EDN articles from October 2007

EDN archives from October 2007

Different strokes: The 34th annual microprocessor directory.
October 11, 2007... by Robert Cravotta, Technical Editor This year's directory presents you with a palette of processing options and development tools for your project Welcome to the 34th annual EDN microprocessor/microcontroller directory. Successful...

4G wireless: evolution or watershed in SOC architectures?
October 11, 2007... by Ron Wilson, Executive Editor The next step in wireless technology could prove the tipping point for multicore embedded processing. The almost-mythological fourth generation of wireless service-4G-could be the fountainhead of an...

Circuits protect outputs against overvoltage.
October 11, 2007... Dimitri Danyuk, Kiev, Ukraine Edited by Charles H Small and Fran Granville In test-and-measurement applications, you must provide overvoltage protection for the output terminals of amplifiers, power supplies, and similar components....

CPLD connects two instruments with half-duty-cycle generator.
October 11, 2007... Yu-Chieh Chen and Tai-Shan Liao, National Applied Research Laboratories, Hsinchu, Taiwan Edited by Charles H Small and Fran Granville When synchronizing two instruments' signals, it is important to make sure that the receiver can latch...

Achieve simple IR-data transmission from a PC's serial port.
October 11, 2007... Andreas Grun, Wedemark, Germany Edited by Charles H Small and Fran Granville Often, you need to transmit a couple of bits or bytes of data to a microcontroller without a direct cable connection. One simple way to achieve this goal is...

Circuit limits dV/dt and capacitor inrush at regulator turn-on.
October 11, 2007... W Stephen Woodward, Chapel Hill, NC Edited by Charles H Small and Fran Granville Unusual design constraints sometimes reveal the unfriendly side of everyday components and circuits. A case in point is the design of...

Is municipal Wi-Fi a technical failure or a business failure?
October 11, 2007... by Maury Wright, Editorial Director I was a bit surprised recently to find the tech-centric article 'Cities turning off plans for Wi-Fi' on the front page of a USA Today (www.usatoday.com/tech/wireless/2007-09-19-wifi_N.htm ). That article...

FPGA-prototyping and ASIC-conversion considerations.
October 11, 2007... by Bob Kirk, AMI Semiconductor Converting your FPGA to an ASIC yields many benefits. Here's a look at how designers can maximize those benefits and make the transition as quick and seamless as possible. The capacity and capability of...

FPGA-development card includes RAM, programmer.(Actel Corp. contracted with Domain Technologies Inc.)(Brief article)
October 11, 2007... by Warren Webb Claiming all the features necessary for developing reprogrammable-microcontroller applications, Domain Technologies recently announced a development card for Actel (www.actel.com ) ProASIC3 FPGAs. Measuring only 2.4x1 in.,...

PCI Express board features 16 serial ports.(Sealevel Systems Inc. introduced new product)(Brief article)
October 11, 2007... by Warren Webb With programmable-logic controllers, bar-code readers, scales, and similar data-acquisition and -control applications in mind, Sealevel Systems recently introduced the Comm+16.PCIe (Peripheral Component Interconnect...

AWR's new EM simulator touts flexibility.(Applied Wave Research Inc.)
October 11, 2007... by Michael Santarini You don't usually associate the word 'flexibility' with an EM (electromagnetic)-analysis tool, but the folks at AWR (Applied Wave Research) want to change that perception with the introduction of the Axiem EM-analysis...

10,000-count, handheld DMMs simplify installation and maintenance applications.
October 11, 2007... by Dan Strassberg Agilent Technologies is expanding its line of handheld DMMs (digital multimeters) with the announcement of the U1240A Series, which provides functions suiting installation and maintenance applications. The new DMMs allow...

Smart, small fan controllers and temperature monitors support PCs, embedded systems.
October 11, 2007... by Margery Conner As power density increases in workstations and embedded systems, system controllers require more sophisticated temperature-control and device-monitoring capabilities. Addressing those needs, SMSC has introduced the...

Handheld, 50,000-count, true-rms DMMs capture trends, offer built-in help displays, other advanced features.
October 11, 2007... by Dan Strassberg Fluke Corp, a leading supplier of handheld electronic test-and-measurement instruments, has announced two 50,000-count, true-rms, logging multimeters that feature TrendCapture: the $499.95 model 287 for electronics...

Nanotech supercapacitors up voltage, operating temperature.
October 11, 2007... by Margery Conner Supercapacitors combine the energy-storage capability of batteries with the rapid charge and discharge times of capacitors. They are good matches for applications with periodic pulsed loads that draw greater power than a...

IBM claims single-molecule logic switching.
October 11, 2007... by Matthew Miller Researchers at IBM have demonstrated logic switching among single molecules in a stable structure that better suits circuit construction than earlier molecular switches. The technique employs the probe of a...

Size matters, even in nanometers.(Brief article)
October 11, 2007... by Matthew Miller NIST (National Institute of Standards and Technology) has reported that the length of SWCNTs (single-walled carbon nanotubes) has a significant impact on their optical properties, including absorption, near-infrared...

Thermochemical process yields nanoscale lithography.
October 11, 2007... by Matthew Miller Researchers at the Georgia Institute of Technology have developed what they claim is a fast, reliable, environmentally flexible, commercially viable way of creating nanoscale structures. The technique, TCNL...

Scope.
October 11, 2007... Edited by Ron Wilson Looking Ahead To the International SOC conference Commencing Nov 7 in Newport Beach, CA, this two-day, 5-year-old conference is attracting an increasingly interesting set of keynotes and technical papers....

Microcontrollers boost local distribution business in China.
October 11, 2007... by Amy Wang, Contributing Editor Microcontrollers are gaining widespread attention in China; increased consumer demand for intelligent features in consumer and communications products is fueling this interest. Microcontrollers are...

NAND growth ahead.(Brief article)
October 11, 2007... Edited by Suzanne Deffree Research from Semiconductor Partners (www.semiconductorpartners.com ) points to the computing segment as the driver behind NAND-flash memory's expected shipment and gigabyte-consumption growth. NAND prices...

Korea ROHS combines EU ROHS, WEEE, ELV.
October 11, 2007... Edited by Suzanne Deffree Korea has set its own version of ROHS (restriction of hazardous substances) rolling with its Act for Resource Recycling of Electrical and Electronic Equipment and Vehicles. The Korean government passed the act...

Setting up your oscilloscope to measure jitter.(Gary Giust)
October 11, 2007... by Gary Giust, PhD Half the battle in measuring jitter is simply setting up the oscilloscope. The goal here is to capture and display the signal as it would appear in its system environment. Because real-time oscilloscopes are workhorses...

Voltage- and current-feedback amps are almost the same.
October 25, 2007... by Bonnie Baker Current-feedback amplifiers have a higher slew rate than do voltage-feedback amplifiers. As such, current-feedback amps can better solve high-speed problems than their voltage-feedback counterparts. The name...

Selecting op amps.
October 25, 2007... by Paul Rako, Technical Editor Selecting operational amplifiers can be as complicated as the specifications for these parts. By understanding the basics, knowing your application, and using stand-alone and online tools, you can make the...

Mechatronics-based embedded design.
October 25, 2007... by Warren Webb, Technical Editor As new designs combine electronic circuitry, mechanical actuators, and microprocessor software, a growing percentage of embedded development falls under the recently revived 'mechatronics' moniker. ...

Use a TL431 shunt regulator to limit high ac input voltage.
October 25, 2007... Todor Arsenov, STMicroelectronics, Prague, Czech Republic Edited by Charles H Small and Fran Granville Most isolated, offline SMPSs (switched-mode power supplies), including flyback, forward, and resonant, must operate at input voltages...

Autozeroed amplifier with halved noise needs few components.
October 25, 2007... Marián A tofka, Slovak University of Technology, Bratislava, Slovakia Edited by Charles H Small and Fran Granville The Analog Devices (www.analog.com ) AD8553 autozeroed instrumentation amplifier has a unique architecture in...

Buck regulator controls white LED with optical feedback.
October 25, 2007... Dhananjay V Gadre, Netaji Subhas Institute of Technology, New Delhi, India Edited by Charles H Small and Fran Granville There is much interest in LED-based lighting due to the availability of high-power, high-efficiency white-and...

Routines directly measure microcontroller-bus clock.(Brief article)
October 25, 2007... Kerry Erendson, Bulova Technologies Edited by Charles H Small and Fran Granville The Freescale HC08 and newer HCS08 microcontroller families have versatile peripheral modules. Their clock generators are no exceptions. They range from...

H1-B questions hit EDN readers' hot button.(Survey)
October 25, 2007... by Maury Wright, Editorial Director A couple of times this year, I've highlighted research that EDN has conducted on the market or on engineers. We have more such material coming your way with a global engineering-salary-and-career survey...

Perusing a universal remote.
October 25, 2007... By Robert Cravotta, Technical Editor During the 1950s, Zenith Radio Corp introduced the first remote control for television. The Lazy Bones device used wires between the remote and the TV. Wireless remote controls appeared shortly...

Digitally managed power circuits.
October 25, 2007... by Terry Cleveland, Microchip Technology Many power circuits need digital control. those combining digital- and analog-circuit blocks provide the best of both worlds. Power ICs that combine analog and digital are becoming more common....

Make front-end power predictable.
October 25, 2007... by Jack Erickson, Cadence Design Systems Inc Achieving a predictable power-closure flow means making power a metric and a core part of the process from the early stages of design conception. Power closure has moved to the forefront of...

Small antennas suit FM, UWB bands.
October 25, 2007... by Margery Conner Antennas continue to get smaller and cheaper. For example, Laird Technologies' miniature Activv internal antenna circuit combines FM, impedance matching, and signal amplification. It replaces the company's RadioAnt...

CompactPCI Express module boasts dual processors.
October 25, 2007... by Warren Webb Competing for industrial applications such as monitoring, visualization, control, and test and measurement, MEN Micro recently introduced the F18 CompactPCIe (PCI Express) single-board computer. The 64-bit board employs...

Software opens your eyes to serial-data-link-error sources.
October 25, 2007... by Dan Strassberg Tektronix has announced a new end-to-end high-speed serial-data-analysis-software package with test capabilities that extend from transmitter to receiver, including the connecting channel. The package, 80SJNB Advanced, is...

Synopsys releases SystemC-model library.
October 25, 2007... by Michael Santarini Synopsys is broadening its DesignWare silicon and verification-IP (intellectual-property) portfolio with the DesignWare system-level library, a group of SystemC transaction-level models. This introduction signals a...

Mezzanine card boosts memory performance.
October 25, 2007... by Warren Webb Targeting use in high-density-local-storage applications, such as tactical area maps, radar images, and software-programmable radio-electronic-intelligence data, Aitech Defense Systems' new M222 PMC (PCI mezzanine card)...

Battery-fuel-gauge chip provides 99% accuracy.
October 25, 2007... by Margery Conner Battery-gauge ICs for lithium-ion-battery packs have always involved complex algorithms. For example, battery gauges in laptop computers and cell phones measure current, voltage, and temperature and integrate the current...

AC/DC converters efficiently handle load changes with digital-control loop.
October 25, 2007... by Margery Conner Power-conversion efficiency is important in server farms in which more than 10,000 blade servers share the same facility: For every watt at the load, the farm consumes 2W of energy due to delivery losses, and an increase...

Mentor launches FPGA-synthesis tool.
October 25, 2007... by Michael Santarini Mentor Graphics Inc has for more than a decade been going head to head against Synplicity (www.synplicity.com ) in the FPGA-synthesis market. Now, Mentor hopes to grab a greater share of that market with the new...

Scope.
October 25, 2007... Edited by Ron Wilson Looking Ahead To the International Electron Devices Meeting For more than half a century, the place to find out about the next generation of electronic-circuit elements, from the FET to the latest in...

Back to fundamentals.
October 25, 2007... by Chris Lee, Cheshire Engineering Corp As an independent design contractor, my company faces a variety of interesting design bugs. A recent one involved a portable consumer product that included a user interface comprising a keypad, a...