EDN articles from January 2009

EDN archives from January 2009

The price of falling prices: evaluating value-oriented x86 CPUs.
January 8, 2009... by Brian Dipert, Senior Technical Editor Economical microprocessors may enable you to easily hit your next design's bill-of-materials cost target, but will they also allow you to accomplish your performance and power-consumption objectives?...

Choosing a touch technology for handheld-system applications.
January 8, 2009... by Andrew Hsu, PhD, Synaptics The demand for larger displays in small handheld devices makes choosing the right touch technology critical. During the last two decades, touch technologies have gained acceptance in a variety of consumer...

Physical design and architectural design.
January 8, 2009... by Pallab Chatterjee, Contributing Technical Editor Historically, in the semiconductor-design flow, tapeout came after the last stages of the physical-design creation and verification. It was the final step before the design entered the...

DSO-based software analyzes 20-GHz-bandwidth RF signals.
January 8, 2009... by Dan Strassberg Tektronix has announced SignalVu vector-signal-analysis software, which enables engineers to use the company's DPO7000 and DPO/DSA70000 DSOs (digital-storage oscilloscopes) to easily characterize and validate wideband and...

Precise monitoring maximizes HEV-lithium-ion-battery performance.(Linear Technology Corp.)
January 8, 2009... by Graham Prophet Linear Technology has been working closely with a major HEV (hybrid-electric-vehicle) manufacturer in developing the LTC6802 high-voltage, precision battery-stack-monitor chip. The vehicle builder is making the transition...

FPGA-based PXI modules improve test-system-I/O performance.
January 8, 2009... by Dan Strassberg NI (National Instruments) has introduced a new generation of open, FPGA (field-programmable-gate-array)-based PXI (peripheral-component-interconnect-extensions-for-instrumentation) modules. The company calls the FlexRIO...

RF-communications software spans signal generation and analysis.
January 8, 2009... by Graham Prophet Keithley Instruments has expanded its free SignalMeister software platform to include RF-signal analysis and generation. It controls generation and analysis of both SISO (single-input/single-output) and MIMO...

Portable MSO line features $4300, 100-MHz-bandwidth unit.
January 8, 2009... by Dan Strassberg Tektronix's new MSO-2000 MSO (mixed-signal-oscilloscope) and DPO2000 DPO (digital-phosphor-oscilloscope) series offer tools to simplify debugging of mixed-signal designs. These tools include Wave Inspector...

Economists, mathematics, and where the semiconductor industry is headed.
January 8, 2009... by Ron Wilson A snide person might observe that, if circuit designers were equipped with the same formidable mathematical skills as economists, we would all be using single-ended triode amplifiers that oscillated when we turned the gain...

MIT researchers claim 50% increase in solar-cell output.(Massachusetts Institute of Technology)(Brief article)
January 8, 2009... by Matthew Miller A team of physicists and engineers at MIT (Massachusetts Institute of Technology) claims that sandwiching a solar cell between an antireflective coating on the front and a combination of reflective coatings and a...

Tests resolve tension over silicon strain.
January 8, 2009... by Matthew Miller In work that should help silicon-device makers optimize materials and processes, scientists at the NIST (National Institute of Standards and Technology) have demonstrated the ability to measure stress in regions of a...

Future nonvolatile memories may have carbon footprints.(Brief article)
January 8, 2009... by Matthew Miller A Rice University team has proposed that a strip of graphene 10 atoms thick could serve as the basic storage element in a new form of memory. With individual bits smaller than 10 nm, the memory's capacity would improve...

Inventory management key to staying afloat in downturn.
January 8, 2009... Edited by Suzanne Deffree The economy is bad, but will the electronics industry see another massive downturn in 2009 similar to that of 2001? No, according to a number of electronics-supply-chain watchers, including Robin Gray (photo ),...

2009 PC outlook slashed.(iSuppli Corp.)(Brief article)
January 8, 2009... Edited by Suzanne Deffree ISuppli Corp (www.isuppli.com ) has slashed its 2009 forecast for PC unit shipments by nearly two-thirds and is predicting single-digit growth of only 4.3% this year. It estimates total 2009 PC shipments will...

Premier Farnell targets unregulated e-waste recycling in developing countries.
January 8, 2009... Edited by Suzanne Deffree UK-based distributor Premier Farnell plc (www.premierfarnell.com ) and its global sister companies, including Newark (www.newark.com ), have launched an e-waste (electronics-waste) campaign to raise the awareness...

A bad-capacitor story ends happily.
January 8, 2009... by Samuel Kerem, The Johns Hopkins University, APL, Space Department I worked as a design engineer for an optical-telecom company that had deployed 1000 pieces of equipment worldwide. Having so many modules in the field means a trickle of...

Isolation MOSFET-driver IC gets improved power efficiency at lighter loads.
January 8, 2009... Marián Eatofka, Slovak University of Technology, Bratislava, Slovakia Edited by Martin Rowe and Fran Granville Many modern power MOSFETs reach low values of on-resistance at 5V even when the gate-to-source voltage is 5V. For...

Synthesize variable resistors with hyperbolic taper.
January 8, 2009... TL Flaig, Clinton, WA Edited by Martin Rowe and Fran Granville In adjustable, frequency-selective RC networks, the reciprocal of an RC product, IeC =1/RC, determines the corner frequencies of the network. If the adjustable elements are...

Evolution and innovation.
January 22, 2009... by Rick Nelson, Editor-in-Chief What drives innovation, and can we harness the driving force to innovate our way out of our current economic difficulties? Next month, we at EDN will be asking you to help us identify the most innovative...

Match sensor to converter or converter to sensor.
January 22, 2009... by Bonnie Baker The initial design approach you might take for an analog-to-digital-converter system is to look at the resolution you need and use an ADC that gives you a comparable resolution. To achieve the required accuracy or...

Simulation gets speed, capacity boost.
January 22, 2009... by Rick Nelson, Editor-in-Chief Analog- and RF-simulation tools offer choices of simulation speeds and support hierarchical design strategies. Speed, accuracy, and ease of use are key demands of designers employing simulation to get...

Stackable architectures diverge.
January 22, 2009... by Warren Webb, Technical Editor Although standards organizations differ on updates to replace the obsolete ISA-bus technology, classic PC/104 continues to attract embedded-system designers. With recent additions to the official...

Increase the range of memorized voltage for a sample-and-hold device.(Technical report)
January 22, 2009... Yakov Velikson, Lexington, MA Edited By Martin Rowe and Fran Granville Sample-and-hold devices find use in front of ADCs. The basic sample-and-hold circuit comprises two op amps, A1 and A2 ; a switch, S1 ; and a capacitor, C1 (Figure 1...

Inexpensive self-resetting circuit breaker requires few parts.(Technical report)
January 22, 2009... Anthony H Smith, Scitech, Bedfordshire, England Edited by Martin Rowe and Fran Granville Most readers are familiar with the current-limiting circuit in Figure 1 , in which the load current, IL , is limited to a value of IL eeVBE /RS ,...

Sinusoid generator uses dual-output current-controlled conveyors.
January 22, 2009... Abhirup Lahiri, Netaji Subhas Institute of Technology, New Delhi, India Edited by Martin Rowe and Fran Granville Second-generation current conveyors feature wide signal bandwidth, linearity, wide dynamic range, simple circuitry, and...

Perform timing for microcontrollers without using timers.
January 22, 2009... Ganeshkumar Krishnamoorthy, NTERA Ltd, Dublin, Ireland Edited by Martin Rowe and Fran Granville Microcontrollers now find use in every walk of life. Their peripherals vary from the general-purpose I/Os to the USB interface, making them...

The Motorola H500 Bluetooth headset.
January 22, 2009... by Paul Rako, Technical Editor While raking some leaves recently, I uncovered a fully charged Bluetooth headset. Someone's loss is someone else's gain, I thought as I pried into the interior of this popular consumer-electronics device. ...

Modern ADCs improve CMOS image sensors.
January 22, 2009... by Randy Torrance, Chipworks Inc IC designers have improved the ADCs inside CMOS sensors, which must capture frames quickly enough for high-definition video. With this constraint in mind, designers must weigh the benefits of ADC...

Lithium-ion battery charger provides USB OTG capability.
January 22, 2009... by Jinrong Qian, PhD, Texas Instruments With users demanding communication among their mobile devices, supporting the power needs of USB OTG (On-The-Go) becomes a requirement. Optimize your battery chargers for a current-limited source,...

Flared-pin heat sinks use natural convection to cool *green* applications.
January 22, 2009... by Margery Conner Cool Innovations has introduced a line of flared-pin fin heat sinks featuring an array of sparsely configured round pins that slant outward, a configuration that cools components in natural convection environments. The...

Technology squeezes the most power from solar-cell arrays.
January 22, 2009... by Graham Prophet National Semiconductor plans to introduce the SolarMagic chip technology, which optimizes the power output from solar-cell arrays. The company expects the chip to be useful in the management of battery packs in...

iPhone's popularity helps boost MEMS market.
January 22, 2009... by Suzanne Deffree Apple Inc (www.apple.com ) isn't the only company benefiting from the popularity of the iPhone. According to a recent report from iSuppli Corp, the handset is spurring competitors to offer products with comparable...

Kit eases power-evaluation tasks.
January 22, 2009... by Margery Conner The eTEG (embedded thermoelectric generator) power-generation-evaluation kit from Nextreme eases power-evaluation tasks in applications such as energy harvesting. The thin-film eTEG uses the Seebeck effect--the conversion...

Scopes achieve 80G-sample/sec acquisition, bandwidth to 30 GHz.
January 22, 2009... by Dan Strassberg LeCroy's latest introduction, the 8 Zi line, includes WaveMaster digital oscilloscopes, serial-data analyzers, and disk-drive analyzers. The devices provide bandwidth as high as 30 GHz; acquisition of as many as 80G...

Gallium-nitride technology targets power devices.
January 22, 2009... by Graham Prophet International Rectifier plans this year to introduce a power-device technology employing gallium nitride on silicon. The company grows an epitaxial layer of gallium nitride on a conventional silicon wafer, and the gallium...

Chinese company begins selling HEVs.(BYD Auto)(hybrid electric vehicle)
January 22, 2009... by Margery Conner This month, BYD Auto began selling the first mass-produced plug-in HEV (hybrid electric vehicle). The plug-in hybrid version of its conventional F3 model, the F3DM (dual mode), went on sale in China for about 150,000 yuan...

ISSCC papers look toward high-definition handsets.
January 22, 2009... by Ron Wilson An early look at papers to be presented at the 2009 ISSCC (International Solid State Circuits Conference) this February suggest the imminent arrival of HD (high-definition) video in your hand. Underlying technology in...

$39 USB tool eases real-time development.
January 22, 2009... by Warren Webb A new Piccolo family of microcontrollers from Texas Instruments offers real-time-embedded-system designers a higher level of integration by combining the CPU and memory with a series of built-in peripheral modules, including...

Silicon Laboratories' Mark Thompson.
January 22, 2009... by Robert Cravotta Mark Thompson is the vice president for the microcontroller division of Silicon Laboratories, which manufactures high-performance, analog-intensive, mixed-signal ICs. The company's products include 8-bit...

Crystal clear.(Column)
January 22, 2009... by Roy Gardner, Superior Technical Years ago, I was on a team working for All American Racers in Santa Ana, CA. During a test session, the sound of our team's newly designed Indy car screaming by at 180 mph made it difficult for us to...