EDN articles from January 2002

EDN archives from January 2002

Chipping away. (leading edge).(Brief Article)
January 10, 2002... "The headquarters of Intel and Advanced Micro Devices are practically next-door neighbors, close enough to drop by and borrow a cup of silicon. Or arsenic, for that matter. There's no love lost between these titans of technology." ...

64-bit PCI board suits real-time, embedded systems. (leading edge).(Product Announcement)
January 10, 2002... CYCLONE MICROSYSTEMS' 64-bit SB-923 PCI system board targets designers of embedded and real-time systems. The Mini ATX-form-factor board features eight slots that can accommodate off-the-shelf 64-bit PCI I/O cards on two independent buses....

Forum targets service dependability. (leading edge).(Brief Article)
January 10, 2002... Several companies recently formed the Service Availability Forum to make the content, communication, and transaction services delivered over the evolving packet-based communications network as dependable as the services delivered over the...

Embedded Windows XP debuts. (leading edge).(Product Announcement)
January 10, 2002... A LITTLE MORE THAN a month after the release of its latest desktop operating system, Microsoft has announced the embedded version of Windows XP. With applications in systems such as retail point-of-sale devices, thin clients, gaming systems,...

IC Layout Basics: A Practical Guide.(Book illuminates IC layout and design for novices. (leading edge).)(Review)
January 10, 2002... ICs ARE AT THE HEART OF OUR INDUSTRY, and all EEs know the principles and practices of their design, layout, and fabrication, right? Maybe not. If you have wanted to understand how a schematic translates to physical layout, take a look at IC...

Factoid. (leading edge).(Brief Article)
January 10, 2002... According to the Yankee Group, 46% of US Internet users now go online at least once a week to find out about products they are considering purchasing, and 24% use online banking. According to the Pew Internet and American Life Project, 70%...

AC-cord lockout keeps your system yours. (leading edge).(Brief Article)
January 10, 2002... Although you can use software to lock undesired users from accessing your ac-line-operated system, a physical lock on the power-cord sends a stronger message and provides extra protection. The Lockout 320 from Southside Safety replaces the...

DSOs break speed barriers in dramatically different ways. (leading edge).
January 10, 2002... Two TEST-AND-MEASUREMENT competitors, Tektronix and Agilent, are kicking off the new year with major digital-oscilloscope introductions. Tektronix's less-than-$60,000 TDS 6604 offers 6-GHz bandwidth on four channels, a two-channel-mode sampling...

Chip integrates DSP and RISC. (leading edge).(Product Announcement)
January 10, 2002... THE NEW PROGRAMMABLE TMS320C5470 and TMS320C5471 DSPs from Texas Instruments combine the C5000 DSP core with the ARM7 Thumb RISC processor core into one device, reducing cost, power consumption, and board space by as much as 40% compared with...

Chip set touts HomePlug 1.0 compliance. (leading edge).(Product Announcement)
January 10, 2002... THE HOMEPLUG 1.0-COMPLIANT Piranha two-chip set from Cogency comprises the company's CS1100 media-access-controller/physical-layer chip and Analog Devices' (www.analog.com) AD9875 broadband-modem, mixed-signal, front-end IC. The HomePlug 1.0...

Bluetooth update. (leading edge).
January 10, 2002... SEVERAL COMPANIES UNVEILED products at the Bluetooth Developer's Conference, which took place on Dec 11 to 13 in San Francisco. * SiGe announced its 2.4 GHz SE2520L linear power amplifier for Class 1 applications, which offers 22-dBm...

Spec gives you USB on the go. (leading edge).(Product Announcement)
January 10, 2002... ONE OF THE CRITICISMS OF the USB interface has been its lack of support of peer-to-peer connections. If you wanted to move a song from one MP3 player to another, for example, you had to connect them to a PC, move the MP3 file from the first...

Fiber-optic encoding. (signal integrity).
January 10, 2002... I AM A TELECOMM DESIGN ENGINEER who works on digital systems. I'm curious about the transmission of digital signals using fiber-optic transceivers. What data coding should I use, and why? What is the preferred logic standard for the interface...

Innovation is never over. (ednmag.comment).(Evaluation)
January 10, 2002... TEMPTED BY PRICE REDUCTIONS, I recently decided to treat myself to an early Christmas present: the Voyetra Turtle Beach AudioTron (www.audiotron. net) that I reviewed a few months ago (Reference 1). I was happily surprised to find that on the...

Expanding options bring surround sound to the forefront ... and the back ... and the sides ... and the ceiling ... and the floor ...: why make your potential customers travel to movie theaters, performance halls, and video arcades to enjoy surround sound? Ever-evolving technology, in conjunction with DSPs and memory, create an immersive audio experience no matter where you hear it. (Cover Story).
January 10, 2002... DVD-AUDIO AND SACD (SUPER AUDIO CD) players and their corresponding content are finally appearing in stores, after years of delay and SACD's underwhelming initial two-channel experiment for audiophiles. And, predictably, the corresponding...

Put in instrument in your palm: software tools put custom programs in a PDA. (design feature).
January 10, 2002... BY NOW, you've probably had a close look at a Palm Pilot, Handspring Visor, Sony Clie, or one of the other PDAs that use the Palm. I bet you've wondered how difficult it would be to develop your own software that would run on a Palm-like PDA....

VoiceXML distributes voice to the masses: tomorrow's next-generation cell phones promise access to the internet. But why wait? VoiceXML now enables any phone to browse the web. (techtrends).
January 10, 2002... TODAY'S CELL PHONES, PDAs, and laptops are more versatile than ever. You can use them to surf the Web, reading the limited content available for the tiny, monochrome screens on--well, just that--tiny, monochrome screens. You currently can't use...

Dynamic voltage scaling conserves portable power: with portable applications on the rise, designers are turning to dynamic power-conservation techniques to delay the inevitable dead battery. (design feature).
January 10, 2002... REDUCING POWER CONSUMPTION in portable equipment continues to drive innovation across all areas of IC design and will continue to do so well past the day when systems can operate solely on the power that body heat generates. Whether or not you...

Log amp uses capacitor-charging law. (design ideas).
January 10, 2002... THE NOVEL LOGARITHMIC amplifier in Figure 1 relies on the exponential charging characteristics of a simple RC circuit. The expression for the time, T, required for a capacitor, C, to reach a voltage ([V.sub.IN]-[V.sub.K]) from 0V, when charged...

Extend the timing capabilities of a PC. (design ideas).
January 10, 2002... EVEN WHEN YOU use the internal timing registers and under DOS, a PC cannot easily measure time intervals with better time resolution than a millisecond. Measuring long intervals with even this precision is a waste of many CPU cycles. A...

Optocoupler simplifies power-line monitoring. (design ideas).
January 10, 2002... THE USE OF a linear optocoupler and a capacitor-based power supply yields a simple, yet precise power-line-monitoring system. The circuit in Figure 1 converts the 110V-ac power-line voltage to an ac output voltage centered at 2.5V, covering 0...

Improved amplifier drives differential-input ADCs. (design ideas).
January 10, 2002... ADCs WITH differential inputs are becoming increasingly popular. This popularity isn't surprising, because differential inputs in the ADC offer several advantages: good common-mode noise rejection, a doubling of the available dynamic range...

Circuit forms dc-motor switch with brake. (design ideas).
January 10, 2002... CONTROLLING A SMALL dc motor without speed control sounds like a trivial task; a switch or a relay should suffice. However, several problems accompany this approach. For one, the switch, because of the inductive load and the low starting...

White LED driver. (Integrated Circuits).(Linear Technology LT1932)(Brief Article)(Product Announcement)
January 10, 2002... * Switch-mode, constant-current boost regulator operates at a fixed frequency of 1.2 MHz * Achieves maximum 80% efficiency * Comes in six-lead ThinSOT package * LT1932, from $1.75 (1000) Linear Technology Corp, 1-408-432-1900,...

Secure Digital memory card. (Integrated Circuits).
January 10, 2002... * Stores 128 Mbytes using two 512-Mbit NAND flash-memory devices * Lets you store as much as four hours of music or 40 minutes of video * Operates from a 2.7 to 3.6V supply * SD-M1280, $149 (OEM) Toshiba America Electronic...

36-Mbit high-speed SRAM. (Integrated Circuits).(MoSys MC8051M36)(Brief Article)(Product Announcement)
January 10, 2002... * Operates with 1.8V memory-core power and 1.8 or 2.5V I/O power * Runs at maximum speeds of 200 MHz with a clock-to-data access time of less than 3 nsec * MC8051M36, $100.10 (1000) MoSys Inc, 1-408-731-1800, www.mosys.com At...

16-Mbit mask ROM. (Integrated Circuits).
January 10, 2002... * 3V device is pin-compatible with industry-standard XX29LV160 flash devices * Comes in 48-pin TSOPs and 48-pin miniBGA packages * MX23L1613, less than $3 (OEM) Macronix America Inc, 1-408-453-8088, www.macronix.com At...

Low-power SDRAM. (Integrated Circuits).
January 10, 2002... * 64-Mbit (EDL6416) and 128-Mbit (EDL1216) devices operate at 1.8V/100 MHz and 2.5V/133 MHz * Come in 8 x 8 x 1-mm FBGA packages * EDL6416 starts at $9; EDL1216 starts at $14.50 (1000) Elpida Memory Inc, 1-866-355-8296,...

Audio codec. (Integrated Circuits).
January 10, 2002... * Delivers a dynamic range of 96 dB with distortion of just 0.01% * Uses only 19 mW in playback mode * CS42L50, $3.05 (10,000) Cirrus Logic Inc, 1-512-445-7222, www.cirrus.com At www.ednmag.com, click Reader Service and...

RF transceiver. (Integrated Circuits).(Chipcon CC1000)(Brief Article)(Product Announcement)
January 10, 2002... * For use in the 300- to 1000-MHz frequency range * Consumes 7.7 mA in receive mode * CC1000, $2.20 (1 million) Chipcon AS, +47 22 95 85 44, www.chipcon.com At www.ednmag.com, click Reader Service and enter no. 323

Four-port switch. (Integrated Circuits).(API NetWorks AP4041)(Brief Article)(Product Announcement)
January 10, 2002... * Achieves an aggregate bandwidth of 102.4 Gbps * Interconnects as many as 31 Hyper-Transport devices on each port * AP4041, $146 (1000) API NetWorks Inc, 1-978-318-1100, www.api-networks.com At www.ednmag.com, click Reader...

Skip-free retiming repeater. (Integrated Circuits).
January 10, 2002... * Extends InfiniBand signals across any length of copper trace, cable, or fiber * Operates at 2.5-Gbps rates for data centers and storage-area networks * PX5120, $30 (1000) Primarion Inc, 1-602-454-7205, www.primarion.com At...

Tri-mode, dual-band transmitter. (Integrated Circuits).
January 10, 2002... * For use in CDMA, PCS, and AMPS cell phones * Provides low overall current consumption and the ability to selectively power-up individual circuit blocks * TQ7M35, $4 (100,000) Triquint Semiconductor Inc, 1-503-615-9000,...

Quad serializer/deserializer transceiver. (Integrated Circuits).(Mindspeed Technologies M27205)(Brief Article)(Product Announcement)
January 10, 2002... * For 10-Gigabit Ethernet, 10-Gigabit Fibre Channel, backplane, and opticalmodule applications * Operates at maximum data rates of 3.4 Gbps per channel * M27205, $69 for a 10-Gigabit Ethernet version (1000) Mindspeed Technologies,...

200-Gbps switch element. (Integrated Circuits).(Internet Machines SE200)(Brief Article)(Product Announcement)
January 10, 2002... * Performs concurrent switching of multiprotocol or multiservice traffic or both for any size packet at wire speed * 64 embedded serializer/deserializer transceivers optimize performance and integration efficiency * SE200, $2975 (OEM)...

Nature's engineer? (Leading edge: what's hot in the design community).
January 24, 2002... "A beaver does not, as legend would have it, know which direction the tree will fall when he cuts it, but counts on alacrity to make up for lack of engineering expertise." --Ann Zwinger, Beyond the Aspen Grove, 1970

Simple IC keeps eye on fan's impending failure. (Leading edge: what's hot in the design community).(Microchip Technology TC670)(Product Announcement)
January 24, 2002... WHEN A COOLING FAN FAILS, it can cause a cascade of system problems. Although you can monitor the temperature in a system, doing so adds cost and may be too late to tell you that a bearing is slowly wearing out. An alternative approach may be...

Scalable PCI system delivers blazing 128-GFLOPS processing power. (Leading edge: what's hot in the design community).(Mercury Computer Systems Race+ + Series VantageRT 7410)(Product Announcement)
January 24, 2002... MERCURY COMPUTER SYSTEMS' Race+ + Series VantageRT 7410 system raises the bar for PCI-based digital-, signal-, and image-processing applications. With as many as 32 500-MHz PowerPC "G4" processors operating in unison, the system can deliver 128...

Link to Web site for a year for free copy of math package. (Leading edge: what's hot in the design community).(Universal Technologies' TK Solver 4.0 deal)(Brief Article)
January 24, 2002... UTS Software, publisher of TK Solver, a mathematical-software package, will give a free full-featured CD-ROM copy of Release 4 of the package to Web-site operators that it verifies have posted links to the UTS Web site. You must keep the link...

Hybrid-gate-array technology promises shorter cycle time and lower NRE and unit costs.
January 24, 2002... TARGETING FPGA-TO-ASIC conversions and first-time ASIC designs, a 0.18-micron, hybrid-process gate array from AMI Semiconductor hits a triple play of cutting cycle time, slashing up-front NRE costs, and yielding higher chip-device usage for...

Leading edge: what's hot in the design community.(Brief Article)
January 24, 2002... Only 6% of fires management-level jobs currently occur through any Internet site, compared with 61% through networking, according to a study by Drake Beam Morin.--The wall Street Journal, Jan 2, 2002 In the eight weeks ending Dec 21, 2001,...

Interface material overcomes that sinking feeling.
January 24, 2002... Using the Thermflow T766 phase-change material from Chromerics, you get both a low thermal-resistance path between your hot IC and its heat sink and the ability to remove that heat sink for repair and rework. The material, a layering of a...

RF designers get a new beginning. (Leading edge: what's hot on the design community).(Eagleware's Genesis RF 8.0)(Product Announcement)
January 24, 2002... VERSION 8 OF EAGLEWARE'S Genesis RF-design software adds the Test Link automated instrument interface, Advanced T/Line synthesis, and S/Filter support of distributed transmission lines. The Test Link instrument interface imports data...

Software lets you check your design in 3-D. (Leading edge: what's hot on the design community).(Zuken USA's CADStar 3D)(Product Announcement)
January 24, 2002... ZUKEN USA DERIVED ITS new CADStar 3D software for checking the pc-board placement within a mechanical enclosure from the company's electromechanical-design tools. Verification in 3-D increases your confidence in the design and avoids wasted...

Single-chip modem meets low-speed needs. (Leading edge: what's hot on the design community).(Xecom XE2420)(Product Announcement)
January 24, 2002... High-speed modems may get the headlines, but applications such as security and monitoring don't need or can't afford that speed. To meet those lower-speed needs, Xecom's 2400-bps XE2420 modem comes in a surface-mount package measuring less than...

Programmable-logic alternatives offer similar attributes but differing foundations. (Leading edge: what's hot on the design community).(Xilinx CoolRunner-Il and Actel ProASIC Plus)
January 24, 2002... ACTEL PROMISES THAT, WITH ITS ProASIC Plus FPGAs, it won't suffer the excruciatingly long announcement-to-production delay that plagued the first-generation ProASIC products' developer, Gatefield, which Actel has now acquired and which began...

Compression and interconnect breakthroughs pave a path for advanced multimedia formats. (Leading edge: what's hot on the design community).(Microsoft Corona beta and Microsoft Windows Media Audio Consumer)(Product Announcement)
January 24, 2002... MICROSOFT ADDS to the already-impressive audio and video capabilities of its Windows Media Technologies codecs in the upcoming Corona technology, which is now in beta testing and which the company previewed at the Streaming Media East show,...

Module performs engineering-change orders. (Leading edge: what's hot on the design community).(Novas Software's nECO)(Product Announcement)
January 24, 2002... THE NECO MODULE from Novas Software performs an engineering-change order at the gate-level netlist within the company's Debussy debugging system. The nECO module reduces the time it takes to implement change orders by automating netlist changes...

Not all EMC engineers are bald. (signal integrity).
January 24, 2002... DON'T BELIEVE EVERY MYTH you hear. For example, RF radiation from computers does not kill either brain cells or hair follicles. To directly test this theory, you might check out the pate on your local EMC specialist, who probably spends as much...

Reorg redux? (ednmag.comment).
January 24, 2002... WHEN BUSINESS TURNS BAD, corporate reorganizations sprout like seedlings after a drought-breaking rain. The current economic downturn is no exception to this scenario, and such reorganizations are becoming routine if not mandatory. For example,...

Ripples in the process pool: semiconductor vendors have a greater variety of processes at their disposal than at any other time in the industry's history. It's no surprise, then, that they're trying to convince you that they've made the best choice. (Cover Story).
January 24, 2002... LOOK AT ANY IC THESE DAYS, and you'll see a combination of electrical performance, functions, size, and cost that vendors could not have attained just a few years ago. It's not that bright IC designers didn't populate the industry then. Many of...

Data-acquisition software: it may be a new ballgame, but hang on to the old rule book--for now: Microsoft's Visual Studio.net may create new rules for developing, deploying, and maintaining data-acquisition and instrumentation applications, but few of the changes will occur overnight. (tech trends).
January 24, 2002... THE ARCHITECTS OF MICROSOFT'S Visual Studio.NET may not have had data-acquisition and instrumentation applications in mind when they created their new environment for software development, deployment, and maintenance, but they didn't preclude...

EDN Innovation 2001.
January 24, 2002... EDN's innovator and Innovation of the Year competition was designed over a decade ago with one goal in mind: to find, recognize, and promote the people and products that rock our engineering world. Check out this year's nominees on the...

Scrub data with scale-invariant nonlinear digital filters: the idea may be counterintuitive, but for a large class of filtering tasks, nonlinear filters can preserve signal fidelity better than their linear cousins. (design feature).(Technical)
January 24, 2002... SIMPLE LINEAR DIGITAL FILTERS are useful in many applications. Linearity is a significant practical advantage that you can exploit to develop useful classifications (such as lowpass, highpass, or bandpass filters), rules of thumb (such as...

Using synthesis in the analog-design flow: analog-synthesis tools can help speed the analog-circuit-design flow. (design feature).(Technical)
January 24, 2002... ANALOG-SYNTHESIS TOOLS provide great potential for speeding the design process for analog circuits. This capability is especially important in mixed-signal-system-on-chip design, in which the analog portion presents one of the biggest...

Autoreferencing circuit nulls out sensor errors. (design ideas).
January 24, 2002... THE AUTOREFERENCING circuit in Figure 1 nulls out the error of a sensor, such as a pressure transducer, at its reference level--for example, at ambient pressure. The circuit is an analog-digital-feedback control system that uses a digitally...

Low-power keypad consumes only 100 nA. (design ideas).
January 24, 2002... OFTEN IN THE USE OF PRODUCTS with keypads, one or more keys become "stuck" or are being pressed. For example, a cell phone in the bottom of a purse or in a hip pocket could have one or more of its keys inadvertently pressed and held down for a...

Time-tag impulses with zero-crossing circuit. (design ideas).
January 24, 2002... A "CONSTANT-FRACTION discriminator" usually performs the time-tagging of impulsive events, which have a peaking time of the signal amplitude. The implementation of this technique requires a delay in the input signal of approximately the same...

Circuit provides reference for multiple ADCs. (design ideas).(analog-to-digital converter)
January 24, 2002... THE ACHIEVABLE ACCURACY for systems with multiple ADCs depends I directly on the reference voltages applied to the ADCs. Medical-ultrasound-imaging systems, for example, commonly include a large number of ADCs in the system's beam-former...

Integrated circuits: Bluetooth radio transceiver.(Brief Article)(Product Announcement)
January 24, 2002... * Plug-and-play Class 2 radio is self-shielded and mechanically robust * Needs only an antenna, a 13-MHz reference frequency crystal, and digital control functionality and firmware * PBA 31301/3, $17.94 (1000) Ericsson Inc,...

Integrated circuits: digital-output photo sensors.
January 24, 2002... * Operate over -25 to +85 [degrees] C with a supply voltage of 4.5 to 17V * Come in surface-mount and through-hole packages * EIC-3200 series starts at $1.58 (1000) Elekon Industries USA Inc, 1-800-353-5661, www.elekon.com At...

Integrated circuits: SONET/SDH clock multiplier.(Brief Article)(Product Announcement)
January 24, 2002... * Achieves jitter generation that is typically 0.25 psec (rms) in OC-192 applications * Exceeds strict jitter requirements for reference clocks in OC-48, OC-192, and 10-Gbit Ethernet designs * Si5320, $59.87 (1000) Silicon...

Integrated circuits: High-speed photodiodes.(Brief Article)(Product Announcement)
January 24, 2002... * Target receivers and transceivers of OC-192 and OC-768 optical communication systems * Cover 1300 to 1550 nm, providing 0.8A/W for 10-Gbps devices and 0.5A/W for 40-Gbps devices * PD25 series (OC- 192), PD12 series (OC-768), contact...

Integrated circuits: 3.3V RS-232 transceivers.(Brief Article)(Product Announcement)
January 24, 2002... * Operate at 1000 kbps with 15-kV ESD protection on all I/Os and optional automatic wake-up circuitry * Components differ in the number of onboard drivers and receivers * SP3222EU, 23EU, 32EU, and 43EU, 85 cents (10,000) Sipex Corp,...

Integrated circuits: header-compression software.(Brief Article)(Product Announcement)
January 24, 2002... * Implements the IETF's Robust Header Compression standard (RFC 3095) into UMTS-compliant 2.5G and 3G mobile IP phones * Increases bandwidth and interactive response while reducing latency and packet loss * EffnetEdge Header...

Integrated circuits: quad high-side driver.(Brief Article)(Product Announcement)
January 24, 2002... * Each of four outputs can continuously drive high-side loads with as much as 2.5A * On-chip four-to-one multiplexer senses load current using just one external current-sense resistor and ADC * VNQ05XSP16, $1.82 (100,000) ...

Integrated circuits: text-to-speech converter.(Brief Article)(Product Announcement)
January 24, 2002... * Combines a concatenation algorithm with a proprietary multilevel storage technology * Performs text-to-speech conversion without microprocessors, PCs, or computers * WTS701, less than $10 (OEM) Winbond Electronics Corp America,...

Integrated circuits: 128-mbit flash IC.(Brief Article)(Product Announcement)
January 24, 2002... * 3V device provides 25-nsec page-mode read access and 70-nsec random asynchronous access * Offers a selectable x 66/ x 32-bit data bus * Am29PDL128, $25 (10,000) Advanced Micro Devices Inc, 1-408-732-2400, www. amd.com At...

Integrated circuits: FIFO queuing devices.(Brief Article)(Product Announcement)
January 24, 2002... * Come in configurations of x 10, x 20, and x 40 bits with maximum storage capacities of 5 Mbits * Operate at 166 MHz maximum with a 3.3V LVTTL interface * FlexQ III Plus, from $18 (10,000) High Bandwidth Access Inc,...

Integrated circuits: ADC display chip set controls multiline character-display modules.(Brief Article)(Product Announcement)
January 24, 2002... ADC display chip set controls multiline character-display modules. Advanced Linear Devices' two-chip set comprises the ALD500 18-bit dual-slope integrating ADC with optional on-chip voltage reference and the ALD523D display-module controller:...

Microprocessors: Dolby Digital decoder.(Brief Article)(Product Announcement)
January 24, 2002... * Hardware/software package outfits the Xtensa configurable processor core with Dolby Digital AC-3 audio decoding * Delivers a dynamic range of 113 dB * Dolby Digital application package, $90,000, including a source license for both...

Microprocessors: microcontroller-unit/DSP software tool suite.(Brief Article)(Product Announcement)
January 24, 2002... * Offers enhanced specific support for individual Infineon TriCore derivatives * Provides extensions to the assembler, plus C/C++ libraries, for the TriCore 2 architectural upgrade * Tasking TriCore Software Development Toolset V1.4,...

Microprocessors: Java-optimized OS.(Brief Article)(Product Announcement)
January 24, 2002... * For ARM-processor-based embedded and handheld devices * Supports the full desktop Java 2 Standard Edition * SavaJeXE, $100/license SavaJe Technologies, 1-978-251-2901, www.savaje.com At www.ednmag.com, click on Reader Service and...

Microprocessors: motor-control DSPs.(Brief Article)(Product Announcement)
January 24, 2002... * Supplies enhanced-motor-current sensing that enables a 30% reduction in system component count * Come in flash-memory versions and pin-compatible lower-cost ROM versions * ADMCF34X series, from $9.25 for flash versions and $3.50 for...

Microprocessors: real-time trace facility.(Brief Article)
January 24, 2002... * Enables SOC debugging at a system's target operating frequency * Analyzes instruction trace, data trace, timing trace, and interrupts * Real Time Trace option is a hardware block for the ARC-tangent-A4 32-bit processor core; contact...

Microprocessors: VoB development kit.
January 24, 2002... * Comprises a demo board for evaluating the VP140 DSP and software for designing voice-over-broadband systems * Includes an FXO card, JTAG I/F card with parallel-port cable, and power supply * VP140 Starter Kit, $1100 VoicePump Inc,...

Microprocessors: mobile wireless processor.(from BOPS)(Brief Article)(Product Announcement)
January 24, 2002... * Handles PHY processing for 802.11a, 802.11b, and Hiper-LAN/2 * MWP evaluation chip is part of the Wireless LAN development system * Comes with a license for the WirelessRay DSP IP BOPS Inc, 1-650-254-2800, www.bops.com At...

Embedded systems: Gigabit Ethernet adapter.(Concurrent Technologies CL PMC/GB1)(Brief Article)(Product Announcement)
January 24, 2002... * Provides two 10/100/1000-Mbps channels on a PMC module * Employs RJ45 connectors that allow connection to Category 5 cabling * CL PMC/GB1, from $1200 Concurrent Technologies Inc, 1-734-971-6309, www.gocct.com At www.ednmag.com,...

Embedded systems: multi-DSP PMC module.
January 24, 2002... * Supplies 240 ports for Voice-over-IP or -ATM applications * Allows access to the carrier-board PCI bus and H.110 TDM bus * PTMC41, $2500 (OEM) Voiceboard Corp, 1-805-985-6200, www. voiceboard.com At www.ednmag.com, click on...

Embedded systems: PowerPC single-board computer.
January 24, 2002... * Offers a choice of three M-Module slots, three PC*MIP slots, or two PMC sites on a 6U double-Eurocard form factor * Powered by a 300-MHz PowerPC XPC8245 processor with a maximum of 256 Mbytes of DRAM * SC13 starts at $986 MEN Micro...

Embedded systems: TigerSHARC DSP board.
January 24, 2002... * Employs one or two clusters of four Analog Devices TigerSHARC DSPs on a PCI-bus board * Delivers 1080 Mflops of processing power per DSP * Tiger-PCI, from $3995 BittWare Research Systems, 1-603-226-0404, www.bittware.com At...

Embedded systems: PCI temperature monitor.(Acces I/O Products PCI-AI12-16A-TM)(Brief Article)(Product Announcement)
January 24, 2002... * Offers 16 or 32 type K thermocouples with onboard cold-junction compensation * Requires no programming * PCI-AI12-16A-TM, $3129 (16-channel version) and $4618 (32-channel version) Acces I/O Products, 1-858-550-9559,...

Embedded systems: PCI/ISA computer board.(Adlink Technology NuPRO-780DV)(Brief Article)(Product Announcement)
January 24, 2002... * Employs an Intel-embedded 815E chip set for use with a 1.26-GHz Pentium III CPU * Supplies a MiniPCI socket and autoselect 100/133-MHz front-side bus * NuPRO-780DV, $299 without CPU or memory (10) Adlink Technology Inc,...

Embedded systems: PC/104 I/O card.
January 24, 2002... * Outfitted with a 100,000- or 200,000-gate FPGA for creating almost any kind of specialized I/O function * Furnishes 48 or 64 I/O bits * 4I34, $123 (100) Mesa Electronics, 1-510-223-9272, www.mesanet.com At www.ednmag.com,...