petroleum dependency.
August 16, 2007... by Margery Conner Gasoline prices have soared, greenhouse-gas emissions are environmental concerns, and particulate emissions continue to have a health impact. It's clear that, even five years from now, the profile of our...

Ultrawideband sampling scope lets you see waveforms at points you can't probe.
August 16, 2007... by Dan Strassberg Compared with other scopes, LeCroy's WaveExpert 100H 100-GHz-maximum-bandwidth near-real-time-sampling oscilloscope provides significantly greater de-embedding power, which it demonstrates through an ability to perform...

Brion's Tachyon box offers virtual tapeout.(Brion Technologies )(Brief article)
August 16, 2007... by Michael Santarini Fresh from its acquisition by ASML, Brion Technologies is putting the D in DFM (design for manufacturing) with its new offering, Tachyon LAD (lithography-aware design). Until now, Brion offered only hardware-assisted...

Researchers observe 'crowd behavior' in semiconductors.
August 16, 2007... by Matthew Miller Using atomic-scale measurements, scientists at JILA (which originally stood for the Joint Institute for Laboratory Astrophysics but now encompasses a wider breadth of science)-a joint venture of NIST (National Institute...

Licensing agreement advances tiny zoom lenses.
August 16, 2007... by Matthew Miller Holochip has signed an agreement to license patented adaptive-lens technologies from the University of Central Florida (www.ucf.edu ) for development in products for camera phones, digital cameras, and medical and...

High-reliability HEMTs good for 100 years at 200°C.(Fujitsu Laboratories Ltd. has developed a new technology)(Brief article)
August 16, 2007... by Matthew Miller Fujitsu Laboratories reports that it has developed a technology to create high-power GaN (gallium-nitride) HEMTs (high-electron-mobility transistors) that can operate for more than 1 million hours at 200[degrees]C under a...

China's design houses are dying.
August 16, 2007... by Amy Wang, Contributing Editor China's independent-design-house business, which has been critical to the growth of indigenous distributors and semiconductor manufacturers, is dying. Although the perceived threat to design engineers...

Production on the rise in Southeast Asia.
August 16, 2007... by Suzanne Deffree Although China remains king of contract manufacturing with companies operating there generating an estimated 52.4% of all contract-manufacturing revenues, Vietnam is among the next locations emerging as hot spots for...

EuP urges life-cycle management.(energy-using-products)(Brief article)
August 16, 2007... by Suzanne Deffree The European Commission (http://ec.europa.eu/index_en.htm ) estimates that designers determine more than 80% of all product-related environmental impact during the planning phase and, for this reason, in 2005 published...

ENHANCING EFFICIENCY: Intelligence of a Standalone Inverter System.
August 16, 2007... By Victor Alcazar, Market Development Manager, Digital Signal Controller Division, Microchip Technology Inc. THE CHALLENGE Standalone inverters use DC power produced from solar modules or other sources in a battery, and make it...

Digital ICs.
August 16, 2007... By Richard Ruiz Jr. Closing The Loop As the interest in digital power grows, an increasing number of semiconductor manufacturers are competing to determine what kind of functions and features system makers want, what will be the...

Digital vs. Analog: Effects in a System-Level Implementation.
August 16, 2007... By Per-Johan Wiberg, Strategic Product Marketing, Ericsson Power Modules THE CHALLENGE How do you manage power dissipation from a non-isolated Point-of-Load (POL) regulator in a closed environment at 75-85dC ambient without airflow?...

Doing Power Control Differently.
August 16, 2007... By Shamim Choudhury, Senior Applications Engineer, and Dave Freeman, System Engineering Manager, Texas Instruments THE CHALLENGE In recent years, digital power has focused on obtaining dynamic performance comparable to well-developed...

Letter From the Editor.(Editorial)
August 16, 2007... Staff The commercial adoption of digital power management and control is expected to pick up steam in the latter part of 2007, with many companies planning to introduce products with varying degrees of digital control capabilities. Such...

Digital Control.
August 16, 2007... By Linnea Brush Crossing the Threshhold Anyone doubting the commercial adoption of digital power management and control technologies need only look at the industry activity over the past year. In 2006, PowerPulse reported on 96 digital...