EDN articles from June 2006

EDN archives from June 2006

Agile mixer targets RFID, GSM, and WiMax.(Brief article)
June 8, 2006... by Maury Wright You can configure Linear Technology's new LT5560 as an upconverting or downconverting mixer, and it can serve in public-safety handheld radios, WiMax-transceiver modems, handheld RFID readers, VHF/UHF transceivers,...

Choosing antialiasing-filter amplifiers.
June 8, 2006... by Bonnie Baker When you digitize an analog signal, you use a lowpass filter to prevent aliasing errors from out-of-band noise. Doing so attenuates superimposed, high-frequency noise on the analog signal before it reaches the ADC. If the...

FPGAs balance lower power, smaller nodes drip by drip.(Field Programmable Gate-Array)(Application specific integrated circuits)
June 8, 2006... by Michael Santarini, Senior Editor The FPGA industry faces the Sisyphean task of addressing demand for low-power operation, even as vendors face the lure of performance, density, and price-per-gate advantages of the 65-nm-process node....

Making vehicles safer by making them smarter.
June 8, 2006... by Robert Cravotta, Technical Editor New features must be smarter to add value without distracting the driver and increasing the risk of accidents. According to semiconductor-market-research company IC Insights, electronic content made...

RFID tags: driving toward 5 cents.
June 8, 2006... by Charles J Murray, Technical Editor, Design News RFID-tag prices haven't yet reached the magical 5-cent mark, but aggressive changes in technology are pushing down their cost and improving performance. Makers of RFID chips and...

Obtain a lower dc voltage from a higher voltage power supply.
June 8, 2006... Luca Bruno, ITIS Hensemberger Monza, Lissone, Italy Edited by Brad Thompson and Fran Granville You can use the circuit in Figure 1 to obtain a low regulated voltage, such as 5V dc, from a higher voltage, rectified, sinusoidal voltage...

Line-powered driver lights up high-power LEDs.(Light Emitting Diodes)
June 8, 2006... Aaron Lager, Masterwork Electronics, Rohnert Park, CA Edited by Brad Thompson and Fran Granville Using LEDs has gained popularity as a method of saving power for general-purpose lighting, but an efficient method for driving them has...

Rectifier tracks positive and negative peaks.
June 8, 2006... Harry Bissell Jr, Welding Technology Corp, Farmington Hills, MI Edited by Brad Thompson and Fran Granville Signals ranging from music to complex control-system waveforms may contain unequal positive and negative peak amplitudes. An...

Isolated indicator signals telephone line's status.
June 8, 2006... Yongping Xia, Navcom Technology, Torrance, CA Edited by Brad Thompson and Fran Granville Part 68 of the FCC's (Federal Communications Commission, www.fcc.gov ) telecommunications regulations requires that certain signaling equipment...

Circuit converts DAC's outputs from single-ended to differential mode.
June 8, 2006... Liam Riordan, Analog Devices, Limerick, Ireland Edited by Brad Thompson and Fran Granville High-speed DACs, such as Analog Devices' AD9776/78/79 TxDAC family, offer differential outputs, but, for low-end ac applications or...

Spare us the drama, please.
June 8, 2006... by Michael Santarini, Senior Editor Cadence Design Systems late last month announced an ambitious and seemingly noble effort to create a common format so that tools throughout the design flow could share common data on power management....

Dropped call: breaking down a broken cell phone.(Sanyo MM-8300 )
June 8, 2006... by Brian Dipert, Senior Technical Editor "One man's trash is another man's treasure." That's the thought that ran through my mind when I discovered a Sanyo MM-8300 advanced cell phone, snapped into two pieces at the clamshell hinge and...

Stacked-chip-scale-package-design guidelines.
June 8, 2006... by Mark Gerber, Texas Instruments, Moody Dreiza, Amkor Technology Design optimization helps to avoid manufacturing problems, to maximize product performance, and to achieve lowest packaging cost. You can configure the die stack for...

Mesh networks publish remote data.(Accsense Inc.)(Brief article)
June 8, 2006... by Warren Webb Claiming to offer the modern replacement for the venerable strip-chart recorder, Accsense recently introduced a wireless-sensor system that measures a wide range of physical properties and delivers real-time data to any...

PWM controllers drive Intel dual-core processors.
June 8, 2006... by Maury Wright Pentium-class processors offer among the toughest challenges for power-system designers, and the new dual-core chips that meet the Intel VR11 power spec are no exceptions. Intersil is attacking the VR11 market with a...

ARM9 microcontroller touts connectivity, large on-chip memory.
June 8, 2006... by Robert Cravotta STMicroelectronics' STR910F series of ARM9E-based microcontrollers combine Ethernet, CAN (controller-area-network) 2.0B, and USB-FS support; as much as 96 kbytes of SRAM; and as much as 544 kbytes of flash in a single...

Logic analyzers sport 32M-sample memory.
June 8, 2006... by Dan Strassberg Agilent Technologies has expanded its logic-analyzer portfolio with eight new fixed-configuration models that constitute its next-generation 16800 series. The Agilent 16800 family of analyzers offers high-performance...

8051 core provides hardware-arithmetic extensions.(Ramtron Corp.)(Brief article)
June 8, 2006... by Robert Cravotta Ramtron's VRS51L2070, the latest device in the Versa 8051 microcontroller family, integrates a single-cycle, 40-MHz, 8051-based core with 4 kbytes of SRAM; 64 kbytes of in-system- and in-application-programmable flash;...

Power-dense, 200W ac/dc supply feeds communication systems.(XP Power )(Brief article)
June 8, 2006... by Margery Conner Datacom and telecom centers, with their power-hungry banks of servers, place some of the highest power-density requirements on ac/dc-switching power supplies. To address these requirements, XP Power has introduced the...

Audio IC controls power amp.
June 8, 2006... by Maury Wright Targeting audio-volume and -balance applications, the MAX5440 audio controller integrates a debounced rotary-encoder interface, wiper buffers, and two 40-kV-resistor strings. The interface uses gray-scale coding to move...

Tool analyzes leakage for MTCMOS designs.(Apache Design Solutions)
June 8, 2006... by Michael Santarini Apache Design Solutions has released a new version of its Red Hawk power-analysis tool targeting leakage management. Transistor leakage became a problem at the 130-nm node when fabs began using thinner oxide...

Servo driver extends embedded platform.(National Instruments Corp.)(Brief article)
June 8, 2006... by Warren Webb Targeting consumer electronics, industrial control, and automotive applications, National Instruments recently introduced a high-speed H-bridge servo-drive module for the CompactRIO embedded platform. The new NI 9505 drive...

DFM-tool start-up claims big power and yield gains.(design-for-manufacturing)(Company overview)
June 8, 2006... by Michael Santarini EDA-DFM (design-for-manufacturing) start-up BlazeDFM has announced its first tool, which it claims will reduce leakage power by as much as 40%, reduce leakage variability by as much as 60%, and improve timing by as...

Pulse/pattern generators produce clean waveforms, clean user interface.(Keithley Instruments Inc.)(Brief article)
June 8, 2006... by Dan Strassberg Keithley Instruments' Series 3400 pulse/pattern generators provide high signal fidelity and precise control of pulse widths of 3 nsec to 1000 sec, as well as a simple, intuitive user interface. The generators suit use...

Kris Pister and Ben Cook.(Interview)
June 8, 2006... by Margery Conner Back to basics Not too long ago, hotshot hardware-design engineers accrued bragging rights based on how many millions of transistors their chips had or how fast they were. Thanks to Moore's Law, transistors and...

Module simplifies data acquisition with USB.(Universal serial bus)
June 8, 2006... by Graham Prophet National Instruments has introduced a data-acquisition system based on the connectivity of USB. The basic Compact DAQ hardware unit's eight-slot chassis accepts a range of hot-swappable, autodetected instrumentation...

Code verifies AHB designs.(Advanced High-performance Bus)(eInfochips)(Brief article)
June 8, 2006... by Chitra Giridhar, EDN Asia Advanced verification specialist EVE has selected silicon- and product-design-services company eInfochips to expand and complement the internally developed synthesizable transactor library for EVE's ZeBu...

Microcontroller hits nanoamp-current levels.(Atmel Corp.)(Brief article)
June 8, 2006... by Graham Prophet Four 8-bit AVR-architecture picoPower microcontrollers from Atmel have current demands of 300 mA when active; 150 mA in idle mode with a 1-MHz clock; 650 nA in power-saving mode, which operates a 32-kHz clock and a...

Broadband from airships: a lot of hot air?(Brief article)
June 8, 2006... by Matthew Miller In the late 1990s and early 2000s, anticipated demand for Internet access ran so high that several companies sprang up with plans to launch high-flying airships that would blanket cities with wireless coverage. The...

CMOS pioneer developed a precursor to the processor.
June 22, 2006... by Maury Wright, Editor in Chief Electronic engineers under the age of 40 or so may not even know that RCA was once a player in the semiconductor market. But RCA made a variety of semiconductors and was the leading supporter of CMOS back...

COS-MOS Could Put Computer Slice on a Chip.(Complementary Symmetry MOS)(Editorial)
June 22, 2006... by Maury Wright, Editor in Chief PHILADELPHIA - One direction in which LSI may take off in the next few years was dramatically illustrated at ISSCC by a description of a complete 4-bit slice of a computer's arithmetic section built for...

Capacitive touch sensors gain fans.
June 22, 2006... by David Marsh, Contributing Technical Editor Capacitive proximity sensors embody an old concept that today's IC technologies promise to deliver. Vendors vie to win over new markets in the automotive, consumer, and industrial markets...

Low-volume handheld designs: not for the faint of heart.
June 22, 2006... by Dan Strassberg, Contributing Technical Editor Designers of handheld devices confront more technological issues than do designers of many products a thousand times the size. When the devices are specialized and the expected unit volumes...

Microcontroller, JFET form low-cost, two-digit millivoltmeter.
June 22, 2006... Noureddine Benabadji, University of Sciences and Technology, Oran, Algeria Edited by Brad Thompson and Fran Granville The circuit in Figure 1 offers an inexpensive alternative to commercial digital voltmeters. Although it has only...

Inexpensive envelope tracker handles wide signal variations.
June 22, 2006... Anthony H Smith, Scitech, Bedfordshire, England Edited by Brad Thompson and Fran Granville Converting band-limited NRZ (non-return-to-zero) data to a digital format suitable for microprocessors and other digital systems poses problems...

Hartley oscillator requires no coupled inductors.
June 22, 2006... Jim McLucas, Longmont, CO Edited by Brad Thompson and Fran Granville Examine a traditional Hartley-oscillator circuit, and you'll note its trademark: a tapped inductor that determines the frequency of oscillation and provides...

Analog: the new black.(Editorial)
June 22, 2006... by Maury Wright, Editor in Chief I was never much of an analog guy. I fell for the microprocessor when I first encountered one as a junior in college, and, even before that, I fell for the PDP-11. But I know how important analog is these...

Sharp edges.
June 22, 2006... by Howard Johnson, PhD A correspondent from the University of Texas--Arlington recently wrote to me with some questions: Most books suggest that overshoot and ringing arise if the signal-rise time is less than the round-trip delay of the...

On-chip variation and timing closure.
June 22, 2006... by Anis Jarrar and Kirk Taylor, Freescale Semiconductor The advancement of process technology in the last few years has given chip designers integration capabilities never possible before and has led to a new wave of complex SOCs. These...

Mezzanine module boosts telecom processing power.
June 22, 2006... by Warren Webb Leveraging its expertise in dual-processor-mezzanine technology, Extreme Engineering Solutions recently announced the XPedite6240 AMC (advanced mezzanine card). Targeting high-performance-communications and networking...

Low-power computer increases embedded-system performance.
June 22, 2006... by Warren Webb Targeting defense and aerospace platforms in which size, weight, and power are critical, Curtiss-Wright Controls Embedded Computing recently announced the S/DCP3-1201, a 3U CompactPCI single-board computer featuring...

Eight-channel analyzer lets audio novices quickly make professional measurements.
June 22, 2006... by Dan Strassberg Audio Precision Inc calls the APx585 the first audio analyzer with eight channels of simultaneous analog I/O. Targeting use in testing multichannel consumer-audio products, the PC-controlled unit also features a novel...

Core targets performance efficiency.(ARM Computer Inc.)
June 22, 2006... by Robert Cravotta ARM's Cortex-R4 core targets real-time-processing requirements in the performance spectrum between the Cortex-M3 and the A8 cores. The core includes an eight-stage pipeline, and it implements the ARMv7 ISA...

Battery packs get tougher, smarter.(Micro Power Electronics Inc.)
June 22, 2006... by Margery Conner Rechargeable battery packs once comprised one or more lithium-ion cells with simple temperature-sensing functions to shut down the pack in overcurrent conditions. These units, however, can no longer meet the needs of...

A thousand submicron points of light.
June 22, 2006... by Matthew Miller Numerous applications--notably intrachip and interchip communications--would benefit greatly from devices that could combine electronic circuitry with the ability to emit light for optical communications. Thus, research...

Cell-phone housing fights global warming.
June 22, 2006... by Matthew Miller Fujitsu has unveiled a prototype mobile-phone chassis constructed from a bio-based polymer. The company claims that widespread use of the polymer, which Fujitsu made from materials it derived from corn and potatoes,...

Antenna design decreases bulk but boosts bandwidth.
June 22, 2006... by Matthew Miller Researchers at the Georgia Tech Research Institute have developed a phased-array antenna that can subsume the jobs of five conventional antennas, thus reducing bulk and weight in military applications. The design, a...

$1 microcontroller features ARM Cortex core.
June 22, 2006... by Graham Prophet, EDN Europe Start-up Luminary Micro is the first company to bring to market a microcontroller that incorporates ARM's ( www.arm.com ) Cortex core. According to Jean Anne Booth, Luminary's founder and chief marketing...

Converter extends battery life.
June 22, 2006... by Graham Prophet, EDN Europe Texas Instruments designed its TPS63000 buck-boost converter to power all portable products that use a single-cell lithium-ion battery or a two- or three-cell, alkaline, nickel-cadmium, or...

IP provider mounts structured ASICs on standard-cell libraries.
June 22, 2006... by Graham Prophet, EDN Europe Lightspeed Logic, previously a vendor of structured-ASIC silicon, has changed focus. The structured-ASIC silicon, somewhat similar to earlier gate-array devices, provided an array of logic functions that...

Wafer-scale integration peters out.
June 22, 2006... by Michael Santarini Between the system on a pc board and the SOC (system on chip), the semiconductor industry tried to create a system on wafer. During the late '70s and early '80s, a number of companies, including Texas Instruments,...

Targeting multifarad backup capacitors (and tricky clients, too).
June 22, 2006... by Jerry Durand, Durand Interstellar Inc Every contract-design company has at least one "interesting" client who presents you with unique and difficult challenges. Let's call the client Jay in this case. Recently, Jay needed to modify an...