EDN articles from June 2007

EDN archives from June 2007

Where did all the bits go?
June 7, 2007... by Bonnie Baker Theoretically, the SNR (signal-to-noise ratio) of an ADC is equal to (6.02N+1.76) dB, where N equals the number of ADC bits. Although I'm a little rusty with my algebra skills, I think that the SNR for any 16-bit converter...

Hop, jump, and spread: wireless machine-to-machine interfaces.
June 7, 2007... by Paul Rako, Technical Editor Inexpensive wireless links and embedded processors combine to sustain the computer revolution. These devices can't do everything at once, though. Radio and system design is always an analog discipline. ...

Industrial networks mix old with new.(Editorial)
June 7, 2007... by Warren Webb, Technical Editor Industrial devices and their interconnections have an extended life cycle requiring designers to interact with multiple generations of technology. As distributed, intelligent devices become commonplace...

Simple fixture determines leakage of capacitors and semiconductor switches.
June 7, 2007... Marián A tofka, Slovak University of Technology, Bratislava, Slovakia Edited by Charles H Small and Fran Granville The circuit in Figure 1a comprises a voltage follower, IC1 , and the reference-voltage source of IC2 . IC1 is an...

Recycle precision potentiometers as useful voltage sources.
June 7, 2007... Mark Thoren, Linear Technology, Milpitas, CA Edited by Charles H Small and Fran Granville An analog- or a mixed-signal lab cannot have too many voltage sources. A simple, reasonably high-precision voltage source can set bias points in...

Circuit breaker provides overcurrent and precise overvoltage protection.
June 7, 2007... Anthony H Smith, Scitech, Bedfordshire, England Edited by Charles H Small and Fran Granville Requiring only a handful of inexpensive components, the circuit breaker in Figure 1 responds to both overcurrent- and overvoltage-fault...

Paralleling decreases autozero-amplifier noise by a factor of two.(Editorial)
June 7, 2007... Marián A tofka, Slovak University of Technology, Bratislava, Slovakia Edited by Charles H Small and Fran Granville Autozero amplifiers have almost zero drift and input-offset values of 1 to 20 [micro]V. You can compensate for...

Two transistors form high-precision, ac-mains ZCD.
June 7, 2007... Djessas Zoheir, Constantine, Algeria Edited by Charles H Small and Fran Granville Many applications that use 110V/230V-ac mains require a ZCD (zero-crossing-detection) circuit for the ac-line voltage, for example, to synchronize the...

Internet video provides another channel for Design Idea delivery.(Website overview)
June 7, 2007... by Maury Wright, Editorial Director If you've recently visited EDN.com, I hope you've noticed a number of enhancements. We've begun to offer short tutorial and how-to video programs, including video versions of our always-popular Design...

Digital-debugging methods save time.
June 7, 2007... by Jennie Grosslight, Agilent Technologies Three logic-analyzer techniques combine stimulus and real-time capture for circuit validation and debugging. If you are performing validation tests or debugging circuits, you can save time by...

External components improve SAR-ADC accuracy.(successive-approximation-register)
June 7, 2007... by Bonnie C Baker and Miro Oljaca, Texas Instruments Directly driving the input of a capacitive SAR ADC with an op-amp output can produce transients that degrade the converter's performance. Interposing an RC network can solve the...

Scope.
June 7, 2007... Edited by Ron Wilson Looking Ahead To SEMIcon West Arguably the original conference concerning semiconductor manufacturing, SEMIcon West, the SEMI (Semiconductor Equipment and Materials International) organization's annual West...

Silence in the sanctuary.
June 7, 2007... by Dick Neubert, Electronics Engineer The 'cube' in this tale was the sound booth at Springfield Assembly of God Church (Springfield, VT), where I'm the sound man. We have an electret microphone hanging from the sanctuary ceiling that...

Breaking up: diagnosing a dropped phone.(Editorial)
June 7, 2007... by Paul Rako, Technical Editor About to hang up from a conference call, I accidentally dropped Plantronics' (www.plantronics.com ) Polycom CT12 portable phone. It just happened to hit the floor right on its headphone plug, breaking its...

Counting The Micro Amps.
June 7, 2007... By Frederik Dostal, Applications Engineer, National Semiconductor THE CHALLENGE Many design engineers working on automotive electrical systems ask for higher efficiencies of the power supply. This is not much different to what power...

Efficiency Enablers: ICs Have the Green Light.
June 7, 2007... By Linnea Brush The demand for energy efficiency is coming from a variety of sources: government programs, aging infrastructure, cost savings, environmental awareness, and so on. Design engineers are always looking for higher efficiencies...

Power Integrity Engineering.(solution for all Original equipment manufacturers OEM's)(ways for enhacing industrial engineering)
June 7, 2007... By Billy Ken Stead, Product Development Manager, Molex Incorporated Taking an Elevated Role in the Design Process THE CHALLENGE As servers, routers and switching equipment shrink, managing the demand for more power in smaller...

MOSFETs: Increased Efficiency In Bridge Rectifiers.
June 7, 2007... By Billy Sevel, Field Applications Engineer, Fairchild Semiconductor THE CHALLENGE Electronic engineers know the common mantras when it comes to creating new designs: Make it cheaper. Make it smaller. Make it faster. These goals,...

Letter from the editor.(Editorial)
June 7, 2007... Linnea C. Brush, Senior Research Analyst Darnell Group The demand for energy efficiency comes from many sources, including government programs, aging infrastructure, cost savings and environmental awareness. More efficient power supplies...

Increased Efficiency.
June 7, 2007... By Jeremiah Bryant Driven by Multiple Issues Regulators and the open market have demanded that power supplies become more efficient. While this has been evident for the last few years, the combined drumbeat is getting louder and not...

Digital POL controller turns phases on or off to suit load, increase power efficiency.(point-of-load launched by Texas Instruments)(Brief article)
June 7, 2007... by Margery Conner When many power-supply designers hear the phrase "digital power," their reaction is often: too complicated, too expensive. Power-controller-IC manufacturers have been trying to overcome that bias by introducing...

Rugged board computer is I/O-intensive.
June 7, 2007... by Warren Webb With operation over the -40 to +70[degrees]C industrial-temperature range, the EBC-855-G-1.8-1 single-board computer from WinSystems targets rugged automation, medical-equipment, communications, security, and measurement...

IC Manage announces new version of design-management software.
June 7, 2007... by Michael Santarini Design-data management may not be the most thrilling daily task IC-design groups and their managers must perform, but IC Manage is trying to make it easier with its latest platform, IC Manage GDP (global-design...

Not your average power analyzer, dc unit makes short work of tedious test setups.
June 7, 2007... by Dan Strassberg The term "power analyzer" usually describes an instrument for characterizing ac-power waveforms, measuring such properties as harmonic content. Agilent's N6705A is not such a device, however; the dc-power analyzer may...

Apache option adds support for advanced low-power techniques.(Apache Design added ALP option to RedHawk-LP)(Brief article)
June 7, 2007... by Michael Santarini EDA vendor Apache Design has added an optional module to its low-power-design tool, RedHawk-LP (low power); the new module, RedHawk-ALP (advanced low power), adds support for emerging low-power-design techniques....

Interop brings wave of 10GbE products.
June 7, 2007... by Maury Wright In the weeks before Interop, which kicked off on May 21 in Las Vegas, suppliers of ICs, board-level network adapters, and software released a flurry of 10GbE (10-Gbps-Ethernet)-compatible products. Without question, the...

Certess tool tests verification environments.(Certess Inc launches Certitude tool)(Company overview)
June 7, 2007... by Michael Santarini EDA start-up Certess Inc has announced the Certitude tool, which uses a mutation-analysis-software technique to help designers locate improperly functioning areas in their verification flows. "The...

NXP Japan launches automotive division, targets networks.
June 7, 2007... by Takatsuna Mamoto, Editor in Chief, EDN Japan NXP Semiconductors Japan recently established the Automotive Chip Division and the Competence Center to support chip development for Japanese automotive manufacturers. The company also...

Plugfest moves Mobile WiMax toward interoperability, broad deployment.
June 7, 2007... by Maury Wright The mobile flavor of WiMax (Worldwide Interoperability for Microwave Access) could be the keystone leading the wireless broadband technology to widespread deployment. Mobile WiMax supports true mobile broadband and will...

Exploring memory architectures: pillars of processing performance.
June 21, 2007... by Robert Cravotta, Technical Editor Processor-based systems rely on multiple, heterogeneous memory subsystems to deliver better system performance, power, and cost efficiencies. A key performance characteristic of processor...

Design for debugging: the unspoken imperative in chip design.
June 21, 2007... by Ron Wilson, Executive Editor It's not widely discussed, but one of the critical components in a successful SOC is on-chip provision for bringing up the first silicon. Testing and debugging present different problems. In testing, the...

Add a grounded-switch feature for Topswitch on/off control.(Editorial)
June 21, 2007... Robert N Buono, Aeolian Audio LLC, Bloomfield, NJ Edited by Charles H Small and Fran Granville The Power Integrations Topswitch family (www.powerint.com/topgxproduct.htm ) of integrated flyback-regulator ICs provides exceptional...

RC lowpass filter expands microcomputer's output port.
June 21, 2007... Rex Niven, Forty Trout Electronics, Eltham, Victoria, Australia Edited by Charles H Small and Fran Granville It's almost a corollary to Moore's Law: Next year, microcomputers will have more features, and the software team will have...

Simple dual constant-current load tests low-current power supplies.(Editorial)
June 21, 2007... John S Lo Giudice, STMicroelectronics, Schaumburg, IL Edited by Charles H Small and Fran Granville Today's small electronic appliances, such as washers, dryers, and stoves, use switched-mode power supplies to replace bulky, heavy,...

Stepper-motor motion controller and driver fit into a CPLD/FPGA.
June 21, 2007... Stephan Roche, Santa Rosa, CA Edited by Charles H Small and Fran Granville This Design Idea further develops a previous one integrating a stepper-motor driver in a CPLD (Reference 1 ). However, this idea integrates not only the driver,...

DAC stumbles looking to find firm future.(Design Automation Conference)
June 21, 2007... by Maury Wright, Editorial Director The June 2007 rendition of DAC (Design Automation Conference) in San Diego again revealed an uncertain direction for the chip-design community. Moreover, organizers appear to be looking for some way to...

Finger the culprit.
June 21, 2007... by Howard Johnson, PhD Last week, at a class in Rochester, NY, one of my students asked, 'What is the most difficult kind of problem to debug?' My answer came quickly: 'Something that fails every two weeks.' If a device fails less...

The evolution of SERDES designs for cell phones.
June 21, 2007... by Michael Fowler, Fairchild Semiconductor Applying a systems approach to silicon design leads to success. Slimmer cell phones with more functions and features have created a number of system-design challenges. The problems are...

PCI Express speeds data acquisition.(Adlink Technology Inc. introduces data acquisition cards)(Brief article)
June 21, 2007... by Warren Webb With high-speed, high-volume industrial-automation, laboratory-measurement, actuator-control, and acoustic applications in mind, Adlink Technology recently unveiled a line of PCIe (PCI Express) data-acquisition cards. With a...

Tiny cube packs three gyros, three accelerometers, and more.(Analog Devices Inc. introduces ADIS16355 IMU)(Brief article)
June 21, 2007... by Margery Conner IMUs (inertial-measurement units) rely on a combination of accelerometers and gyros to measure acceleration and rotational change and to calculate position and motion. Typically finding use in aircraft and missiles, IMUs...

EDA start-up GateRocket brings hardware-based accelerator to FPGAs.(field-programmable gate array)
June 21, 2007... by Michael Santarini EDA start-up GateRocket Inc wants to bring hardware-assisted verification to designers programming the biggest FPGAs from Xilinx (www.xilinx.com ) and Altera (www.altera.com ) and claims that its...

EZ-Color controller family simplifies HB-LED-lighting-system designs.
June 21, 2007... by Margery Conner All HB (high-brightness) LEDs are not created equal: Even within the same part number, their performance, including wavelength, brightness, and power, can vary. HB-LED manufacturers use a 'binning' process to test each...

Sigrity I/O planner spans IC, package, and PCB.
June 21, 2007... by Michael Santarini Sigrity Inc last month introduced OrbitIO Planner, a tool for dynamic I/O planning across IC, package, and PCB (printed-circuit-board) design. To date, the company has offered tools for IC, package, and PCB power and...

Microprocessor Forum recap: balancing power and performance.
June 21, 2007... by Robert Cravotta Balancing processing performance with energy efficiency continued to be the theme at this year's Microprocessor Forum, which took place last month in San Jose, CA. The forum is an opportunity for companies not only to...

Table-top setup characterizes antennas in 60- to 110-GHz range.
June 21, 2007... by Matthew Miller Researchers at NIST (National Institute of Science and Technology) have developed a table-top apparatus that can accurately characterize the gain and polarization of antennas operating in the 60- to 110-GHz frequency...

Military-funded-research program seeks to beat the heat.(Brief article)
June 21, 2007... by Matthew Miller Do you think your system has heat problems? Then, consider the challenge the military faces with space-constrained, electronics-packed, high-powered vehicles that must function without failures in extreme temperatures. A...

MEMS design can reach 300 microns, use power tools.
June 21, 2007... by Matthew Miller Students at the University of Oklahoma developed the winning MEMS (microelectromechanical-system) design in a contest that Sandia National Laboratories runs. The design can raise an arm 90[degrees] and 300 microns above...

Scope.(how to enhance the computer memeory)
June 21, 2007... Edited by Ron Wilson Looking Ahead To MemCon San Jose A growing number of system architects say that memory is one of the hardest problems they face. They must decide which kind of memory structures to use, where to put them, how...

The eyes have it.
June 21, 2007... by Jerome Johnston, Cirrus Logic In the mid-1970s, I joined a company that designed and manufactured scientific instruments for studying plants. LI-COR (www.licor.com ) provided instruments such as the world's only portable leaf-area...