EDN articles from February 2007

EDN archives from February 2007

Evaluating IP with the four Cs: compare, consider, collect, and calculate.(intellectual property)
February 1, 2007... by Michael Santarini, Senior Editor Finding quality IP is one of the biggest headaches in IC design. Fortunately, there are a few resources as well as tips and tricks to help designers home in on the best choice. Consider the four Cs:...

Simple circuit allows long PWM soft starts.
February 1, 2007... Robert N Buono, Aeolian Audio LLC, Bloomfield, NJ Edited by Brad Thompson and Fran Granville Available from multiple sources, the UC384X family of current-mode, PWM (pulse-width-modulated) power-supply controllers offers good...

Open-door alarm prevents accidental defrosts.
February 1, 2007... Tom Lyons Fisher, Juniata College, Huntingdon, PA Edited by Brad Thompson and Fran Granville Laboratory refrigerators and freezers often contain very valuable materials. Some units include overtemperature alarms that typically don't...

LED drivers minimize power dissipation.
February 1, 2007... Fons Janssen, Maxim Integrated Products Inc, Bilthoven, Netherlands Edited by Brad Thompson and Fran Granville One option for driving high-brightness LEDs uses the standard stepdown buck converter (Figure 1 ). The sense resistor, RS...

Has Jobs lost his magic?(Steve Jobs of Apple Inc.)
February 1, 2007... by Maury Wright, Editor in Chief Immediate product availability has been the most impressive aspect of Apple's performance in its resurgence this decade. When Steve Jobs demonstrated a product such as the Mac mini at Macworld Expo (...

EDN's 2006 Innovation finalists: It's show time!
February 1, 2007... by Staff The paparazzi are on standby. The nominees are excited. The ballot is ready. Who will win recognition for outstanding innovation in EDN's 17th annual program honoring engineering excellence? You decide. Awards season may be...

Why teach science?(Column)
February 1, 2007... by Howard Johnson, PhD Jake, a high-school student, wrote to me on behalf of his science class. Our exchange follows. Jake: What interested you in your profession? Howard: My father is a nuclear physicist. He instilled in me a...

Designing instrumentation circuitry with rms/dc converters.
February 1, 2007... by Jim Williams, Linear Technology Corp RMS converters rectify average results. Using rms to measure waveforms furnishes the most accurate amplitude information (Reference 1 ). Rectify-and-average schemes, which you usually calibrate...

Maximizing EOS and ESD immunity in high-performance serial buses.
February 1, 2007... by Burke Henehan, Texas Instruments Inc Protecting products from electrostatic hazards may seem to involve black magic, but it doesn't. A layered strategy of defending against the hazards maximizes products' immunity and minimizes the...

Target boards extend USB-development tool.
February 1, 2007... by Warren Webb Expanding the flexibility of its popular eZ430 stick-based development and emulation tool, Texas Instruments recently announced two target boards to support low-power industrial, medical, and consumer applications,...

RTOS upgrade adds USB 1.1 and 2.0 support.
February 1, 2007... by Robert Cravotta Green Hills Software has upgraded its [micro]-velosity RTOS (real-time operating system) to include support for a PC-compatible file system, a wear-leveling and fault-tolerant flash-device manager, a USB 1.1- and...

MLC and SLC NAND-controller core, development software emerge.
February 1, 2007... by Michael Santarini Denali Software Inc is expanding its implementation-IP (intellectual-property) portfolio with the recent introduction of a new controller core for MLC (multilevel-cell) and SLC (single-level-cell) NAND devices. Over...

Voltage regulators employ ECM.
February 1, 2007... by Paul Rako National Semiconductor's new 6 to 42V LM25574/5/6 and 6 to 75V LM5574/5/6 series of Simple Switcher voltage regulators output 0.5, 1.5, and 3A. The new parts operate at 50 kHz to 1 MHz. Unlike competitors' switchers, derating...

Lithium-ion advancement improves safety and energy density.
February 1, 2007... by Margery Conner Matsushita, which most people know better by its brand name, Panasonic, recently announced an advancement in lithium-ion cells that the company claims will make lithium-ion-battery packs safer and will slightly increase...

When electronic design isn't enough.(Introduction to AutoCAD 2007: 2D and 3D Design )(Brief article)(Book review)
February 1, 2007... by Margery Conner Most EEs work comfortably with electronic CAD/CAE tools and don't need to venture into mechanical design. However, if you work with electromechanical devices, you may need to gain familiarity with mechanical-CAD tools,...

New direction may be breakthrough for flexible electronics.
February 1, 2007... by Ron Wilson The technology of printing organic transistors onto a flexible substrate to create plastic circuits has existed for some time now and has found applications in the few instances in which flexibility is mandatory but speed,...

Researchers inch forward on phase-change memory.
February 1, 2007... by Ron Wilson Two reports at the International Electron Devices Meeting last December indicated gradual progress on the considerable challenges of making phase-change memory into viable products. One, from Hitachi and Renesas, involves...

Microcontroller cores focus on video decoding.
February 1, 2007... by Graham Prophet, EDN Europe Tensilica's Xtensa and LX2 architectures let you invoke a range of options for processor-core functions and peripherals and create custom instructions. The company's design-tool package automatically...

Handset availability may slow interest in converged VOWLAN/cellular services.
February 1, 2007... by Vinod Kataria, EDN Asia Consumers are enthusiastic about the billing and service plans that converged VOWLAN (voice-over-wireless-local-area-network)/cellular services could provide, but the availability of suitable handsets could...

Reflective-display technology operates in all light levels.(Liquavista)
February 1, 2007... by Graham Prophet, EDN Europe Start-up Liquavista is proposing a new display technology as the ideal approach for mobile and portable displays. The effect, which the company intends to exploit, is not new, but no one has previously...

Scope.
February 1, 2007... Edited by Ron Wilson Looking Ahead To PCB Design West Despite all the automation, contractors, and board shops, pc-board design continues to be a critical step in bringing an electronic design to market. With growing challenges,...

You're gonna do what with an LCR bridge?(transformer's design testing)(Column)
February 1, 2007... by Paul L Schimel, Fairchild Semiconductor A long time ago, when I still thought I was smart, I had just finished a transformer design and handed it off to the in-house magnetics shop. There, I learned about a technique that left me a...

Engineers need stories, too!
February 15, 2007... by Bonnie Baker Now that another year has wound down, the deluge of hotel technical seminars for 2006 is finally over! Attendees came from near and far to hear what vendors had to say about their wares. It's true; I can get a lot of this...

Putting the squeeze on 16-bit processors.
February 15, 2007... by Robert Cravotta, Technical Editor Flanked on either side of the performance, price, and power curve by 8- and 32-bit processors, can 16-bit processors survive? The start of the much-anticipated death of 16-bit processors is upon us....

Taking control of machine vision.
February 15, 2007... by Richard A Quinnell, Contributing Technical Editor Improvements in processing power and software availability along with the rise in digital cameras are making the use of machine-vision systems for industrial control an increasingly...

Gain-of-two instrumentation amplifier uses no external resistors.
February 15, 2007... Marián Stofka, Slovak University of Technology, Bratislava, Slovakia Edited by Brad Thompson and Fran Granville An instrumentation amplifier offers precise gain without feedback resistors, and, at any value of gain, it provides...

Analog switch converts 555 timer into pulse-width modulator.
February 15, 2007... Jordan Dimitrov, Tradeport Electronics, Vaughan, ON, Canada Edited by Brad Thompson and Fran Granville This Design Idea describes a new approach to producing a variable-duty-cycle waveform from a 555-based free-running oscillator. The...

Drive a blue LED from a 3V battery.
February 15, 2007... Sergi Sánchez, Federal Signal Vama SA, Vilassar de Dalt, Spain Edited by Brad Thompson and Fran Granville Using a blue LED can pose problems when available power-supply voltages don't meet or exceed the LED's 3V forward-voltage...

Add simple disable function to a panoramic-potentiometer circuit.
February 15, 2007... Lawrence Mayes, Malvern, United Kingdom Edited by Brad Thompson and Fran Granville In audio-mixing applications, one frequently required function involves mixing a monaural or single-channel source into a stereo-sound field. Audio...

Simple single-cell white-LED driver uses improvised transformer.
February 15, 2007... Jim Grant, Scientific Controls, Orlando, FL Edited by Brad Thompson and Fran Granville A white LED delivers a wide color spectrum and better visibility than do monochromatic LEDs. However, a white LED presents a higher forward-voltage...

Implement a stepper-motor driver in a CPLD.
February 15, 2007... Stephan Roche, Santa Rosa, CA Edited by Brad Thompson and Fran Granville Based on the Motorola (now Freescale, www.freescale.com ) heavily used but obsolete SAA1042 stepper-motor-driver IC, this Design Idea describes a CPLD...

DRM cripples digital video from PCs to TVs.
February 15, 2007... by Paul Rako, Technical Editor As I researched 45-in. LCD panels for an upcoming article, it became clear that insidious forces are trying to prevent users from employing any new TV as a PC monitor. There are no new 45- to 47-in. LCD...

See inside a cereal surprise.
February 15, 2007... by Brian Dipert, Senior Technical Editor Microsoft continues to deny rumors of a handheld Xbox game console, but the company did recently promote its Xbox brand by including a series of Mini Games in boxes of Kellogg's cereals. How did...

The Miller's tale.
February 15, 2007... by Joshua Israelsohn, Contributing Technical Editor It is noteworthy that, despite the vast breadth of our industry, its myriad applications, and its diverse technologies, the fundamental building blocks we use in electronic circuits are...

A deep dive into HD for video-system design.
February 15, 2007... by Jeremiah Golston and Gene Frantz, Texas Instruments The digital-video revolution is now well under way. Is the time right for you to support high-definition resolutions? Technological advancements of recent years have enabled new...

Connector matches PCIe and 10 Gigabit Ethernet data rates.
February 15, 2007... by Maury Wright Systems based on serial-interconnect standards, such as PCIe (PCI Express), and networking standards, such as 10 Gigabit Ethernet, invariably need cable and connectors than can handle the escalating data rates. For...

FIRST unveils 16th annual robotics challenge.
February 15, 2007... by Maury Wright Dean Kamen's FIRST (For Inspiration and Recognition of Science and Technology) organization has just announced the challenge for this year's FIRST Robotics Competition (see "Sportslike competition drives science and...

Real-time, 20-GHz-bandwidth DSO takes 50G samples/sec and captures four 200M-sample records at once.
February 15, 2007... by Dan Strassberg Even though it makes Tektronix's DSA72004 (digital serial analyzer), with its 22-psec, 10 to 90% rise time, sound like the ultimate real-time oscilloscope, the headline doesn't tell the whole story. Besides the 20-GHz...

Characterization tool aids SSTA-library creation.
February 15, 2007... by Michael Santarini To account for process variation while eking out the best mix of performance, power, and yield from new digital-IC-design processes, the IC-design industry is now moving from STA (static-timing-analysis) tools to SSTA...

Laptop power efficiency increases in dribs and drabs.
February 15, 2007... by Margery Conner Pity the poor laptop designer: Because laptops--or, by extension, any piece of portable equipment that uses a power-hungry Intel-type processor--must operate seamlessly from either an ac power adapter or a battery, the...

USB module replaces legacy RS-232 connectors.
February 15, 2007... by Maury Wright Do you need to add USB support to a product that includes a serial port and a DB-9 or DB-25 connector? Well, you could redesign the pc board and add a USB chip and connector, or you could simply replace the DB connector...

IC-tool flow supports new power standard.
February 15, 2007... by Michael Santarini Cadence Design Systems is moving full steam ahead with its controversial CPF (Common Power Forward) power-analysis format with or without industrywide acceptance. The company recently announced that just about its...

Mercury's Craig Lund: guiding innovation.
February 15, 2007... by Warren Webb Craig Lund is vice president and chief technology officer at Mercury Computer Systems (Chelmsford, MA, www.mc.com ), a leading provider of computing systems and software for data-intensive applications, such as image...

Scope.
February 15, 2007... edited by Ron Wilson Looking Ahead To ISQED, speaking of quality The eighth International Symposium on Quality Electronic Design takes place March 26 through 28 at the DoubleTree Hotel in San Jose, CA. This quiet conference has...

In the days of old, when engineers were bold.
February 15, 2007... by Lynn Smith In the 1970s, around the time that MOS Technology introduced the 8-bit 6502 processor, I took a job as chief engineer at a company that developed, manufactured, and supplied military and industrial security-monitoring...