EDN articles from July 2006

EDN archives from July 2006

When is good enough good enough?
July 6, 2006... by Bonnie Baker If you are having difficulty making product-selection decisions in a consumer circuit, such as the temperature-sensor circuit in Figure 1 , you can quickly solve this problem by choosing the absolute best performing...

100-Mbps broadband: how, why, when, and where?
July 6, 2006... by Maury Wright, Editor in Chief A triple play of voice, video, and data moves the bandwidth target as consumers adopt HDTV and DVR technologies and demand more content choices. Long the Holy Grail for telecom companies and MSOs...

Is chip design different after 90 nm?
July 6, 2006... by Ron Wilson, Executive Editor Design teams find that success requires some fundamental changes in thinking and in team structure in the 90- and 65-nm processes. At every new process node, IC design becomes more difficult. But, as...

Error compensation improves bipolar-current sinks.
July 6, 2006... Christian de Godzinsky, Planmeca Oy, Helsinki, Finland Edited by Brad Thompson and Fran Granville You can improve a current sink's accuracy by at least two orders of magnitude by adding two standard 1%-tolerance resistors. As a bonus,...

Phase-sequence indicator uses few passive components.
July 6, 2006... Metodi Iliev, University of California-Berkeley Edited by Brad Thompson and Fran Granville In a three-phase ac system, a power source with three wires delivers ac potentials of equal frequency and amplitudes with respect to a...

Microcontroller's single I/O-port line drives a bar-graph display.
July 6, 2006... R Jayapal, PhD, Bharat Heavy Electricals Ltd, Trichy, India Edited by Brad Thompson and Fran Granville Instrument designs featuring a digital display may benefit from a secondary display that provides an analog version of the displayed...

Triple-play roadblocks: technology or competence?
July 6, 2006... by Maury Wright, Editor in Chief I had the pleasure of writing the cover story in this issue on next-generation broadband technology and how fast broadband links ultimately become the conduit for high-definition video into the home. The...

MP3 disassembly: tech for thrifty tune-toters.
July 6, 2006... by Brian Dipert, Senior Technical Editor After I bought a laser-printer-toner cartridge, a "free-with-$75-purchase" coupon also brought an OD-128MP3, also known as the MP3-818, portable digital-audio player to my door. The price was music...

Isolating USB.
July 6, 2006... by Lane Hauck, Maxim Integrated Products With isolation, the USB fits a whole new crop of applications. Although designers rely on the industry-standard USB (Universal Serial Bus) port to interface computers with hundreds of custom...

Reducing ground bounce in dc/dc-converter applications.
July 6, 2006... By Jeff Barrow, Analog Devices Electrical ground, which looks simple on a schematic, can become complex depending on how you lay out the pc board. Unfortunately, ground-node analysis is difficult. However, understanding the physics of...

Rugged wireless-sensor networks suit harsh industrial environments.
July 6, 2006... by Margery Conner Industrial environments are usually harsh, with hazards such as strong mechanical vibrations, high temperatures, noisy electrical environments, and even explosive gases. It's difficult and expensive to install wiring in...

Micron jumps into hybrid NANDs.
July 6, 2006... by Michael Santarini With hybrid-NAND pioneers Samsung ( www.samsung.com ) and M-Systems ( www.m-systems.com ) feuding, Micron Technology is seizing the opportunity to introduce a hybrid-NAND device targeting the high-end-cell-phone...

C-synthesis tool adds features, capacity.(Mentor Graphics Corp.)
July 6, 2006... by Michael Santarini Mentor Graphics has introduced a higher capacity version of its Catapult C ANSI-C+ +-based synthesis tool that designers can now use to build a prototype of a full DSP-based subsystem. Mentor in 2004 introduced the...

Software optimizes networked-instrument usage.
July 6, 2006... by Dan Strassberg EdenTree Technologies has announced Lab Manager 5.0, a re-engineered version of its award-winning network-lab-automation software. The Lab Manager open-lab operating system works with any kind of network equipment,...

Toshiba spins 200-Gbyte, 2.5-in. hard-disk drive.
July 6, 2006... by Ron Wilson As digital video continues to expand in scope and volume, consumers continue to pile up large data files that-like those dust-gathering VHS cassettes-they are unwilling to delete. Without a viable backup medium for such data...

Pat Gelsinger.
July 6, 2006... by Ed Sperling, Editor in Chief, Electronic News Whither Intel? Pat Gelsinger, senior vice president and general manager of Intel's Digital Enterprise Group, recently talked about Intel's future directions, how the company will build...

Video op amps exceed HD needs.
July 6, 2006... by Graham Prophet, EDN Europe The most recent incarnation of power-semiconductor supplier Fairchild Semiconductor brands itself the "power franchise." Now, discrete supplier Fairchild is re-entering the high-performance-op-amp arena with...

LEDs take over in "mood" lighting.
July 6, 2006... by Graham Prophet, EDN Europe Using tricolor arrays of LEDs, architects and lighting designers can fine-tune intensity, color, and pattern to achieve "mood" lighting and other effects. Designers need to ensure that they apply the correct...

I²C bus now runs at 1 MHz.(Philips AG)
July 6, 2006... by Graham Prophet, EDN Europe Chip designers use the two-wire, serial I2 C bus for a range of interchip communications. Philips, which originated the bus more than 20 years ago, has now announced Fm + (fast-mode-plus) devices that take...

Xerox Star: The pioneer always gets the arrows.
July 6, 2006... by Ron Wilson Few mistakes in the technological world are as deadly as the decision to lead the way with a brilliant product. That lesson is the big take-away from Xerox Corp's milestone, the 8010 workstation, better known by the code...

Painting microprocessors in broad strokes.
July 20, 2006... by Maury Wright, Editor in Chief No one likely would argue the microprocessor's place on our roster of Milestones that Matter. Surely, there'd be heated discussion over who invented the processor. But the benefits of the invention are...

"Announcing a new era of integrated electronics.".
July 20, 2006... by Maury Wright, Editor in Chief This introduction for a new IC may seem immodest, but Intel Corp. might just be correct. The IC is a single-chip CPU designed for low-speed microprogrammable applications, such as terminals, peripherals,...

Hack-proof design.
July 20, 2006... by Warren Webb, Technical Editor Security requirements now top the embedded-system designer's checklist as networked devices multiply and hackers optimize their attack techniques. As embedded devices permeate society and assume ever...

Beyond ROHS: the greening of global markets.
July 20, 2006... by Margery Conner, Technical Editor US and Asian governments are about to impose their own versions of the EU's ROHS directive. Rather than targeting each region's regulations, manufacturers may standardize on the most stringent "green"...

Microprocessor generates programmable clock sequences.
July 20, 2006... William Grill, Honeywell BRGA, Lenexa, KS Edited by Brad Thompson and Fran Granville To produce trains of pulses suitable for keying transmitters, testing circuits, and debugging data links, designers requiring continuous or...

Ceramic output capacitors enhance internally compensated switchers.
July 20, 2006... Robert Kollman, Texas Instruments, Dallas, TX Edited by Brad Thompson and Fran Granville Integrating compensation components with a power-supply controller and buck regulator's power switches can minimize pc-board area, improve...

Tapped inductor, boost regulator deliver high voltage.
July 20, 2006... David Ng and Adam Huff, Linear Technology Corp, Milpitas, CA Edited by Brad Thompson and Fran Granville When you face the task of generating a regulated voltage that's higher than the available power-supply voltage, you may consider...

Contextually correct search: a timesaver for engineers.
July 20, 2006... by Maury Wright, Editor in Chief If you've recently visited our Web site, www.edn.com , you may have noticed a new search feature, Zibb, in a rectangular, blue box near the top of the page. Our parent company, Reed Business Information,...

Scaling: a balanced view, part three.
July 20, 2006... By Joshua Israelsohn, Contributing Technical Editor In the last installment of Analog Domain, the application's matching, noise, and 1/f noise requirements determined the model minimum circuit's load capacitance, CMIN --a representation...

Reference-free pair.
July 20, 2006... by Howard Johnson, PhD A correspondent from Capstone Visual needs to carry some high-speed network traces across his two-layer pc board. The board consists of 62-mil-thick FR-4 material. No solid plane layer exists anywhere on this board....

Magnetic-field measurements hold the key to reducing dc/dc EMI.
July 20, 2006... by William J. Bowhers, Merrimack College Power converters free system designers from unwieldy constraints, but the devices radiate unspecified fields that can destroy the signal/noise performance of sensitive circuits nearby....

PCI Express: Ever-faster graphics pipe serves many masters.
July 20, 2006... by David L Fair, Intel Corp The new PCI Express spec significantly improves desktop-PC graphics. Developers are now working on Generation 2, which will further expand the graphics pipe. The new PCI (Peripheral Component Interconnect)...

Organic semiconductors shine in LED/photosensor combinations.
July 20, 2006... by Margery Conner Silicon circuits provide high-speed switching of many tiny circuits and are good for use in small LEDs and photodiodes. Silicon has limitations, however, for systems that need to be cheap, environmentally friendly,...

Chip offers authentication, protection to single-cell battery packs.
July 20, 2006... by Margery Conner Cell-phone battery gauges are neither accurate nor consistent: The battery-charge symbol seems to relate only coincidentally to battery charge, causing users to charge their phones when they don't need to, consequently...

Kit eases mobile-TV design.(Frontier Silicon)(Brief article)
July 20, 2006... by Warren Webb Frontier Silicon's latest evaluation kit allows designers to test and measure the performance of the company's Apollo RF receiver and Kino 2 chip set for mobile-TV applications. The Troy kit receives a T-DMB (terrestrial...

SRIO switch for base stations adds preprocessing function, algorithms.
July 20, 2006... by Ron Wilson The architecture of cellular base stations typically involves a bank of RF front-end cards that sends packetized sample data, generally through SRIO (serial RapidIO) to an ASIC or FPGA. The ASIC or FPGA acts as a fairly...

Partners drive WiMax momentum across Asia.
July 20, 2006... by Maury Wright Since early in the development of the WiMax wireless-broadband standard, pundits have predicted a lot of deployment in regions such as Asia where large geographic areas lack a wired infrastructure. That scenario is coming...

Ceramic substrate enables distributed processing in vehicles.(Kyocera Inc.)(Brief article)
July 20, 2006... by Maury Wright The automobile has evolved to depend on a complex distribution of computational resources in subsystems ranging from brakes to safety to engine control. But distributing processor-based subsystems into environmentally...

Researchers listen to the sounds of CMOS.
July 20, 2006... by Matthew Miller Scientists at NIST (National Institute of Standards and Technology), working with IBM and RF Micro Devices, have developed methods to reliably measure the faint thermal noise generated by the random motion of electrons...

Molecular electronics gel in a jar.
July 20, 2006... by Matthew Miller Researchers from Philips Research and the University of Groningen (Groningen, Netherlands) have developed a molecular self-assembly process that reliably produces arrays of 1.5-nm-thick molecular diodes on standard...

Sparks could prevent airline crashes.
July 20, 2006... by Matthew Miller Airline-maintenance crews, not to mention passengers, face a frightening prospect: Somewhere within the miles of wiring inside a commercial airplane, a minuscule physical fault, such as a bit of worn insulation, can...

Newton's life lesson.
July 20, 2006... by Michael Santarini Ultimately, the device failed to take off because it had trouble synchronizing with the outside world, it was too large to fit into a pocket, and it had a $1000 price tag. Ridicule of the handwriting-recognition...

Sweating blood over hardware-interface routines.(Column)
July 20, 2006... by Peter Hiscocks, Syscomp Electronic Design Ltd In the 1980s, I obtained a number of consulting contracts to put the Vinten aerial photo camera and various other sensing devices into fixed-wing and helicopter aircraft. Along the way, I...